This collection of essays brings together the efforts of twenty-four Indian scholars belonging to a wide spectrum of socio-economic disciplines. They have attempted to ana¬lyse systematically the prob¬lems in the field of urban and regional planning and deve¬lopment. The selections have been carefully made to present a clear picture of emerging urban problems in India. The collection does not claim to be either a new theoretical state¬ment on the subject or a simple description of the problems in urban and regional plann¬ing. The emphasis here is more on ‘immediate policy implications than on pedantic treatment of the subjects’. The subjects thus dealt with have a direct bearing on policies and programmes for¬mulated and implemented over the years.
In the opening Section U.C. Mallick gives a profile of India’s urbanization. To him ‘urbanization as such is not an evil, rather it is a welcome phenomenon of change and transformation. At the same time, urbanization may as well as lead to chaos and socio-economic disorders and depri¬vations if it is not channelled and regulated in a proper direction’.