SMALL CITIES AND TOWNS IN GLOBAL ERA: Emerging Changes and Perspectives

In last two decades or so, the process of globalization has stirred up societies in various ways. The new market systems, emerged under the new global regime, have cut across the countries. This mega-transformation has made significant impact on conventionally existing cities and towns. A few cities across the countries are emerging as the hubs of flow of capital and new technologies under the ever-growing information technologies and labour markets. In this process, traditional centres of regional production and distribution of goods and services are getting reorganized or disintegrated.
In the above context, there is a strong need of understanding the impact of such changes on Indian urban settlements, more so the small cities and towns which have remained neglected in urban research. With this objective, the present volume, based on a seminar held at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS ), brings forth more than a dozen papers by leading researchers in urban area. The selected papers mainly fall under two categories: those focusing on the global agenda and its possible impact on urban settlements, and those which detail out the emerging changes and their impact on socio-cultural and economic life situations of citizens of specific cities (and towns) under their focus. Or, in other words, the first set of papers is more based on theoretical underpinnings and emerging perspectives on changing small cities and towns of India, while the second group of papers presents case studies on such settlements.
Being a modest attempt towards needed research in this very neglected area, it is expected that the volume will inspire the future researchers to make systematic efforts in grasping the rapid changes under the present global era and their impact on thousands of small cities and towns of India.

R.N. Sharma is a sociologist by training. He did his Ph.D. from IIT, Kanpur in 1978, and the same year, joined the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai as a faculty in the Unit for Urban Studies. Since then, he has been associated with the TISS in various academic positions. In 2005, he became the first Dean of School of Social Sciences and retired as Professor from the Centre for Development Studies at TISS, in 2012. Prof. Sharma has also been associated with several other governmental/academic organizations on matters of research, social interventions and policy issues.

R.S. Sandhu retired as Professor of Sociology from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. He has been Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, U.G.C. Visiting Fellow to the Netherlands (1998), Overseas Fellow of Human Science Research Council of South Africa (1995), Visiting Professor in Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota, USA (1991–92), British Council Visiting Fellow (1990), and Head of the Department of Sociology (1989–1991).