The paper analyses the implications of the new system of urban management in the context of the recent demographic trends and programmes of urban development, taking India as a case study. It looks into inter state and size class variation in urbanisation and urban growth during nineties, the period of structural reform in the country and relates these with the new system of urban governance. It compares and contrasts the spatial pattern emerging in the nineties with that of the earlier decades, focussing on the new strategy of promoting the emergence of a limited number of global centres. It also overviews the policies and programmes of decentralised urban governance, the new system of management, resource mobilisation etc. and their impact on urban hierarchy and balanced urban development in the country.