Books

Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad—five of the largest Indian megacities—are the economic and commercial engines for modern India. These metropolitan regions serve as magnets of migration, resulting in explosive growth of the core cities and their urban agglomerations. Yet arrangements for governance of these metropolitan regions are fractured and sterile.

Based on extensive comparative data on demographics, economy, infrastructure, society, environment, political character, and institutions for governance, this book introduces megacities in the Indian context and explains how urbanization has rarely been at the core of the Indian planning regime.

The book is driven by the conviction that in the current era of globalization, India urgently needs a political vision for the role of its metropolitan regions, as it is projected that the largest number of people will be added to the urban areas. It emphasizes the need for proper regional planning instead of an amorphous collection of municipalities, and an appropriate, politically mandated governance setup.