Anjana JAGMOHAN, DYAL SINGH COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI, India
Jag MOHAN, ADITI MAHAVIDYALAYA, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI, India
Urban villages, located along the major transport corridors in Delhi are perpetually in a stage of transition. These urban villages carry many times more population than the other urban areas catering to mixed land use, with residences, commercial areas, small or household industries- the combination being dependent on the demands of the surrounding localities. Unfortunately, these areas suffer from an acute under-developed state of infrastructure- flooding, overflowing open drains, absence of potable water, and inconsistent power supply. The gravity of the situation is magnified by the high population densities. The area of east Delhi is vast with two national highways passing through it in the middle and south. But accessibility to the villages varies from area to area. The chosen villages show the transition of a rural area into a totally urbanized one due to the dominating role played by the proximity to metalled roads and other transportation links. The three villages - Badarpur Khadar, Garhi Mendu and Shamaspur Jagir- represent the three stages development of a village into an urban area respectively- its rural stage; the middle stage and the totally urbanized stage with three different types of locations namely slightly away from the main road; slightly away but an important road passing through it; and the third village is located on the main National Highway 24. The changes in the first two villages as well as the moribund growth in the third is prominently visible through the analysis of satellite imageries of the studied area over the last three decades. The paper highlights the unmistakable differences in the skylines, landscapes and the socio-economic character of the population brought out through personal interviews and pictures as well as satellite images. The paper also tries to suggest policy decisions so as to level out the differences in villages and their planned overall development.
Mots clés : transport lines|differential urban transformation
A105301AJ