Evaluating the Planning Strategies for Urban Land Use: A Study on Bengaluru City, India

Urbanization process emerges out of nonurban areas where the urban centres are created; basic services reach the villages and rural fringes. Here the land and inhabitants become urban and urbanization is well measured and expressed chiefly in terms of population, as more and more of the landscape becomes townscape, and people come to live in an environment, that is both physically and socially urban. Bengaluru, once called the Pensioners’ Paradise, where land was cheaper, and so where the fruits and vegetables. The British setup a cantonment and built beautiful villas to live in the comfort of the Garden City. As the city expanded with the blooming software industries and off shoring activities, it soon captured a firm position in the global map thus enhancing the process of urbanization. The challenge in this context, Bengaluru faces is to restore its livability while accommodating the over spilling population and their rising demand for housing, water supply, sewerage and transport facilities. Once a multisectoral land use, Bengaluru now possesses a concentric land use pattern which however maintains itself towards east and north thus projecting new suburb areas.