Small Cities and Towns in Global Era: Emerging Changes and Perspectives (Hardcover)

In last two decades or so, the process of globalization has stirred up societies in various ways. The new market systems, emerged under the new global regime, have cut across countries. This mega-transformation has made significant impact on existing cities and towns. Across countries, a few cities are emerging as the hubs of flow of capital and new technologies under the ever-growing information technologies and labor markets. In this process, traditional centers of regional production and distribution of goods and services are getting reorganized or disintegrated. In this context, there is a strong need to understand the impact of such changes on India's urban settlements, more so for the small cities and towns which have remained neglected in urban research. This book includes more than a dozen contributions based on a seminar held at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai). The selected papers mainly fall under two categories: those focusing on the global agenda and its possible impact on India's urban settlements, and those which detail the emerging changes and their impact on socio-cultural and economic life situations of citizens of specific cities and towns. The first set of papers is more based on theoretical underpinnings and emerging perspectives on changing small cities and towns of India, while the second group of papers presents case studies on such settlements.