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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 14 – 195How do Cities Become Centres of Economic Activities? — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 194 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Observe and compare the two satellite images of an area of Bengaluru (Fig. 7.5). They are from 2012 and 2025, respectively. What are your observations? What has changed? Guess what might be the causes for the change.
Answer

The two images show the same frame of Electronic City, thirteen years apart. Comparing them square by square:

What to look for2012 (Fig. 7.5 a)2025 (Fig. 7.5 b)
Open and green landLarge dark-green patches of tree cover and clearly marked field plots, especially on the eastern side near Shanthi Pura and Bhovi PalyaAlmost all of it built over; only thin fragments of green survive between blocks
BuildingsClusters, mainly hugging the highway, with visible gaps and vacant plots between themA continuous grey-white surface of roofs from edge to edge, with far larger individual buildings
The road corridorThe elevated highway runs diagonally across the frame with open land on either sideThe same corridor is now lined solidly with structures on both sides
Named landmarksKauvery Hospital, ELCITA, Electronic City Phase I, M5 Ecity Mall, India Post, Godrej E-CityAll of those, plus a new one that is absent in 2012: Electronic City Metro Station

The change in one sentence: in 2012 this was a built-up area set inside farmland; by 2025 the farmland has gone and the built-up area is the landscape.

Likely causes, using the chapter’s own explanation for Bengaluru:
  • Clustering. Bengaluru became an IT hub through a concentration of software firms, new start-ups and higher education institutions. Specialised industries grouped together in clusters — and ELCITA, the Electronics City Industrial Township Authority, is that cluster’s own governing body, visible in both images.
  • Jobs pull people. A cluster that offers jobs to skilled workers from different fields attracts them from across the country — the chapter’s definition of urbanisation in action.
  • Housing and commerce follow the workers. The mall, the hospital and the housing blocks in the frame exist because tens of thousands of people now live and work within it.
  • Transport both follows and accelerates. The metro station appearing between 2012 and 2025 is the clearest single piece of evidence in the image. New connectivity is built because the area grew — and then makes the area grow further, exactly as better roads, highways and the metro rail boosted the expansion of the National Capital Region.
  • Land was available and cheaper on the periphery. Growth happened here, on the city’s southern edge, rather than in the old centre where there was no room.
Think about the cost: the green that disappeared between the two images is the same ‘reduced green space’ listed in Fig. 7.18, and the fields that were built over cannot absorb monsoon rain. Comparing two satellite images is one of the simplest ways to see an urban challenge being created.
Q2.
As a small group project, make a list of adults from different generations in and around your neighbourhood. Draft a questionnaire to enquire into their observations about their own village, town or city and how it has changed over the decades. What, in their view, are the key reasons that towns and cities have changed? If they have grown larger, what are the reasons for this? What do they miss about the ‘old days’ and what do they appreciate about the current time? Report on your project through a presentation to the class.
Answer

This is a group field project, so the marks are in the method. Here is how to run it and what a good report must contain.

Step 1 — Choose your people. Pick six to eight adults across at least three generations: someone in their 20s or 30s, someone in their 50s, and someone above 70. The oldest interview is the most valuable, because that person can remember the place before it changed. Take permission first, and ask if you may write down or record their answers.

Step 2 — Draft the questionnaire. Keep it short — twelve questions at most — and open-ended, so people tell stories rather than say yes or no.

ThemeQuestions to ask
The place thenWhen did your family come here? What did this street look like then? Where did the built-up area end?
WorkWhat did most people here do for a living then, and what do they do now? What made the change happen — a factory, an office, a road, a college?
GrowthHas the population grown? Where did the new people come from, and why did they come? What was built for them?
Water, air and spaceWhere did you get water then? Was there a pond, tank or open ground that is no longer there? Has the traffic or the air changed?
Then and nowWhat do you miss about the old days? What is genuinely better now? What would you not want to go back to?

Step 3 — Look for patterns, not just quotes. Tally how many people gave each reason for growth. Compare generations: the oldest respondent’s ‘change’ may be a road; the youngest one’s may be an app-based delivery job. Both are urbanisation.

Step 4 — Present. Eight to ten slides: your method, a table of who you interviewed, the reasons for growth ranked by how often they were named, two or three direct quotations, one ‘then and now’ comparison, and your group’s conclusion. If you can, add an old photograph beside a photograph you take yourself from the same spot.

Sample answer (extract from a group report): Six of our eight respondents named the same reason for growth — the bypass road built in the 1990s. Shri Ramlal, aged 78, said that before it was built, our locality was three lanes of houses with a threshing floor at the end, and the nearest doctor was a bus ride away. After the bypass, a cold-storage unit and then two workshops opened, and families came from villages further out to work in them. What people miss is common ground: four respondents mentioned the pond behind the school, now filled in and built over, where cattle were watered and children swam. What they appreciate is also common: piped water in the house, electricity that does not fail every evening, a government hospital within two kilometres, and schools that their granddaughters attend. Smt. Kamla, aged 54, put both halves in one sentence — "We had more air then and more work now." Our conclusion is that our town grew for exactly the reason the chapter gives for many cities: a change in connectivity brought industry, and industry brought people.
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