The process of urbanization in India had started with the arrival of the British. The British for their aesthetic and cultural requirements introduced the cinema hall and theatre culture in India. This Paper is an account of political economy of the development of the theatre and cinema hall culture in India. It argues that in the initial phase of the opening of theatres and cinema halls in the Ahmednagar, Maharashtra were affected by the feudal temperament of public. In the process of urbanization, infrastructure development is given importance as a face, but in real sense the factors of caste, class, gender is working in an invisible form. The political economy of these factor is shaping to the city. The city which had a rich heritage of folk culture, not only denied to visit cinema halls and theatres with the families but also condemned it as something ‘low culture’. But with the spread of modernity, there was a rapid change in public’s attitudes that resulted the frequent visits to cinema halls and theatres with the family and also treated it as ‘high culture’

Keywords: Political Economy, Urbanization, Small Town, Cinema-Theatre Culture, Gender, Caste, Class, Modernization, High Culture, Low Culture