Population and Settlements, Urbanisation, Smart Cities and Smart Villages

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies I.

Population and Settlements: Types and Patterns, Urbanization, Smart Cities and Smart Villages.

Role of Women in society and women's organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

This page covers the last line in full and, from the earlier line, urbanisation with its problems and remedies.

Topics in detail

Rural settlements

• Factors in the siting of settlements: water, relief, fertile land, defence, transport
• Types: compact (clustered), semi-compact, hamleted and dispersed
• Patterns: linear, rectangular, circular, star-shaped, T-shaped, double village, cross-shaped
• Where each type is found in India (plains, hills, deserts, coasts)

Urban settlements

• Census definitions: statutory towns and census towns (population of 5,000, at least 75% of male main workers outside agriculture, density of at least 400 per sq km)
• Functional classification of towns: administrative, industrial, trade, transport, mining, cantonment, religious, educational, tourist
• Urban hierarchy; urban agglomerations and million-plus cities
• Models of city structure: concentric zone (Burgess), sector (Hoyt), multiple nuclei (Harris and Ullman)

Urbanisation

• Trends: Census 2011 put India's urban share at 31.16%; world urbanisation and megacities
• Causes: migration, natural growth, reclassification of villages as towns
• Problems: slums, housing shortage, water supply, sanitation, solid waste, traffic, air pollution, urban flooding, heat islands
• Urban governance: the 74th Amendment (1992), the Twelfth Schedule, municipal finance

Remedies and urban programmes

• Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (2005)
• AMRUT (2015) for water, sewerage and green spaces
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban)
• Planned satellite towns, public transport and metro rail, transit-oriented development

Smart Cities

• Smart Cities Mission (2015): area-based development and pan-city solutions
• Features: integrated command and control centres, e-governance, efficient utilities, mobility
• Issues: funding, citizen participation, inclusion of the urban poor

Smart Villages

• PURA: Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (the idea of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam)
• Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (2016): clusters of villages with urban amenities
• Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (2014)
• Digital connectivity (BharatNet), common service centres, renewable energy and sanitation in villages

Overlaps

Uttar Pradesh's demography and its development indices are in General Studies VI; local self-government in UP is in General Studies V.