Volume : III, Issue : III, March - 2013

An Analysis of Urban Primacy: The Case of Kolkata

Sayantani Sarkar, Sima Maji

Abstract :

Kolkata has played a pivotal role in the economic growth of the eastern and north eastern region of India. The city with its long colonial history has emerged as the most important urban center of this region. With its excessive population growth, Kolkata has attained that level of primacy which no other city in the country has ever reached. This primacy of Kolkata has often been considered as cancerous and anti– developmental. As Munsi (1975) pointed out, “the metropolitan explosion of Calcutta has become a constant headache for all planners, sociologists and political parties”. In 1971 the primacy of Kolkata was at its peak (11.6) (Das and Dutta, 1990). This paper tries to study the nature and characteristics of its primacy from 1971 to the 2001. Through various methods, this study tries to examine the nature of primacy of the city and also to relate the demographic trend with the causative factors. It shows that primacy of the city is gradually declining in the Eastern and North– Eastern region but it is still prevalent within the state of West Bengal.

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Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijar  

Cite This Article:

Sayantani Sarkar,Sima Maji An Analysis of Urban Primacy: The Case of Kolkata Indian Journal of Applied Research, Vol.III, Issue.III March 2013

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