Assessment of Urban Sprawl in Bathinda City, India

Abstract

Urban sprawl denotes expansion of human population away from the central urban areas into low-density areas that are mostly car dependent communities. The exact definition of urban sprawl differs among researchers as the term lacks precision and sometime have negative connotation. While urban sprawl appears to be inevitable phenomena (Buzbee, 2000), it is criticized for causing environmental degradation (Seto et al., 2011, Wilson and Chakraborty, 2013) and undermining of existing urban areas as the margin expands. Batty, Besussi, and Chin (2003) defines sprawl as, “uncoordinated growth: the expansion of community without concern for its consequences in short unplanned, incremental urban growth which is often regarded as unsustainable”. In India, the unprecedented population growth and migration results in urban sprawl where the urban fringe towns and cities cope up with changing land use along the highways and in the immediate vicinity of the city for better space. Due to which, the dispersed development takes place, outside the compact urban and village, along highways and rural countryside (Theobald, 2001) and this growth of built ups outside the urban margins are termed as urban sprawl. Bhatta et al. (2010) argues, despite the dispute over a precise definition of sprawl, the general consensus of urban sprawl is characterized by “unplanned and uneven pattern of growth, driven by multitude of processes and leading to inefficient resource utilization”. Therefore, the methods of identifying urban sprawl is important in delineating the term from sub-urbanization using indicators (Ewing, 1997) rather than characteristics, as it is more flexible and less arbitrary. Five indicators (Hasse & Lathrop, 2003) proposed to examine the per capita consumption of land associated to sprawl includes: (1) density of new urbanization; (2) loss of prime farmland; (3) loss of natural wetlands; (4) loss of core forest habitat; and (5) increase of impervious surface. As in late 20th century, strong sentiment against urban sprawl has developed in the United States (Brueckner, 2000) that includes a lot of critics, alleging that excessive urban expansion have encroached farm land and open space. In western countries, urban sprawl is the consequence of suburbanization, and urban sprawl means excessive suburbanization (Mills, 2003) resulting into argument that urban sprawl is used synonymous with suburbanization in a pejorative way.