EVOLVING PLANNING STRATEGIES FOR NEW RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS OF LUCKNOW

Abstract

Today, the cities all around the world are facing an unprecedented challenge; put forward by the phenomenon of urbanization and the scale of challenge is so big as never witnessed before by human civilization, in its entire history of 5,000 years. More so, the future projections make the picture grimmer. The coming time is much more crucial, as far as India is concerned, because of the population dynamics. Among a variety of land uses, the residential land use forms the greatest part and thus needs much attention. As it has a direct bearing on the people's lifestyle and comfort, the importance is further enhanced. The residential land use is generally found to be greatest in almost all the cities irrespective of their size, layout or socio-economic conditions. The cities are expanding enormously in search of new residential areas to serve the increasing needs of the people. The areas beyond the municipal limits, where there are lower land costs, cleaner environment, and more freedom of construction, provide good opportunity for future expansions. The private firms and societies avail this chance and start haphazard propagation of predominantly residential land use; this often has less regard to the building byelaws and development regulations. In order to have a desired development pattern it is thus essential to anticipate these issues and have a control over the uncontrolled areas as well. There is a need to have a regulation over all kinds of residential developments in the city. The new areas should be promoted such that they have a sustainable character with respect to services and facilities instead of overburdening of the existing infrastructure load of the city and ultimately prove to be more satisfying to the residents. The present work is an attempt to analyze the existing conditions of the recently settled residential areas, to -study the processes of establishment, adopted by the government and private organizations and to explore the possibility of integrating the private and government bodies' V functions for development of new residential areas such that they have a homogeneous distribution of services and facilities and to achieve better living conditions. Recommendations and formulation of policy guidelines / planning strategies has been the ultimate goal, which may be helpful in governing the city's development and growth pattern so as to settle well organized residential areas having considerations for all the functions that a city by virtue of its dwellers performs...