Page 22 - IJPS-6-1

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Inequalities in urban exposure to

infrastructure, services, and environment

in million-plus cities of India

Surendra Kumar Patel*, Manas R. Pradhan
Department of Fertility Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai,
Maharashtra, India

Abstract: Unplanned spatial development, unregulated migration, and changing energy
consumption patterns are likely to increase the vulnerability to climate change of populations
inhabiting in urban areas. This study aims to estimate urban exposure level and examine the
inequalities in the availability of infrastructure and the provision of services in million-plus cities
in India. Using data from Census 2011 for 40 million-plus cities, this study measured urban
exposure through the urbanicity scale ranging from 0 to 70 points. The urbanicity scores revealed
a transparent gradient in the level of urban exposure across these 40 million-plus cities, with the
ARTICLE INFO scores ranging from 45.59 (the lowest, in Meerut) to 61.47 (the highest, in Delhi). The economic
activity scores were similar for all the million-plus cities, whereas the health infrastructure scores
Received: October 16, 2019 showed a wide variation from 1.0 to 8.8 points. Population, health, educational infrastructure,
Accepted: November 28, 2019
Published: December 4, 2019 and built environment contributed the most to the inequality. Unless addressed urgently, these
inequalities in infrastructure and services will affect the sustainability of these million-plus cities
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR and may hinder the country’s achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 13 on climate change.
Surendra Kumar Patel, Keywords: Urban exposure; Environment; Urbanicity score; Million-plus city; India
Library Building, International
Institute for Population This article belongs to the Special Issue: Environment and Population Dynamics in South Asia
Sciences, Mumbai - 400 088,
Maharashtra, India. 1. Introduction
surendrabhu20@gmail.com
CITATION Urban exposure, usually defined as the conditions found, especially in an urban area,
influences the individuals residing in that particular area (Vlahov and Galea, 2002; Cyril,
Patel SK, Pradhan MR. (2020). Oldroyd and Renzaho, 2013). An urban condition present at any given point in time
Inequalities in urban exposure
to infrastructure, services, and determines the scope of urbanization in that area and is a strong predictor of future urban
environment in million-plus conditions. Cities or urban areas are densely populated and marked by the expansion of
cities of India. International housing, transportation, infrastructure, and sanitation facilities. Unregulated migration,
Journal of Population change in land use, and unplanned spatial development is likely to increase the vulnerability
Studies, 6(1):16-29.
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v6i1.1051 of the urban population to changes in weather and climatic conditions. Megacities stand out
as the more visible face of urbanization due to their influence and economic importance and
Copyright: © 2020 Patel
and Pradhan. This is face a higher vulnerability to climate change (Reckien, Creutzig, Fernandez, et al., 2017). The
an Open-Access article growing number of small and million-plus cities will contain most of the world’s population
distributed under the terms in the 21 century, facing inequalities in infrastructure and services created through different
st
of the Creative Commons exposure levels and facing other severe challenges (Vlahov and Galea, 2002; UN-Habitat,
Attribution-Non Commercial
4.0 International License 2016). In 2018, 55% of the world’s population lived in urban areas compared to 43% in 1990
(http://creativecommons.org/ and this figure is expected to increase to 68% by 2050 (World Urbanization Prospects, 2018).
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting Recent estimates reveal that 34% of the Indians reside in urban areas (United Nations, 2019).
all noncommercial use, The dynamics of the accumulation of individuals and the surrounding areas shape the
distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the pace of urbanization in particular areas (Kundu, 2006; Peng, Chen, Cheng, et al., 2011).
original work is properly cited. The complexity of the urbanization process, however, makes it difficult to assess the

16 International Journal of Population Studies | 2020, Volume 6, Issue 1