Review Of Literature
From the literature survey conducted on the present theme of research it is found that geographers have not paid due attention towards the village which have been forced to surrender land to the expanding cities. Many scholars have explained the causes of urban expansion in general, and in the developing countries of the world in particular. The most difficult part of discussion on sprawl is defining what sprawl is and is not. No universally accepted definition of sprawl exists right now. A search of the current literature on sprawl clearly illustrates this point, as many of these do not provide a definition of sprawl.
While many believe that sprawl is a recent phenomenon, the truth is that it has been around for quiet awhile. One of the earliest users of the word sprawl in terms of land use was Draper (1937), then Director of Planning of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Draper stated“ Perhaps diffusion is too kind of word…. In busting its bounds, the city actually sprawled and made the countryside ugly… uneconomic (in terms) of services and doubtful social value”
Much has been written in a general way on the rural –urban fringe by researches from various disciplines of social science. The peripheral areas of the cities conforming to rural urban fringe received little or no attention till 1923, when Burgess put forward his classical model of concentric zone around cities. Although the zones of Burgess’s study was only incidental as far as the fringe zone was concerned. The fringe zone was not designed separately. Smith’s (1937) idea of continuous built-up area for fringe delimitation is not justified as some cities may not have continuously built up area within town, and in such cases the consideration of continuity beyond the city limit for the fringe area is not proper. It was in 1940, that Wherwein an economist attempted to characterize and delimit this zone of rapidly changes and transformations. Many others focusing upon the land uses of the urban fringe have followed, Wherweins pioneering study. Following the same model several scholars have worked on different cities. Worcester (1945) has done a lot of work and has provided detailed descriptions of fringes of particular towns or cities, while some like Andrews, (1942) have attempted to identify the general land use characteristics of urban fringe zones and made a distinction between the urban fringe and the rural urban fringe saying that the former is smaller than the latter. Several scholars who studied fringe in the cities, focused on the socio-economic problems of the fringe and its residents.
It was not until the 1950’s with the post - war suburban boom that discussion on sprawl truly began to take shape. Blizzard and Anderson (1952) have emphasized on agricultural land use and decrease in city utility service. Duncan and Reiss (1956) have used the category of non- suburban population of territory in urbanized area outside Chicago City. Zimmer and Hawley (1956), Martine (1957) and other authors have delineated their study area by census or administrative areal units. Whyte (1958), in his classic essay on “urban sprawl” highlighted the sprawl as leapfrog development. This discussion was sustained in the 1960’s as suburban continued. Harvey and Clark (1965) wrote that “sprawl … is composed of areas of essentially urban character located at the urban fringe but which are scattered or strung out, or surrounded by, or adjacent to undeveloped sites or agricultural uses “.
Pryor (1969) has divided the fringe into rural fringe and urban fringe and has suggested the upper and the lower rate of increase in population (residential, industrial, commercial and commuters), which were quite vague. The words higher and lower are relative terms, which differ from person to person, and form area to area. His study is based on questionnaires filled up by the residents of the adjacent area through the postal method. Pryor has not given thought to the lines of transport along which the fringe belt is bound to fluctuate. Although he has considered ‘farm land’ as a factor, he has not examined whether the land is good for crops or vegetables, and whether the area supplies vegetables and milk to the parent city or not. Pryor (1969) in another paper has concluded that the rural –urban fringe is characterized by the incomplete network of utility services; an inadequate network of public transport, a relatively high car – ownership ratio; and that the majority of the work places and retail purchases of residents of the fringe will be in the urban place itself. He has assumed that the above characteristics in the fringe area are natural.
Coleman (1969) while developing the general land use model has divided the area around the cities into three landscapes i.e wildscape, farmscape and townscape, together with the relatively unstable fringe territories between them: the marginal fringe and the rurban fringe .She has emphasized that sprawl is related to modern transport and is almost entirely a modern concept. At first it was related to linear forms to public transport, especially the tramcar line and later the bus route. These gave rise to linear sprawl, also known as strip sprawl or ribbon development. It was one-dimensional sprawl is related to the freer mobility of the car. Building became scattered over the areas between the strips as individuals bought up plots of land from farmers and builders bought land for small isolated estates and she has also pointed out that sprawl is a problem not only for the urban dwellers who create it, but also for the farmers whose farms are possessively surrounded. This is fragmentation of farmland, not to be confused with fragmentation of farms. The farms may remain intact but they acquire incompatible neighbours.
During the 1970’s, discussion on sprawl began to subside as other issues took centre stage. However, thinking at that time still focused on the use of land. Tyagi (1982) in his book demonstrated rural-urban interaction and impact of urbanization upon the physical, occupation and social structure. Rao (1970) mentioned that expansion of Bhilai industrial town uprooted few rural villages and the land of many others was acquired for the future growth of the town. Bose (1973) analyzed the problem created by rapid urbanization. Ramachandran and Shrivastava (1974) in their article, ‘The Rural- urban fringe’ defined “ it as an area of mixed rural and urban population and land use which begins at a point where agricultural land use appears near the city and extends up to the point where some persons at least from the village community commute to the city daily for work or other purposes. Ottensmann’s (1977) defined sprawl as “the scattering of new development on isolated tracts, separated from other areas by vacant land”. Husain. and Siddiqi, (1979), in their article on Urban Encroachment on rural land : A case study of Modinagar used the urban encroachment as a process of acquisition and occupation of lands for the expansion of urban activities/ functions.
During the 1980’s, discussions about sprawl were rare. Rao (1985) identified sprawl as “haphazard physical explosion”. During the early 90’s to mid 1990’s, interest in sprawl began to grow as its impacts were being felt. American Heritage Dictionary mentioned sprawl as spread out in a straggling more disordered fashion. Singh (1987) in his article Bihar Urbanization in perspective has attempted to identify the determinants of urban sprawl. Mujtaba (1994) in his book demonstrated the process of urban sprawl in Hyderabad using remote sensing approach. Diwarkar (1998) in his article Urbanization or agro-based rural industrialization analysed that post- independence India witnessed a shift in land use from agriculture to non-agriculture sector in the wake of spreading urbanization in urban fringe area. Sierra (1998) mentioned sprawl as low-density development beyond the edge of service and employment which separates where people live from where they shop, work, recreate and educate- thus requiring cars to move between zones. Ackerman (1999), Growth control-versus-growth machine in Redland, California: Conflict in urban land use, mentioned that we have failed to control urban sprawl. Ultimately the pattern of urban growth is dictated by a complex interaction of place specific factors in individual communities. The above works give a glimpse of how urban sprawl led to land use change. This study is a modest attempt to bridge the gap by linking urban sprawl with socio economic change in Raipur city.