Land use interventions to guide urban density

Abstract

By the end of 2050, urban areas covering the world are projected to triple. Observing the current trends of rapid urbanization, the spatial growth of cities has become a significant concern. OECD data has predicted that continuing current growth patterns will ultimately lead to infrastructure and food production failures on an unprecedented scale. Providing basic services to rapidly urbanised and sprawled sections also put huge setbacks on the administration, mostly due to the organic character of the settlements. Globally, cities have taken a step towards sustainable growth in urban areas. Through assessing the urban form, using indices and setting goals for guided urbanisation, such as 30 ha/day consumption by Germany and no land uptake goals by European cities. The guided growth of cities could produce a state of equilibrium between urban, ecological, and rural areas of a region. India, considered to be a developing superpower country, is constantly subjected to rapid urbanisation trends. In housing two of the top four sprawling cities, guided growth interventions are no more than a necessity to be explored in an Indian context. Guwahati, the largest city in North-eastern India, is stated to be the 4th most rapidly urbanising city in India and 42nd globally. Rapid urbanisation has become a more severe issue for the city, taking into consideration the huge flora and fauna reserves of the city. Initiating with constructing a base of concepts and literature of current scenarios and solutions dealing with this issue, the study will continue towards understanding the density and sprawl patterns of the city. Concluding the thesis will be an analysis between the correlating factors assessed, resulting in sectors for interventions to be solved by global examples of best practices.