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In the News Population Growth

Just one in three Indians lives in cities, but India’s huge base pop- ulation means that its urban population is larger than the populations of the United States and Canada combined. Urbanization has followed industrialization in typical patterns as rural workers migrate to cities in search of better pay, living conditions, and job opportunities. This trend has not been entirely positive: Slums have grown throughout Indian cities wherever they could not absorb the migrant population, leading to filthy and crowded living conditions for the poorest of the poor. This population shift has also produced pollution, fierce traffic snarls, and exploitation of inexpensive labor. By 2050, more Indians may live in cities than in rural areas; if they do, India will have the largest population shift of rural-to-urban in human history. India’s largest cities are located through the Ganges River Valley of the north and the coastal areas of the south. The central regions contain fewer cities, although they are dotted by thousands upon thousands of individual towns and villages.

A crowded city street inMumbai.

Introduction

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