The rural-urban divide in governance

Where do India's political and administrative energies get spent? What is the ratio of distribution between rural and urban Indias?

The McKinsey Global Institute (pdf here) estimates that cities will provide the overwhelming share of economic growth (70%), new jobs (70%), and tax revenues (85%) by 2030. It may be therefore appropriate to illustrate this with the following Venn Diagram.



However, the prevailing political and therefore administrative paradigm in India suffers from an excessive rural-focus. Villages are the central focus of our attention. Another Venn Diagram represents the distribution of our administrative bandwidth.



The commonest justification for this rural focus is that India lives in its villages (nearly 70% of the population lives there) and rural growth should be the priority. However, there is growing evidence, here and here, that urbanization and urban growth are among the most potent rural economic growth and poverty reduction strategies.