The Spatial Development of India

This paper studies the recent spatial development of India. Services, and to a lesser extent manufacturing, are increasingly concentrating in high‐density clusters. This stands in contrast with the United States, where in the last decades services have tended to grow fastest in medium‐density locations, such as Silicon Valley. India’s experience is not common to all fast‐growing developing economies. The spatial growth pattern of China looks more similar to that in the United States than to that of India. Our findings suggest that certain frictions are keeping medium‐density places in India from growing faster.

Keywords: Industrial structure; Urbanization; Congestion; Infrastructure; Cities; India.