Society & Rise of Urban Centres

Urban Centres are increasing in India daily, with full support for possibilities and a high standard of living. However, as urban centres accelerate, it creates obstacles to balanced, fair, and inclusive growth. People learn about each other’s cultures and share knowledge, which helps break down the boundaries that previously existed between people. In reality, societal structures are dispersing, such as family structures transitioning from joint to nuclear.

Types of Society

There are two major types of society, Civil society and Modern society.

Civil Society

Civil society is an important aspect of the democratic process, which provides an environment that we can use to enhance our decision-making quality. This is the most important aspect of society. They consist of groups and organisations for the goodwill of people.

Modern Society

Modern society is the type of society that is less developed in comparison to civil society. The process of Modern society is activated in societies by activating communication at the international or intersocietal level.

Modern society refers to the improvement in humans, such as health, education, safety, work and standard of living. Modern society is divided into many categories such as social, psychological, demographic, cultural, economic, intellectual, etc.

Modernity is different from traditionalism, and modern society is very different from traditional society. Modern society includes secularisation, which refers to a society free from religious orthodoxy. The decline of religion depends on the person, but modernisation teaches to respect all religions. Modernisation aims at political transformation, social, economically developed society.

Urban Centres

Urban Centres are occurring rapidly recently. The first urban Centre that reached a population of around one million was in the city of London in 1810 A.D. In 1800, only 3% of the global population lived in cities. 

Causes for the Rise of Urban Centres

• Industrialisation: One of the principal drivers of urbanisation is industrialisation. Individuals from backward districts have moved to metropolitan areas looking for better work possibilities.

• Social Reasons: Many social aspects, like metropolitan areas’ attractions, better living, more fundamental freedoms, and the desire for individualistic pursuits, urge people to move to cities.

• Business Opportunities: In the rural area, people depend largely upon agriculture for survival. Agriculture is dependent on rain for harvest in India. People want to join a different profession and move to cities for new opportunities.

• Modernisation: Large highways, access to communication, better health conditions attract people from the rural areas towards cities. People know that they can live a better life in the city compared to their villages.

Functions of the Urban Centres:

The early urban towns were centres of trade, defence, religious importance, industry, and administration. But, now, the significance of religion and defence evolving functions have declined generally.

• In today’s era, few new functions like residential, mining, transport, recreational, manufacturing, and recent activities related to IT are transferring in specialised towns.
• Certain cities are classified on the basis of their dominant functions. For instance, London is classified as a port city, Sheffield as an industrial city, Chandigarh as an administrative city, and others.
• Many early 19th-century fishing ports situated in England have now developed tourism. Many old market towns are now called manufacturing activities.

The Impacts of urbanisation in India

Some of the effects of urbanisation:

 Positive Impact(urban centres and growth):

• An improvement in one’s degree of living. 
• Opportunities for work in metropolitan regions 
• Transportation and communication accessibility.

Negative outcome:

• Overpopulation Issue

• Joint Family Disintegration

• Increased cost for essential items

• Growing Crime Rates 

• Unsurprising Relations
• Pollution
• Stress

Conclusion

People come to Urban Centres in search of work and civic amenities. Because most Urban Centres in underdeveloped nations are unplanned, there is a lot of traffic. Housing shortages, vertical expansion, and the emergence of slums are all characteristics of contemporary cities in developing countries. A growing part of the population in many urban centres lives in poor housing, such as slums and squatter colonies. For example, in most of India’s million-plus cities, one in every four lives in illegal colonies, which are developing twice as fast as the rest of the metropolis. Even in Asia Pacific nations, squatter colonies house almost 60 per cent of the urban population.