Urbanization beyond municipal boundaries: nurturing metropolitan economies and connecting peri-urban areas in India

Urbanization beyond Municipal Boundaries informs policy priorities to manage India’s urbanization. Incisive analysis of the patterns of India’s urbanization derived from geo-referencing and linking various rounds of the population and economic census highlights rapid suburbanization of people and firms around the country’s largest metropolitan areas. Such spatially detailed analysis of India's urbanization has not been done before. Indeed, the move to the suburbs is accelerated by land and housing shortages in metropolitan cores, coupled with high transport costs between the metropolitan core and its periphery, and much worse infrastructure access and quality for water, electricity, and sanitation in the urban periphery.