Applying Wirth's framework of urbanism, some demographers call the urban areas of India as rurban , i.e., showing the characteristics of both urban and rural areas. Thus urban population of India lives in urban areas but shows the characteristics of rural areas. For other sociologists, however, rurbanism is not bad. It may be seen as a positive concept which shows an emerging integration of rural and urban communities with respect to principles and practices governing land use, energy, transportation, governance, and all aspects of economic, ecological, and social development. Indiresan (2008) argues that rurbanisation is a solution to India 's development problems.

MEASUREMENTS OF URBANIZATION

Urbanization is measured in terms of the level (or sometimes called degree) of urbanization and speed of urbanization. Level of urbanization is defined as the percentage of the total population of an area that is living in urban localities. All countries classify localities into urban and rural and collect data on their population. Thus

Level of urbanization = (Urban population/Total population)*100

Thus, if the level of urbanization of a country is 32 percent, it implies that out of 100 persons in that country 32 are living in localities classified as urban (i.e., towns and cities). It may be stressed that the level of urbanization is dependent on the definition of urban and rural areas; any change in the definition of urban localities may produce a significant change in the level of urbanization.

Speed of urbanization during a given period is defined as percentage change (per year) in the level of urbanization. Thus the speed of urbanization during 1991-2001 may be calculated as follows:

Speed of urbanization, 1991-2001 = ((Difference in the levels of urbanization during 1991-2001)/ Level of urbanization in 1991)*100/10