Urban form in India 1975–2015: Have India's cities become flat?

We focus on two questions in this paper. First, are Indian cities suburbanizing or is their growth compact? Second, what explains the differences in suburbanization or compact growth across cities and regions? We answer these questions using granular, grid-level data from the Global Human Settlements Layer. We take three approaches to understanding the evolution of urban form. First, we explain changes in population density based on concentric rings around the city centre for 100 cities in India. Second, we use these same data to estimate population density gradients in 1975 and 2015. Finally, we use regressions to test hypotheses about relationships between city characteristics and the density gradient. We find that although cities in India densified within their 1975 city limits, they also expanded outward. We find the negative exponential density function is useful for studying urban form in India. South Indian cities and those in urbanized states sprawled more than their northern and less urbanized counterparts. Both the social conditions of central cities such as the literacy rate and the historical pattern of population suburbanization are statistically significantly associated with suburbanization. This suggests the need for greater investment in public infrastructure in central cities to support compact urban growth. • We use satellite data from the Global Human Settlements Layer for 100 Indian cities. • It is pioneering research on the spatial distribution of population in Indian cities. • The negative exponential density function is useful for studying urban form in India. • Cities in south India and the urbanized states sprawl more. • Literacy rates and the historical pattern of cities are associated with sprawl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]