New Delhi, Aug. 5 -- In 1961, census commissioner Asok Mitra wrote down the definition of a town: its population should be above 5,000, its density above 400 persons per square kilometre, and three-fourths of its male working population must be engaged in fields of work other than agriculture.

That definition still largely stands, but India's towns and cities are falling apart. Traffic, waste management, law and order, water, sewage-the farther we go from the capital of the country or a state, the worse these get.

Many see overcrowding as the problem, but this is simply not so. Even small Indian towns with low densities of population are badly run, while Tokyo, with many more people than our largest cities, has none of the problems that...