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India’s Urban realm is expanding. Expansion of cities gives rise to residential satellites depending on the main city.

Three Main Characteristics of Satellite Towns:

(a) Workers of satellite-town have to come to work in the central town because it is the central town which guarantees a certain number of services,

(b) The satellite town reciprocally provides facilities for holidaying and relaxation, and

(c) There is found easy and frequent transport and communication between the two.

Around Delhi, there are urban centres performing the services of satellites, e.g., Ghaziabad, Bahadurgarh, Gurgaon, Sonepat, and Faridabad. Similarly, Kolkata encompasses number of urban centres of the surrounding area.

They are closely linked and have become centres for service activity. Some of these satellites may be counted as Kalyani, Barrackpur, Jadavpur, Bansdrori. Purba Putiary, Gobindapur and Sutanuti also form the status of satellites. Tollygunge and several peripheral towns are closely linked with the city. Kanchanpura, Nabapally, Halisahar, Ishapure are towns other than satellites of the conur­bation.

Satellites differ from suburbs in that they are separated from the central city by many miles. They have little daily commuting but their economic activities are closely geared to those of the central city. Suburbs are primarily joined with the central city for commuting to or from the city. The idea of centrality comes into play in a big way.

Growths of automobiles and commuter rail lines in metropolises have stimulated suburbanization. Kolkata encompasses a number of urban centres which are satellites on the Hooghly side. They are distinctly attached economically with the Kolkata conur­bation.

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Exurbia

The CBD’s of cities throughout the world experience many problems, some of which are outlined below:

Congestion: Many Cities still have street plans that were laid down hundreds of years ago. The roads cannot cope with the ever-increasing numbers of cars and other vehicles. This can cause massive congestion problems, especially at “rush hour”.

Solutions to the problems have included improving public transport ; introducing park and ride schemes ; pedestrianization ; encouraging people to share cars into work and building ring roads .

In Athens (Greece) they have tried an extreme form of control by only allowing cars with odd numbers on their number plates into the city on one day, and then cars with even numbers the next day. Unfortunately this has led many people to own two cars, one with an odd number and one with an even one!

Lack of Space: CBD’s are limited in their outwards growth by the fact that the city encompasses them, and due to the fact that businesses want to locate as close to the centre as they possibly can. This has led to land prices rising to astronomical amounts. The only solution seen by most businesses is to build upwards, which is why CBD’s can be characterised by the presence of skyscrapers.

Pollution: The major pollution seen in urban areas is air pollution, or smog. This pollution is mainly caused by the fumes given off by traffic and industry.

The most famous example of where this pollution haze can be seen is over Los Angeles, but most of the large cities of the world experience it too. Poor air quality can lead to an increase in the cases of asthma and bronchitis.Asian cities are heavily in the grip of this. An innovative way of tackling this problem is to manage urban space properly.

Air is not the only thing polluted in cities. Water can be badly polluted, and so has to be carefully treated before being drunk. It’s a horrible thought, but most of the water that you drink in London has already been drunk by 7 other people!

Solutions to pollution problems include: banning heavy vehicles from CBD’s; developing cleaner fuels, and providing more litter bins in CBD’s.

Some cities have encouraged the growth of out-of-town shopping centres to help traffic, land price and pollution problems, by taking some of the focus away from the CBD. However this can also have the negative effect of causing the CBD to decline.

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