Studies of urbanization in the less developed countries, therefore, contradict that there is a positive correlation between urbanization and development and produce the overurbanization thesis. According to this thesis the present day less developed countries are more urbanized that the developed countries were at the same level of development and the quality of urban population in the developing countries is very poor.

In the less developed countries three things were especially marked:

• Rapid growth of large cities

• Division of city into two different parts, one modern and developed, and the other as traditional and poor

• Overpopulation in the urban areas, particularly large cities, leading to creation of large squatter settlements and slums

Data show that the large cities are growing faster than the smaller cities. As a matter of fact, many tiny towns have experienced a declining trend (Registrar General, 2009). This phenomenon produces city primacy . i.e., a situation in which large cities have disproportionately more population than smaller cities and towns, making them unmanageable by city planners and requiring large investments to keep them liveable. For development planning, a good option would be to develop smaller cities and towns and restrict movement of people towards the largest cities.

Consequently, though cities are still the places and sources of modernization, they have a traditional part too, slum areas or squatter settlements, where the rural social institutions and arrangements are maintained. Most of the Indian cities including Delhi have a new city (e.g., New Delhi ), or a civil lines area, and an old part (e.g., old Delhi , old Hyderabad , old Lucknow ). Thus they may be called dual cities. In the old city one finds continuity of traditional kinship, caste and regional networks. The new, poor migrants depend upon them for decisions regarding the choice of destination and also for their adjustment to the harsh conditions of urban living (De Souza, 1983).