Dynamics Of Urban Land use In Raipur City
In India, unprecedented population growth coupled with unplanned developmental activities has led to urbanization, which lacks infrastructure facilities. This also has posed serious implications on the resource base of the region. The urbanization takes place either in radial direction around a well-established city or linearly along the highways or such other linear phenomena. This dispersed development along highways, or surrounding the city and in rural countryside is often referred to sprawl (Theobald, 2001). Some of the causes of the sprawl include – population growth, economy and proximity to resources and basic amenities. Patterns of infrastructure initiatives like the construction of roads and service facilities (such as hotels, etc.) also often encourage the regional development, which eventually leads to urbanization. The direct implication of such urban sprawl is the change in land use and land cover of the region. The ability to service and develop land heavily influences the economic and environmental quality of life in towns (Turkstra, 1996). Identification of the patterns of sprawl and analysis of spatial and temporal changes would help immensely in the planning for proper infrastructure facilities.
Urban sprawl is also referred to as irresponsible, and often poorly planned development that destroys green space, increases traffic, contributes to air pollution, leads to congestion with crowding and does not contribute significantly to revenue, a major concern. Increasingly, the impact of population growth on urban sprawl has become a topic of discussion and debate. Typical conditions in environmental systems with gross measures of urbanization are correlated such as population density with built-up area (Berry, 1990). The relation of population growth and urban sprawl is that the population growth is a key driver of urban sprawl. But there are number of centripetal forces which derive the population from neighbouring areas. These are broadly industrialisation, better job opportunities, education, market facilities, administration etc. The single most powerful contributing to land use is the increasing population. The growth of urban areas in the city has been phenomenal. From a mere population of 205986 of Raipur in 1971 it has increase to 605747 in 2001. The cause of population growth is migration like Delhi, Raipur, too, has a large percentage of people who came in from outside to earn their livelihood, and decided to settle here. On the contrary there are several centrifugal forces that leads to the physical expansion of the cities. These driving forces are industrial planning, city planning etc. The land use change has occurred due to increase of industrial expansion, trade and commerce centers, transport, government offices, residences and housing, dairy, nurseries and civic facilities.