Urban Geography
Cities concentrate people, ideas, infrastructure—and inequalities. Examine how and why cities emerge, grow, and transform, with a strong focus on India.
Course Architecture
1. Foundations
Nature and scope, history of urban geography, and core urbanisation processes.
2. Settlement Systems
Classification, functional typologies, urban hierarchy, central place theory, bid–rent, and social area analysis.
3. Centrality & Expansion
CBDs, clustering/de-clustering, Burgess–Hoyt–Harris & Ullman models, urban fringe, and the urbanisation cycle.
4. Urbanization in India
Patterns/trends, UHI, housing, slums, waste management, transport, Smart Cities, and SDG-11.
Pedagogy & Outcomes
The pedagogy blends short lectures, India-specific examples, simple quantitative exercises, and policy discussions. By the end of this course, you will be able to connect theory to practice—reading a city through data, maps, and lived realities—and propose grounded, sustainable responses to contemporary urban challenges.
Core Skills Acquired
- Compute and interpret rank–size and primacy
- Apply theories of Christaller and Lösch
- Map CBDs and social areas
- Diagnose and analyze peri-urban change
Target Audience
This course aligns with common UG syllabi across Indian universities and is ideal for students in:
Geography Planning Economics Sociology Public Policy Note: No advanced mathematics is required to succeed in this course.
