Gentrification and Its Impact on Urbanization in India

At present the world is experiencing an extraordinary rate of urbanization. India is also in a major phase of urbanization. Almost all Indian cities have grown up beyond their limits. Thus, the ecological footprint, which is the ‘area of wilderness of both land and sea needed to supply resources to a human population and needed to assimilate human waste’ of these cities is at the warning stage. In developed countries, the decision makers and planners had renewed the entire urban area once it attained a reasonable age and size in such situations. Few of the western cities were entirely renewed when they were demolished by natural or manmade calamities. Fortunately, India never experienced such entire fresh development or renewal of its cities. But now-a-days, India is not the exception for it. The Global South is the new site of gentrifying cityscapes and also the leading edge of gentrification. Indian cities and the peri urban areas of metro cities are experiencing various forms of gentrification in the process of urban renewal. It is a curative concept to restructure the declined areas of the city. But it has more negative views compared to positive due to the concerns in the process in India. The paper brings out the impacts of gentrification and concerns related with the process in Indian context with a case example of core city. Key WordsUrbanization, Urban renewal, Gentrification, Restructure, Core city.