These Geography A-Level notes explore the causes of rapid urbanisation in Mumbai, examining factors such as economic opportunities, rural-to-urban migration, and population growth. The notes provide a detailed analysis of how these drivers contribute to the city’s expansion and the associated cha...
What have been the causes and consequences of rapid urbanisation in
Mumbai, India?
In recent times Mumbai, India has undergone major population growth becoming a
megacity in the early 1980s, a city with a population over 10 million; its current population is
nearly 21 million in 2022. Even though it is a developing world city, Mumbai is the richest
city in India, with a GDP of $278 billion, as well as being home to 48 billionaires.
Rapid Urbanisation has increased the proportion of the country’s population that live in
towns and cities at a great rate. There are many causes for this but the main one is rural to
urban migration.
The reasons why people migrate out of rural areas is due to push factors, such as the risk of
crop failure which could lead to famine or reduced income. There can also be poor living
conditions and infrastructure which has not yet been introduced in rural areas. There are
often worse facilities in rural areas such as education and health care due to there being a
lower population density.
As well as this there are many reasons people migrate to cities, these are known as pull
factors. The main pull factors are better living conditions as well as better employment
prospects, especially in the informal employment sector, which are easier to obtain (eg little
training or prior experience is required) and may have higher wages. There are also usually
better educational opportunities and more religious freedom. The issue with these pull
factors is that they are perceived to exist but this may not always be the case; additionally
within the informal sector vulnerable groups may be exploited.
Another cause of rapid urbanisation is natural change, which is the birth rate minus the
death rate. Looking at the demographic transition model we can see that when countries
are rapidly developing such as Mumbai, they are likely to be in stage 3 where there is a high
birth rate but a lowering death rate. This high birth rate is due to previous stages where
infant mortality was higher, and more children were required for labour on the farms.
However, due to development in health care and improvement in sanitary conditions the
death rate has decreased and so has infant mortality. This has led to a natural increase in
the overall population size and therefore an increase in migration.
This rapid urbanisation has many consequences which are both positive and negative.
The challenges facing Mumbai include declining economic growth which is slowing due to
the huge informal economy which is over 2/3 of the entire economy. This results in the
government receiving less money in taxes and therefore there is less money to fund services
such as health care and education, as well as infrastructure in the city which is being
outgrown.
Increase in population also puts strain on transport networks: there are only two main
motorways into and out of the city and the rail network is overcrowded.
There is also a housing crisis which has led to over 50% of people living in slums and a
further 30% living in makeshift homes such as in Dharavi. In these slums there is a low
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