PREPARED BY Nirmalya Das Department of Geography Panskura Banamali College (Autonomous) Concept of Metropolitan Area Metropolis under the present circumstances of population boom forms an important part of the study of urban geography of a country. It forms a special category of urban agglomeration. It differs more from a ‘capital’ city, and also from ‘conurbation’. But metropolis has qualities, magnet-like, to become in the real sense of the meaning, ‘metro’ which literally means ‘very large’. Metropolis acts as a magnet and becomes dinosaur. The power of attraction in a metropolis is very strong, even stronger than a capital city. The best example is Paris. Its incomparable influence on the whole world would have been impossible had it remained the small capital of the Ile-de-France instead of having, even at the time of Louis XIV, a population of 500,000 in a country where no other towns reached a population of 100,000. Concept of Metropolitan Area: For most of us, the word ‘metropolis’ suggests only the largest cities. But we are, in this way, facing with the same problem as with the definition of a town. Population alone cannot be a reliable and correct determinant of the status of a metropolis. The criterion of function must be accompanied by one of size. It would be erroneous to think about terms like ‘metropolitanism’ and ‘metropolitization’, chiefly in connection with such places as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Generally, the term ‘metropolis’ more commonly is used to indicate a place of large enough size serving as a regional capital. But this is not true, and there is by no means full accord on its such meaning. In USA, where it is supposed to be used widely, metropolise is being defined in the Bureau of the Census Publications. This has been made clear in the census that data for an incorporated city alone generally do not convey the reality of the entire urban story. The phenomenon is much more related than the central incorporated city to an urban area or better expressed as metropolitan area. At first, the ‘metropolitan district’ was used in 1910 in the Census of Population carrying a central city of 50,000 or more populations and all adjacent minor civil divisions having a population density of 150 or more persons per square mile. By 1940, the concept of the metropolitan district had lost favour because the possibilities of correlating local data with district data were limited. Besides this, the metropolitan district did not truly represent social and economic integration with the central city. Therefore, a new areal unit, the standard metropolitan area, came into vogue in 1949. It was defined as made up of counties instead of minor civil divisions. It was succeeded by the ‘standard metropolitan statistical area’ (SMSA). It is defined below as it existed in 1970: 1. A contiguous county (a) At least 75 per cent of the resident labour force in the county is in non-agricultural labour sector; and (b) At least 30 per cent of the employed workers living in the county work in the Central County or counties of the area. 2. A contiguous county which does not meet the foregoing requirements will be included in an SMSA if at least 75 percent of the resident labour force is non-agricultural and meets two of the following additional criteria of metropolitan character and one of the following criteria of integration: (i) Criteria of Metropolitan Character: (a) At least 25 per cent of the population is urban. (b) The county had an increase of at least 15 per cent in total population during the period covered by the most recent two censuses. (c) The county has a population density of at least 50 persons per square mile. (ii) Criteria of Integration: (a) A least 15 per cent of the employed workers living in the county work in the central county or counties of the area, or (b) The number of people working in the county who live in the central county or counties of the area is equal to at least 15 per cent of the employed workers living in the county, or (c) The sum of the number of workers commuting to and from the Central County or counties is equal to at least 20 per cent of the employed workers living in the county. As stated above it seems that metropolis is primarily a demographic concept. But this may be emphasized once again that metropolis is much more than an agglomeration. It possesses distinct character and functions which are not likely to be found either in agglomeration or in conurbation. In metropolitan cities each function has benefited from the conditions which brought about the other functions and has found reasons for developing there itself. There the powers of attraction make them bigger and bigger, and consequently enormity of their size increases their power of attraction. This is happening in Mumbai which has grown tremendously during 1901-91 by 1000 times. In the real sense of the term, Mumbai’s population is being exploded and estimated in 2001 more than 14 million and Delhi too had more than 10 million. Nonetheless, significant is the role of their multifarious functions. Mumbai is simultaneously an international port, one of the biggest commercial marts, an important industrial node of the country and a cosmopolitan centre. Delhi owes its position primarily to its political role as capital of the federated India, to commerce, industry, education and a place for tourists from all over the world. After analyzing the conditions of this development, it may be observed that out of 300 cities with population over one million in the world (1991), more than 50 per cent are sea ports (including inland ports of Chicago and Detroit). In reality, ports possess immense potentials to concentrate functions, because, on the one hand, they are by definition commercial places, and on the other, they attract manufacturing industries by the materials of all sorts which they receive from various parts of the country. Even in the days of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations, and also, during the colonial times, the great commercial connections were then maritime links with the metropolis. The eastern and western sides of the Atlantic in Europe and America therefore, have great ports. Metropolitan cities acquire a sort of permanence and remain evergreen over time. Athens and Rome, Paris and London, Tokyo and Shanghai, Delhi and Mumbai – they all possess rich historic legacy in their ever flourishing life-span. These gigantic towns have a strange power, a sort of predestination, defying time, and finding in every age and in every civilization a new reason to prosper. City Region in India: Meaning, Distance, Nature and Other Details Meaning of City Region: City regions are the products of relationship among various orders of cities and their surrounding areas. A city has its ‘dependents’ which are linked with it by virtue of their dwellers’ requirements fulfilled by the city’s various service-institutions. Dependent centres of a city are generally smaller in size and they do not possess those specialized services which are only available at the neighbouring city of higher order than the dependent centres. In this way there are two types of relationship, and these two types produce two different natures of regions around a city: (i) City region comprising towns of lower order of services, and institutions, and (ii) City region and surrounding countryside. No city is independent. An independent city cannot exist. A city may be administrative, industrial, agricultural, and cultural or of any type; it must have its connections with the outside world. Similarly, areas outside a city are also not independent. They too somehow have to give and take and are not independent. The fact is that there exists mutual relationship between a settlement and area surrounding it. Sometimes, the relationship is concomitantly not restricted locally or regionally but it has its far and wide spheres of influence. Distance and Nature of Transport Link: Intensity and frequency of city and its region also depend on linkages in terms of distance and the available nature of transport and communication. The more the distance between a city and its dependent town the lesser will be the interaction. And, similarly, the frequency of reaching to a city of people and commodities is also affected with the inter-distance. With the increment in distance the movement of consumers for utilizing services goes on decreasing from daily to weekly, and also from weekly to monthly or becomes irregular. If the service centres and consumers of the countryside are associated with quick or auto-transport the law of distance decay, operates negatively. Consumers visit frequently centres of special services using automobiles. Departmental stores also distribute commodities to the distant areas by means of automobiles. Perishable products like milk and vegetables reach as quickly as possible from far and wide areas by special trains, and by auto-vehicles. The relations of a city with its surrounding region are a matter of available means of transport to a large extent. Even small towns and urban centres have their regional functions fulfilled by their means and modes of linkages with the countryside, they being the main channels of “collecting the agricultural produce from the entire region, distributing and directing and coordinating the sale of imports and manufactured goods”. The extent of an urban regional influence depends as far as communications permit ease of movement. As a matter of fact, it is the development of a transport network around an urban centre which makes the unison strengthened between the town and countryside. Nature of Influence of Town: Before entering into some special cases of Indian towns and their regions, it is worthwhile to make clear the related concepts of city region. Urban influence is of varying nature. It may have its influence on agriculture, on industry, on administration and also on certain services like medical, cultural including educational, recreational, etc. Among towns there is found a hierarchy for performing central administrative functions within its regional limit. Christaller in his classic treatise while discussing the central places in southern Germany pointed out hierarchy ascending in order as market town, township, country town, district city, state capital, provincial capital and regional capital. The structure of the hierarchy varies from country to country. The town however serves as the regional centre is equally significant of all administration, business, and legal affairs, medical and educational services. People from the countryside rely on their regional capital. Nature of Spheres of Influence of City: Each city generally forms the core of a larger area, and dominates the area by virtue of several service areas within it. The dominant area is actually the city’s spheres of influence. The area of dominance of ‘spheres of influence’ consists a number of single feature nodal regions within it. City’s area of dominance tends to wane gradually with the distance outwards from the city core. Finally, the dominance disappears at a point where the influence of some competing urban centre reaches. Areas of City Dominance and City Region: A city tends to exert a dominant influence over a small area in its immediate neighbourhood by virtue of the provision of specialized services. It must be borne in mind that there are several areas of dominance because a city possesses more than one service to provide around it. In case of India, majority of cities have no clear specialization in any one economic activity, but in reality they have diversification of several economic functions and services. This has resulted into several areas of dominance around a city. Each of the areas of dominance has its own hierarchical level. The largest of these areas of dominance forms the limit of influence of the city known as ‘city region’; while the smaller ones are known as areas of dominance (see Figure 18.1). Recently, this has been noted that clusters of urban settlements have grown around large metropolises such as around Delhi in India. It also results into formation of what is called sometimes as ‘city region’ because it is made up of several areas of dominance by towns and country-towns falling within the ambit of a major city or metropolis. Mckenzie aptly described the concept long back: The metropolitan (or city) region thus considered is primarily a functional entity. Geographically it extends as far as the city exerts a dominant influence… The metropolitan region represents a constellation of centres, by the interrelations of which are characterized by dominance and subordination. Every region is organized around a central city or focal point of dominance in which are located the institutions and services that cater to the region as a whole and integrate it with other regions. The concepts of city influence and city dominance give rise to an hierarchical order within a region. Areas of city influence are contiguous areas around a city. There are various institutions present in a city for different services such as medical, educational, marketing, cultural, etc. Each of these has its own area from where people commute to the city to obtain goods or services. The areas of their influence may cover varying sizes and shapes. They may overlap also. The influence of neighbouring cities may generate a zone of competition. The zone of competition separates the areas of dominance of the two competing cities. And, the dominant areas are formed not by areas of one or two services, but it is formed with respect to all services of a city (Figure 18.1). In the diagram only one particular x-service area of the two towns are shown. Regional Hierarchy: Hierarchy of towns within a region is based on the services and institutions offered by them, and not on the basis of occupational data as given in the census. The hierarchy reveals two principles: (i) Services are arranged in ascending order from the hamlet to metropolis, and (ii) The spacing of such centres follows certain regularities, and the systems of distribution differ from one area to another according to circumstances of historical development in the area. The hierarchy resembles Christaller’s theory of central place. Figure 18.2 shows urban settlements in the Scania region of South Sweden discussed by Godlund. In ascending order the hierarchy within the region displays location of urban settlements (special), market centre, township centre, townlet centre and finally regional centre. The hierarchy represents centralization of retail services. The centres are graded by index of centralization. The index equals the number of persons engaged in retail trade and service as percentage of the total population in the settlement. The regional centres are fully-fledged towns having 19 selected branches in trade and services (with Index over 6.5), while the lowest in the hierarchy are special urban settlements with Index 3.5 to 4.4. Existence of hierarchy of urban centres creates sets of areas of influence and areas of dominance, one within the other. Therefore, the city region may be defined as the area of dominance of a city corresponding to its hierarchical level (Figure 18.3). In this way each city may have more than one area of dominance – lower, middle and higher. Similarly, areas of small towns’ influence are restricted to only a few in numbers, while larger towns have more service-areas, and finally the city performs all of the services rendered by the centres of lower-order hierarchy in the region. On the hierarchical level, areas of influence should be delimited based on the city’s functional specialization. These may be agricultural, educational, medical, recreational, marketing, etc. Urban settlements everywhere have grown to form clusters around a large city. Often these are constituted by country-towns and villages and are attracted to fall within the ambit of a major city by virtue of mutually associated functions. Thus, a ‘city region’ is formed around a city and metropolis. The city region is linked socially and economically to its urban centre. Various names have been assigned by geographers to the region around a city. Germans have adopted the term ‘hinterland’, while the British geographers preferred ‘urban field’. In America, it is known as ‘sphere of influence’. Other expressions like ‘zone of influence’, ‘tributary area’ or ‘catchment area’ have also been used, but they are not flawless and have some difficulties to bring the meaning of a region explicit. Actually the city region is an area influenced by an urban centre two dimensionally. Town acts both as centripetally as well as centrifugally. Goods and services flow both into and out of a city, and thus the region of city is economically interdependent. It is neither a sphere of influence, nor does it necessarily form a continuous zone. A city cannot sustain by itself but it is linked by its surrounding countryside interdependently. For this very purpose an appropriate word ‘umland’ was used for the first time by Andre Allix, a French geographer in 1914. The word umland, according to him meant the areas immediately around an interior city, more particularly a centre for holding ‘fairs’. Whittlesey defined the word umland for an immediately tributary area extending fifty or sixty kilometers on all sides of a city. However, the word was substituted by many geographers for urban hinterland, sphere of influence, catchment area, urban field, city region, etc. In India, R.L. Singh used the word ‘umland’ in 1955. For the usage Singh was obliged to Prof. Stamp. According to him it is the area in which the region and the city are interrelated economically as well as culturally and politically. Stamp stresses that the definition and delimitation of an umland becomes actually a matter of definite practical importance in commerce and industry. In practice a large manufacturer whose products are in wide demand must decide for himself his centres for distribution and the umland which each must serve. Conversely, if he is using local raw materials he must decide his centres and the umland from which each draws. This means that the concept of umland or region around a city has its significance in economic affairs. Many scholars worked on the delimitation of umland in India after 1955. Manzoor Alam worked on Hyderabad- Secunderabad to identify various orders of urban influence according to their extent and intensity. Around the metropolis he could determine ‘areas of dominance’ and ‘areas of association’. V.L.S. Prakasa Rao also identified three grades of influence around towns of Mysore state – areas of least influence, greater influence and intermediate area. But his method was mostly theoretical and he assumed that the area of influence of a town is circular, the radius being calculated statistically. Among the various methods used in India, Singh’s study of Varanasi was popular and was adopted by most of the geographers in India by revising a little as per local conditions.” Some of these criteria used, do not constitute central place functions. Moreover, the studies by and large focussed on large cities (population with several lakhs). There is also an excessive dependence on secondary data rather than first-hand collection of information by actual field enquiry. City Regions in India: City region is not very different in concept than the area of urban dominance. The primary difference is that the areas of dominance of a city may be many, but city region is only one. M. Alam pointed out three levels of areas of dominance as: (a) Areas of metropolitan dominance which is immediately around a metropolis. It is of the lower order; (b) Areas of metropolitan prominence which play their role in assigning a significant position to the metropolis, being a complex of specialized services; and (c) Areas of metropolitan association which is a higher area than the former two with respect to dominance. It is the net hierarchical level of the city and known as city region. The delimitation of city region must involve three concepts simultaneously, viz., dominance, cluster of services and hierarchical level of the city including levels below it. It must be clear in mind that city region cannot be an area of dominance delimited on the basis of a single criterion. City region is a multifactor based area of dominance. It is not an isolated area, but continuously remains under competing effects of centres surrounding it. Therefore, it should also take into account of the influence of competing centres too. Ramchandran suggested ‘proximal method’ for its delimitation. This is not an easy job and cannot be done in case of India which is a vast country, without the aid of computer. Moreover, it is not an empirical method and being theoretical cannot bring forth reality. Dutta divided India into broad urban regions which cannot be treated as city regions. The zones as suggested by Dutta are based on secondary data and are only generalizations indicating density of urbanization. India is a vast country. The four premier metropolitan cities have been governing her urban status. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai have their profound impact on city regions of what-so-order they are determined. They are situated in the four distinct parts of the country and have around them areas of urbanity covering the entire country. But, recently, a significant change has also taken place with regard to cities, besides the four old and recognized metropolises. Some new cities of million-cadre have been growing rapidly to challenge the urban life in India. They are fairly distributed in various states of our country except in Jammu & Kashmir and eastern states lying near the borderlands. They too have their significant role to play in the delimitation of city regions in India. Similarly, number of lakh-cities has been increasing in every state. They too affect city regions. Two grades of city regions may be identified by merging roughly drawn areas of clusters around million- and lakh-cities (see Figure 18.5). Major city regions may be: (1) Maharashtra – Gujarat sector, (2) Delhi nucleus, (3) Kolkata-Howrah node, and (4) Chennai-Bangalore sector. The minor level city regions may be around: (1) Hyderabad-Vishakhapatnam, (2) Kanpur-Lucknow, (3) Jaipur, (4) Nagpur, (5) Patna, (6) Kochi-Madurai sector, (7) Coimbatore, (8) Vijayawada, (9) Ambala-Amritsar-Jullunder, (10) Chandigarh, and (11) Agra . Urban Governance Urban governance refers to how government (local, regional and national) and stakeholders decide how to plan, finance and manage urban areas. It involves a continuous process of negotiation and contestation over the allocation of social and material resources and political power. It is, therefore, profoundly political, influenced by the creation and operation of political institutions, government capacity to make and implement decisions and the extent to which these decisions recognise and respond to the interests of the poor. It encompasses a host of economic and social forces, institutions and relationships. These include labour markets, goods and services; household, kin and social relationships; and basic infrastructure, land, services and public safety (Devas et al., 2004: 1). Large gaps often exist between poor and better-off urban residents in terms of access to social, economic and political opportunities (particularly decision-making) and the ability to participate in, and leverage, the benefits associated with urban living. According to Slack and Côté (2014:7), urban governance:  plays a critical role in shaping the physical and social character of urban regions;  influences the quantity and quality of local services and efficiency of delivery;  determines the sharing of costs and distribution of resources among different groups; and  affects residents’ ability to access local government and engage in decision-making, influencing local government accountability and responsiveness to citizen demands. Urban governance involves a range of actors and institutions; the relationships among them determine what happens in the city. In managing urban transformations, government (at all levels) need to play a strategic role in forging partnerships with and among key stakeholders (UNESCAP & UN-Habitat, 2010: 211–12; 2015). Why does Urban governance matter? Managing cities and urban growth is one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. If managed well, cities can act as engines of growth and provide inhabitants with better job opportunities and improved healthcare, housing, safety and social development. Further, cities can contribute to national growth through increased revenue generation and political stability, as well as playing a role in post-conflict reconciliation. Conversely, cities that are poorly planned, managed and governed can become centres of poverty, inequality and conflict. The challenge is most acute in the poorest and most fragile states, especially those of subSaharan Africa and South Asia. Expanding urban populations are straining already overburdened and ill-equipped local government, planning mechanisms, infrastructure and urban finance (Bhatkal et al., 2015). In many areas, the population has increased faster than the capacity of planners to provide houses and infrastructure and of local businesses to provide jobs (Moretti, 2014). This has led to the emergence of large informal settlements, crime, an expanded informal economy, and increased social tensions. The well-being of the urban poor can be improved by facilitating access to economic opportunities, supportive social networks and greater access to land, infrastructure and services. Whether and how these are available to the poor depends to a significant extent on urban governance – i.e. local political processes (informal and formal); the influence of the civil society organisations (CSOs) representing the poor; and the capacity of city government to respond (Devas et al., 2004). Outcomes depend on a number of factors, including the nature of local democratic institutions and processes, the resources available and the ability of the poor to organise and articulate demands. Ineffective urban governance affects the poor disproportionately. In particular, oppressive regulation of informal enterprises and settlements can negatively impact upon livelihood opportunities. Devas et al. (2004) and Brown (2015) suggest that the design of the city-level political system, including democratic structures with checks and balances between executive and legislature and periodic elections, must be supplemented by broader participation to ensure that decisions reflect the needs of the poor. Maximising the potential of urban areas requires institutionalising mechanisms of coordination, planning and accountability among diverse stakeholders (Fox & Goodfellow, 2016). However, many city governments face severe capacity constraints, lack the vision to address urban growth, and need better information/data on poverty, the environment and services. Three key messages emerge that underline why urban governance matters (Venables, 2015):  The scale and high population density of cities enable economic and social interaction to occur more frequently and effectively. This creates the potential for cities to be productive and to offer inhabitants a better quality of life.  To unlock this potential, key issues surrounding land, transport, public finance and regulation need to be addressed. Making the city work requires investment in residential, commercial and industrial structures supported by a combination of effective land markets, appropriate regulation, good public services, adequate public finance and transparent and accountable city level political systems.  Harnessing urbanisation requires smart policy and hard work (i.e. effective urban governance), and the implications of failure are long term. Good urban governance – old idea, new challenges: The most important aspects of ‘good urban governance’ approach will be revisited, explaining its principles and agenda. Its progressive potential will be shown exemplified by new conceptualisations employing recent trends in urban transformation and policies. It is important to note that collective urban governance is not novel. It can be traced back to ancient Greece where democratic mechanisms were well developed and citizens could influence political institutions. The idea was ignored and degraded in the course of industrial urbanisation and modern planning. As modernism had changed the political aspects of planning, ignoring its social and democratic character historically developed in European cities, it became obvious that in urban renewal processes issues of public participation, civic engagement, inclusiveness and transparency should regain attention and priority. These practices were conceptualised under the name of ‘urban governance’. However, the word governance, as Mark Bevir argues, is rather ubiquitous and its relationship to democracy is not always clear; that is why it is important to clarify its nature, its practical aspects and challenges. Since the faith in state in under crisis, it is widely believed that “a more pluralistic pattern of rule”, based on processes and interactions between the state and civil society rather than institutions, is a new form of governing to replace representative democracy. The proccessuality of decision-making arrangements and empowerment of citizens replace previous institutionalised mechanism unfit to address complex, multidimensional urban issues. This was often described as a “shift from government to governance”. In this phrase ‘government’ is understood as the formal and administrative structure of the public sector. However, it is important to note that the term ‘shift’ may be misleading as local government was not removed from urban management. Local authorities still hold many important functions in that process such as “setting an agenda, developing a vision, creating collaborative opportunities and platforms or providing funding schemes and allowing self-organization of different types of partnership”. The commonly used word ‘governance’ refers presently “to a new process of governing; or a changed condition or ordered rule; or the new method by which society is governed”. In the governance perspective, which transcends the public and private sectors as well as the civil society, the focus should be on networks rather than hierarchical relations, reinforced by diversified resources, actors and their knowledge and experience. The interest in urban governance among academics, practitioners and politicians widened in the 1990s. After the United Nations conference in Nairobi in 2002 was held, ‘good urban governance’ principles have become a global standard in urban policies. This concept is advocated as a strategy for improving the quality of life in urban settlements both in developed and developing countries where the sustainable growth and inclusive urban policies are threatened from rapid urbanisation. This notion has been further developed by the introduction of the word ‘good’ in the concept of urban governance as these two terms do not have the same meaning. Addition of this ‘value judgements’ started an international ‘normative debate’ on how to achieve “best standards of practice”. ‘Good urban governance’ is conditioned by constantly reassessing these standards “in connection to a solid frame of reference”. Quality of governance process can be described and assessed by a set of commonly accepted indicators. According to UNHABITAT, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, these indicators are: subsidiarity, sustainability, equity, efficiency, transparency, accountability, civic engagement, citizenship and security. Public participation is underlined as a key strategy in the decision-making process in which various stakeholders, i.e. local governments, business communities, organisations and groups representing citizens and minorities are included. The process of participation is understood as a bilateral exchange of information, engagement of local communities at the stage of design and multistage consultation process. The concept of ‘good urban governance’ is well developed both in the academic debate and in planning practices and policies promoted by local governments and international organisations in many countries. However, the concept requires continuous updating because of rapid contemporary social, cultural and economic transformations. A single new model of urban governance does not exist and its new conceptualisations are based on different approaches and social, economic or political aspects. One of the new approaches towards urban governance is connected with the notion of urban creativity which is relatively new despite the fact that cities have been places of concentration of human knowledge and innovation for centuries. The widely publicised and discussed concept of ‘creative city’ was introduced by Charles Landry and further developed by Richard Florida who coined the term ‘creative class’. As economic model based on human capital has gained increasing importance in the post-fordist era, cities, being nuclei in which this capital is accumulated, have started to adopt the notion of creativity in urban policies. Many of these involved actions such as place marketing and building infrastructure targeted at attracting representatives of innovative industries. However, such approach is not accordant with the principles of ‘good urban governance’, failing the criteria of inclusiveness and social sustainability. Because of that a need to develop new forms of governance employing innovation potential appear. Patsy Healey explored the connection between governance process and the promotion of creativity in urban policies. ‘Creative governance’ can refer to different approaches. Firstly, it can be understood as innovation and flexibility in the modes of governance, fostering experimentation and adjusting to new possibilities and challenges. The second approach addresses the role of governance in urban dynamics in which “market processes are supposed to be driven by the creative response of producers to the behaviour of consumers” but also by the “value of aesthetic and spiritual qualities of urban life”. Another meaning focuses on creation of new products and cultural objects such as art projects. The third meaning seems to be connected most closely with social aspects of governance. It can be referred to the values of social inclusion and participation by involvement in cultural activities. Elements of effective urban governance The city-national interface: Effective urban governance depends not only on local institutions and actors, but also on the framework set by national governments that links the city and broader regional and national development. However, in many contexts, inadequate institutional frameworks have impeded effective urban governance. Municipal capacity: Expanding municipal capacity to plan, manage and finance urban growth is a fundamental component of effective urban governance. It is important that each level of government has sufficient capacity to ensure that physical and socio-economic planning processes are well-coordinated, legally enforced, inclusive and cross-sectoral. However, many municipalities lack the skills, capacity and resources to meet their obligations. The role of the private sector: The private sector is a key stakeholder in both urban and economic development. In addition to providing jobs, it can also be engaged in the design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure (for example through PPPs) and in service provision. However, where the private sector has contributed to improvements, it has often been at the expense of universal coverage, with low-income areas excluded. Political systems and institutions: Urban governance is profoundly political, influenced by the creation and operation of political institutions, government capacity to make and implement decisions and the extent to which these decisions recognise and respond to the interests of the poor. The most vulnerable are often excluded or ignored in decision-making processes. There are large gaps between poor and better-off urban residents’ access to social, economic and political opportunities, and in their ability to participate in, and leverage, the benefits of urban living. In addition, key political economy constraints in urban areas include the governance framework, the political agency of the urban poor, opportunities for collective action, service delivery dynamics, the prevalence of conflict and violence, and the experience of vulnerable groups. Key policy challenges for urban governance  Urban governance is often neither inclusive nor participatory. There are large gaps between the poor and non-poor in their access to social, economic and political opportunities and ability to participate in and leverage the benefits of urban living. Governance frameworks need to encourage policy coordination at local and regional levels and include the voices and participation of the poor.  The importance of the informal sector to urban economies and to the livelihoods of the poor is often not fully understood, and limited attention is given to working with and not against the informal sector.  Urban authorities generally fail to provide adequate access to services for the poor. There is scope for improvement by, for example, breaking down barriers to collective action, creating incentives for resourcing service provision and introducing appropriate pricing and revenue models.  While cities are inherently sites of conflict, effective urban governance arrangements can reconcile differing views by encouraging debate and the formation of broad coalitions of interest that promote developmental activities.  Migration is often seen as contributing to shortages of housing, infrastructure and services as well as tensions between migrant and host communities. Migration policies can be improved by paying attention to the nature of migration, the vulnerabilities of migrants and host communities, and facilitating the participation of migrants in civic and political life.  Urban areas are major contributors to climate change and are central in addressing it. Policymakers need to better integrate international and national climate strategies with regional and local urban policy frameworks. Conurbations: Development, Characteristics and Problems Conurbation refers to a specific kind of geographical region. Due to rapid increase in population and industrial and technological development, the city boundary expands and one urban centre coalesces with another in a slow but continuous process of urbanisation and regional development. It is thus that conurbations are formed. The word ‘conurbation’ has emerged from the words ‘continuous’ and ‘urban area’. The word was used by Patrick Geddes in 1915 with reference to a continuous urban area of more than two urban centres which may have separate territorial units. C.B. Fawcett defines a conurbation as “an area occupied by a continuous series of dwellings, factories and other buildings including harbours, docks, urban parks and playing fields, etc. which are not separated from each other by the rural land…” J.C. Saoyne defines conurbation as “an area of urban development where a number of separate towns have grown into each other and become linked by such factors as common industrial or business interest or a common centre of shopping and education”. R.E. Dickinson calls it an “urban tract” while Jean Gottamman refers to it as “extended city” or “Super Metropolitan Region”. Development of Conurbations: Conurbations are associated with a specific stage of urban development. Urban centres that have poor contact with neighbouring towns in their initial stage of growth may later emerge as conurbations due to developments in industries, trade and transport. Conurbations may develop due to the expansion of a metropolitan city (London conurbations, for instance); or two expanded cities may form a conurbation; or more than two city- level centres may coalesce to form a conurbation. Characteristics of Conurbations: Conurbations may be broadly seen as having the following features: (i) A conurbation is a continuously built-up area but it does not include ribbon development. It also does not necessarily exclude a built-up area separated by a narrow rural land from the main built-up area to which it is well-attached. (ii) A conurbation shows high population density; its population is much greater than that of the nearby towns. (iii) A conurbation has various miscellaneous industries operating in it which rely on the reserves of labour, excellent transport, etc. in the conurbation. (iv) Owing to the cheap and excellent transport facilities, a conurbation serves as a shopping centre for the hinterland surrounding it. (v) Conurbations have financial individuality that varies in degree. In India, conurbations are determined after considering the composite index of density of population per square kilometre, per cent of built- up area, per cent variation of population, number of towns in the urban agglomerations and the manner of working factories. Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai have long been identified as conurbations. A huge conurbation is developing including Delhi and nearby towns and cities. Problems Associated with Conurbations: Conurbations are growing at a rapid rate in India and other parts of the world and this has become a cause of concern. The frantic growth results in lack of proper infrastructural facilities and civic amenities to cater to the entire population. There is increase in urban slum and squatter settlements and in poverty, unemployment, insecurity and crime. Administration of the entire area in an efficient manner becomes a problem. There is traffic congestion and severe environmental degradation as well.