The city’s population grew by a staggering 44.58 per cent over the last decade (2001–11), powered by the unprecedented suburban growth. In contrast, an analysis of the 2001 and 2011 Census data for the city, throws up an interesting trend of 30 wards in the city’s core area seeing a sharp decline in population.
A ward-wise analysis of data, available with The Hindu , shows that some prime residential areas such as Malleswaram, Basavanagudi, Rajajinagar, Ulsoor and Richmond Town have seen a decline in population.
Shantalanagar (ward no. 111) in Richmond Town leads the pack with a drop of 31.6 per cent in population. In contrast, population has at least doubled in 54 wards, all of which are either along the Outer Ring Road or beyond it. Begur ward has witnessed more than 300 per cent increase in its population in the decade.
Intra-city migrationAcademicians say this may be the first time that data is pointing towards a possible trend of intra-city migration, from the core city to the suburbs in Bengaluru — a phenomenon called suburbanisation — which was until recently observed mostly in North American cities.
“Suburbanisation is usually coupled with commercialisation of the core city,” said Mathew Idiculla, a member of ‘Global Suburbanisms: governance, land and infrastructure in the 21st century’ project at City Institute at York University, Toronto.
Commercialisation of the core city may be one of the chief factors contributing to the decline in population, says Suresh Hari, secretary, Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India, Bengaluru.
“The landholdings in the core city are small and the land rates are so high that building an apartment complex is often not viable. Commercial development of the property will give the best return on investments. More than 60 per cent of projects in the core area are commercial projects,” he said.
