The concept of subaltern urbanization is about vibrant smaller settlements—outside the metropolitan shadow—sustainably supporting a dispersed pattern of urbanization. it is about small towns. how these connect and augment the growth of bigger towns.

It attempts to make small places intelligible in contrast to their current level of invisibility in India and at the international level;Second, it tries to think of small towns as sites endowed with some level of autonomy and agency while the dominant paradigm, in particular in the New Economic Geography school of thought, sees small urban spaces as dependent on large metropolitan economies.

Redefining urban, its scope, and the Urban Transition Process and the Urban Space

We need to interrogate anew the definition of the urban, the scope of the urban world and the urban transition process itself. We need to examine the process also. We need to analyse the continuum and to take care of the underlying linkages.

For India, this data base enabled us to build data at the lower urban settlement level. It demonstrated the importance of small settlements, which was confirmed by the 2011 census. It aimed at bringing to the fore issues involved in defining the frontier of the urban and its political dimensions as well as raising the important (and to some extent increasing) role small towns play in the urban transition process. From a more theoretical point of view, our aim was to add to a growing body of work that reclaims the diversity of the urban phenomenon beyond the global metropolitan cities and highlights the range of national and regional trajectories.

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