What is meant by de-urbanization?

British divided the colonial India into 3 presidencies. These presidencies become the centers of British power in the different regions of India. New factories came up, trade developed.

Old trading centers and ports could not survive when the flow of trade moved to the new centers. This decline and decay of the cities is called de-urbanization. For example; in the late eighteenth century, many towns manufacturing specialized goods declined due to a drop in the demand for what they produced. Also, earlier centres of regional power collapsed when local rulers were defeated by the British and new centres of administration emerged.