URBANIZATION IN SOUTH INDIA: PROCESSES AND POLICIES

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of urbanization across South India, examining the distinct trajectories and policy frameworks shaping cities in Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. It highlights the dominance of primate cities in Karnataka and Telangana, alongside the rapid growth of secondary urban centres. In contrast, Tamil Nadu and Kerala exhibit more dispersed and deconcentrated urbanization patterns.

The analysis reveals that Tamil Nadu's urban expansion is partially driven by industrialisation, while urban development in Karnataka, Telangana, and Kerala leans heavily toward service-sector growth. Through this comparative lens, the book underscores the historical path dependencies that continue to influence contemporary urbanization in the region.

Beyond mapping urban growth, the book critically engages with current governance structures and their limitations, offering insights that are valuable for academic research, policy formulation, and advocacy. It is an essential resource for scholars, planners, and practitioners seeking to understand and shape the future of urban South India.

Anil Kumar Vaddiraju is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Centre for Political Institutions, Governance and Development (CPIGD) at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, India. His recent publications include: Reason, Religion and Modernity: Gadamer-Habermas Debate (Springer, 2024); Urban Governance and Local Democracy in South India (Routledge, 2020). He recently edited with D Jeevan Kumar, Governance and Development in Karnataka: One State, Many Worlds (Writers Choice Publishers, 2024).

K C Smitha is Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Institutions, Governance and Development (CPIGD), Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. Her research interests mainly focuses on urban governance, public policy, service delivery, urban poverty, informality, urban political economy and urban political ecology. She has published several book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals (both national & international). She has edited a book entitled Entrepreneurial Urbanism in India: Politics of Spatial Restructuring and Local Contestation, Singapore, Springer (2017) and co-edited Urban Environmental Governance in India: Insights from Bengaluru (Springer, 2018).