The growth in towns and cities across the world be it developed or developing, industrialist or pre-industrial, has fueled man’s appetite to be informed about the spatial aspects of cities-their location, growth and relationship both one with another and with their surrounding regions. However, the recurrent pattern of urban land use has to be formulated and for that a fair knowledge and understanding of laws and theories is required. Therefore, let us take a journey of laws and theories of urban space and get adequately familiar with them.
The Rank Size Rule
- The relationships between city rank and city population size was first noticed by F. Auerbach in 1913, that when the rank numbers (from largest to smallest towns) are plotted against their respective population, a regular relationship generally emerges.
- The “rank-size rule”, proposed by G. K. Zipf in 1949, states that if all urban settlements in an area are ranked in descending order of population, the population of the ‘nth’ town will be 1/nth that of the largest town.
- Zipf’s rank-size rule can mathematically be expressed as Pn = P1/n where Pn is the population of the town of rank n in the descending order and P1 is the population of the largest city. Thus, if the largest city has a population of 50 lakhs, the tenth ranking town should, as per the rule, have a population of 5 lakh people.
Concept Note
The ‘exploded city’ view was postulated in the book Social Geography of the United States by J. Wreford Watson. The theoretical position of the margin of an urban field can be calculated by using a technique known as breaking point theory.
A. E. Smailes divided a city region into Core Area, Outer Area and Fringe Area. The ‘law of Retail Trade Gravitation’ predicts the proportion of retail trade that two towns will derive from a settlement (k) lying between them. This is relevant to the question of the theoretical delimitation of urban fields.
Theories of Urban Structure
Concentric Zone Theory
This theory based on hypothetical pattern of urban growth was first postulated in 1923 by an urban sociologist, E.W. Burgess, while studying the urban morphology of the city of Chicago, the USA. Through this model, Burgess stated that the development of a city place from its central commercial core takes place in a series of concentric circles. He identified five zones in concentric pattern expanding outward from the city core. Let’s know what are these zones.
Zone No. 1: This is the C.B.D. (Central Business District), the heart of the City. It has shops, offices, banks, theaters and hotels. It has multi-story skyscrapers, transport lines, converge in this zone. The CBD draws its business from all other encircling zones.
Zone No. 2: Surrounding the CBD, lies a traditional area, a zone of residential deterioration, marked also by the encroachment of business and light manufacturing. This is a zone of urban plight of tenements and slums and inadequate services.
Zone No. 3: This is the Zone of working men’s houses.
Zone No. 4: This consists of middle class residence, a suburban area that is characterized by greater affluence and spaciousness.
Zone No. 5: This is the Urban Fringe consisting of communities that are in effete dormitories of the CBD, where most of the economically active residents go to work. Here lies some of the highest quality residential houses.
Concentric Zone Theory as Propounded by Prof. E.W. Burgess
Indian City of Muzaffarpur Somewhat Conforming to The Concentric Theory
The Sector Theory
This theory was proposed by Homer Hoyt and M. R. Davie in 1939. According to this theory, patterns of urban land use are conditioned by the arranged routes radiating from the city Center creating a sectoral pattern of land and rental value influencing the urban land use pattern.
Sectors: –
- The CBD
- Wholesaling and Light Manufacturing
- Low-Class Residential Area
- Medium Class Residential Area.
- High Class Residential Area.
Colby’s Dynamic Theory
According to this theory the patterns of any city at any given point is the result of forces at work, i.e., centripetal and centrifugal. Centripetal forces are of two types: (i) residents and business class people seeking the comforts of life in urban centers get lured into a city; (ii) within the city residents and business are drawn towards C.B.D from the fringe area, a C.B.D provides better access to both the consumers and the laborers. It is main hub of the city with stores, banks, libraries, theaters and clubs. Centrifugal forces just act in a reverse manner and drive people away from the C.B.D into suburbs. Even congested slums force people and business activities to move out of the city center.
The Multiple Nuclei Theory
In 1945, this theory was proposed by C. D. Harris and E. L. Ullman. It was suggested that land use pattern in most large cities develop around a number of discrete centers or nuclei rather than a single center as described in the concentric and sector models.
Von Thunen’s Model
Von Thunen conceived the idea of a land use model in both urban and rural landscape around a city on an isotropic landscape. His idea is basically how economic rent decreases from center of a city to its periphery. His system of land use around a city with no trade alliance with any other country is ring shaped. Near the city, he envisages rings of forest, crop rotation, horticulture and dairying. His theory stresses more on agricultural land use around a city rather than the land use within the city.
Sinclair’s Model
Sinclair propounded a ring type model in 1967. The progression of intensity of his ring’s is directly proportional to the degree of urban influence in form of high urban taxes, constrained zoning and disturbances in the vicinity of urban areas. This theory is also supported by two British writers, Best and Gosson. They believe there is a shift supported by cause i.e. increasing competition from distant areas with better production facilities, and loss of casual labour to city jobs by rural-urban fringe farmers.
Sinclair’s Pattern of Land use around an expanding metropolitan area are as follows: –
- Urban Farming close to the city
- Vacant and grazing land
- Field crop and grazing land
- Dairying and field crop land
- Specialised food grain-livestock
Concept Note
A pioneer study of the CBD was done by American geographers R. E. Murphy and J.E. Vance Jr. In 1951, based on a study of 36 cities, the economist C. Clark describe the pattern of population density in any city.Hypermarkets are carefully planned out-of-town shopping centers.
The Central Place Theory
The theory of central place is associated with the economically optimum location of services of different variety and range both for the town as service provider and the countryside as the service getter. The term ‘central place’ was first used by Mark Jefferson in 1931, while defining a settlement which is necessarily a focus of various economic and social activities for the surrounding hinterland.
Walter Christaller analyzed the ‘centrality’ in detail in 1931, in West Germany, on the basis of number of telephone connections at a place as the prime criterion for determining the hierarchy. Later A. Losch did some modification on it.
Christaller proposed that settlements with the lowest order specialization would be equally spaced and surrounded by hexagonal-shaped service areas or hinterlands. He assumed a stable price of the land, equal land surface and isotropic characteristics of the land.According to him, the smallest centers would lie approximately 7 km. apart. He also outlined hierarchy according to K value:K=3 represents Marketing Principle. It favors the development of symmetrical nested hierarchy of central places. This principle postulates that rural produce comes to the higher order centers through lower order centers and the goods produced in urban areas move through higher order centers to the lower order centers.K = 4 represents Traffic Principle.
In this principle, the number of centers followed the geometrical progression as 1,4,16,64, and so on. At this level one big center serves 4 lower order centers.K-7 represents Administrative Principle. At this level one bigger central place serves seven second order centers.In 1940, the economist A. Losch presented an important modification of Christaller’s Model. Like Christaller, he again used hexagonal service areas, but allowed various hexagonal systems to co-exist. He developed a more sophisticated form of economic landscape by superimposing all the various hexagonal systems.
Nested Hierarchy Theory
A. K. Philberk, an American geographer based his nested hierarchy theory on the following: –
- Inter-connection between different occupations viz. agriculture, cattle rearing, mining, manufacturing, industry and trade are found between uniform areas which are homogenous in terms of occupance.
- Origin of nodal areas — in one nodal area different uniform areas are found which are connected with the focal point. The example of a nodal region could be one town, which is made of different mohallas.
- Nested hierarchy of nodal organization — this is the third postulate of nested hierarchy theory, which is related with the occupant units arrangement. This hierarchy turns from uniform relationship to nodal organization.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.