Towards sustainable urban system through the development of small towns in India

Regional imbalances in India can be attributed to the lack of a sustainable urban system. This paper highlights large-city-centric urbanization in India, considering the fact that 70% of the urban population lived in class I (with 0.1 million population and more) cities in 2011. The reviews of past and present urban development policies suggest that these are more biased towards large cities than small towns. In this context, this paper proposes a new methodology based on population growth rate, selecting 125 small towns for future urban development in India. To assess the impact of infrastructure on the growth of small towns, we calculate the Infrastructure Index. Our research has revealed that infrastructure, economic, environmental, historical, and administrative factors have a strong positive impact on the population growth rate of small towns. The results also show that towns located within a radius of 52 km from a class I city have a higher population growth rate and are important for sustainable urbanization in India. Our findings suggest that the development of small towns is important for reducing regional inequalities, growth of surrounding rural areas of a town, reducing pressure on large cities, and encouraging non-farming activities for sustainable urbanization and achieving higher economic development.