Urban Restructuring Through the Development of Underutilized Lands to Achieve Sustainable Compact City Model

Indian cities are spatially expanding into massive urban sprawls due to unplanned development and adopting obsolete conventional practices of Urban Planning. As a result, more agricultural land is converted to urban-use and resulting in greater commuting distances. To offset this, the concept of infill development is being advocated worldwide as an alternative to sprawl. Infill is characterized as rehabilitating unused land in an urbanized region by new development or redevelopment. However, identifying urban locations with potential for infill development requires careful consideration. The paper studies a three-step process for identifying areas for sustainable infill development in Nagpur, India, based upon ARCGIS’s weighted overlay analysis. In the first-stage, the extent of low-density residential areas in the city are assessed for their potential of infill development using the Land Use Land Cover methodology. The second stage determines the extent to which underutilized land parcels may be developed depending on the mix of current low-density residential developments. Finally, in stage three, the research areas are categorized into three zones based on their potential for infill development, i.e., high, medium and low. As a result, each zone symbolizes a distinct level of possible future sustainable compact development. The research attempts to persuade that slums, in addition to low-density residential development, should be taken into account while deciding for infill development. Further, its accessibility to public transport, availability of physical and social infrastructure and the abutting land uses are crucial factors for deciding areas for infill development. The fundamental success of this study may be summarized as better harnessing of underutilized areas in Nagpur city to develop a more compact and sustainable city.