Abstract
Urbanization is one of the most dramatic global social transformations of the present century. From an overwhelmingly rural dominance in 1920, with only around one-fifth of urban population, the world is rapidly transforming into a predominantly urban based society. Due to this phenomenon of urbanization, developing country like Bangladesh has experienced a very rapid rate of growth in urban population during the last three decades. At present Bangladesh has 23% population live in urban area which is growing quite rapidly due to rural-urban migration, urban boundary extension, and to a declining extent, natural increase. This urbanization trend stimulates transformation of different rural centers into urban areas with some consequences. Such an experience can be cited with the context of municipality developments in a sub regional scale. Established in 1974, Tongi municipality now has the population of 28,914 with a growth rate of 5.27. It has an administrative boundary with an area of 32.36 sq km., situated adjacent to Dhaka, which contains almost 30% of the total urban population of Bangladesh. Tongi plays a vital role to sustain the huge influx of rural immigrants towards the mega city. Once a small town, Tongi, left alone for development, now has been transformed into a key industrial urban unit and has to manage the usual urban problems like sporadic developments of slums, water logging in the low lying areas and over all urban environmental managements. In this study, GIS mapping techniques has been used to identify the change in land use patterns, slum settlements with rehabilitations and environmental mapping over time, which can be helpful and exemplary for any future developments at the neighboring areas of mega cities of developing countries. To let the ‘megapolis’, of developing countries like Bangladesh, survive from being ‘necropolis’, we need to encourage and guide the growth of urban centers in the fringe areas. Hence, a planned system must be applied in the developments of such sub-regional scale.