Screaming Urbanization and Infrastructural Gap in South Asia: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Urbanization provides South Asian countries with the potential to transform their economies to join the ranks of richer nations in both prosperity and liveability, but a new World Bank report finds the region, while making strides, has struggled to make the most of the opportunity. Messy urbanization is reflected in the widespread existence of slums and sprawl across the South Asian nation. Inadequate urbanization is symptomatic of the failure to adequately address congestion constraints that arise from the pressure of urban populations on infrastructure, basic services, land, housing, and the environment. With urbanization a key driving factor, infrastructure spending is set to increase substantially over the coming decades. Infrastructure is increasingly viewed by the World Bank as the vehicle for transforming low and middle income countries into emerging or developing nations. The present articles is an empirical cum quantitative kind of work. An inclusive urban sustainability indicator method has been formulated to identify the inventory and prospective aspects of urbanization in South Asian cities as the master key to analyse the level of urban sustainability in the region. By evaluating all there indicators i.e., social, economic, and ecological fruitful findings have been obtained and evaluated thoroughly in order to bridge the gap between screaming urbanization and poor infrastructure. The fruitful findings can be proposed as a policy recommendations to other fast growing cities in developing countries.