This project investigates emergent urban formations in India. There is circumstantial evidence of significant urban growth at India’s rural-urban transition, in the lower echelons of the urban system, but it is only partially reflected in traditional census data and little is known about emergent urban forms and the socio-economic drivers and consequences. The project shifts attention from the country’s megacities (the have witnessed stagnant growth rates in the past decades) to more dispersed patterns of accelerating urbanization in what used to be mainly rural environs, that could involve hundreds of million of people. The project involves remote sensing analysis along with socio-economic fieldwork on the ground in West Bengal and Bihar.

Affiliated institutions:

• Robbin-Jan van Duijne (U of Amsterdam)
• Shubhagato Dasgupta (CPR, Delhi)

Funders: NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research)