A 2013 World Bank report, “Urbanization beyond Municipal Boundaries”, found that suburban areas are generating higher economic growth and employment than the city. Although “suburbanization” is a worldwide phenomenon, it usually occurs in middle to advanced stages of development. In India, it’s happening much more quickly than expected.

Reasons:

• Suburbs are seen as safer and cheaper place to live and raise a family due to lower population density, lower crime, and a more stable population.
• Increasing land prices and office rents have pushed companies to suburban areas.
• With increased incomes, people have the ability to pay more for travel and commute longer distances to work and back home.
• Indian cities impose quite draconian land use regulations, rent control system and building height restrictions on their cities leading to excessive suburbanization.
• Suburban municipalities offer tax breaks and regulatory incentives to attract industrial land users to their area.
• The development of robust and sophisticated infrastructure is possible only in the peripheries of the city where land is available in plenty and the cost of acquisition is low.

Growth of urban agglomerations poses many economic, ecological and institutional challenges which are as follows:

• Access to – and the quality of – water, sanitation, and electricity is much worse in the urban periphery than at the core.
• Access to quality and affordable health and education services.
• With commercialization of agricultural land and encroachment on forest areas ecosystem of the region is threatened.
• Unplanned urbanisation and uncontrolled encroachment of natural water storage and drainage systems has spelt disaster.
• The fiscal deficit grows as a result of suburbanization, mainly because in less densely populated areas, property taxes tend to be lower.
• Proponents of containing suburbanization argue that it leads to urban decay and a concentration of lower income residents in the inner city.

Third and fifth five year plans advised urban planning to adopt regional approach and to create metropolitan planning regions to take care of the growing areas outside administrative city limits.

Way Forward:

•  Address the lacunae in the current rural-urban categorization system. This would ensure that new areas come under municipality limits and enjoy municipal services.
• Affordable and modern housing within already developed area with intelligent use of space.
• Provide efficient services and reform governance structures to boost overall economic development.
• Use zoning and other land use regulations to create development patterns that make active transportation, in the form of walking and cycling, practical for shortest of trips.
• Assuring that development is spread out fairly city-wide so that issues of accessibility to housing and work don’t arise.
• Ensuring that tax incentives given by one suburb do not penalize other suburbs or the central city.

Inadequacy of cities to provide affordable and quality options has resulted in suburbanization. We need to improve existing urban amenities while simultaneously addressing the problems of suburban sprawls.