ABSTRACT
India’s urbanization is often classified into three distinct phases – the precolonial or indigenous, the colonial and the post colonial or national. A more recent addition to this national phase, neoliberal globalization, has come to be known as the ‘global phase’ (Grant and Nijman, 2002; Sita and Bhagat, 2007). It was in the colonial phase that India was forcibly opened up to the emerging world economy, resulting in the port cities of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) and Chennai (formerly known as Madras), along with the new colonial capital New Delhi, dominating the urban space economy in the period of the British Raj. With independence came extensive regulation, protectionism and public ownership resulting in slow economic growth. However these four cities were in a position to take advantage of the new large concentration of economic activity and population and came to be called the ‘four metros of India’. Economic liberalization under the structural adjustment programme, initiated in 1991, heralded the fourth ‘global phase’, which propelled India into becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with fundamental implications for its cities.
