Management of Delhi's Urban Growth and Shrinkage

摘要

All cities are "living entities", which go through a life-cycle as the birth, growth, consolidation, expansion, decline, and quite often some kind of end, or state of decay, unless they are "turned-around" and "revived" by combined human effort (Mumford, 1966). Cities in all parts of the world face mounting challenges such as population shifts inadequate or aging infrastructure and resulted as urban sprawl. Metropolitan cities grow beyond imaginable proportions, particularly in the developing world. According to the 2010 UN Census these are six largest cities on the planet are Tokyo, Mexico, Sao Paulo, New York, Mumbai and Delhi. Delhi exists as capital site of India, a historic power centre. It has seen the rise and fall of many empires, which have left behind a plethora of monuments along with crunched settlements. Seven principal cities were chiefly created by different rulers but when the British decided to shift the capital of their Indian empire from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911, they were laying out a city in an area that was in fact dotted out ancestral cities. Part of the planning envisaged the same way. These two threads were the warp and weft of the weaving of urbanisation story of a Delhi. Now the city has exploded in all directions beyond the confines of Lutyen's wide, tree-lined avenues, with an exuberance that is characteristically Indian. Shifting of zones is a continuous process and forms several central places. The line of distinction between Old and New Delhi has begun to blur north, south, east and west Delhi are more prevalent terms of demarcation. The facilities and opportunities available in Delhi have attracted Indians from far-flung corners of the country, making it a melting pot of sorts. The National Capital of India, Delhi, is a city Delhi's population increase and reaches to 17 million. To make city viable to future growth it was suggested for a planned decentralization to outer areas named as National Capital Region. New towns form and core city transfers from Shahjahanabad to Lutyans Delhi and further several satellite towns. In spite of the plans for decentralisation and to restrict the growth of the city by development of National Capital Region (NCR), the runway growth of Delhi continues and form new urban pockets i.e Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida etc resultant of push and pull factor. This paper aims to identify whether economic and demographic concentration in Delhi has already reached a point at which the social cost of agglomeration exceeds the benefits and need a combined effort to revive the shrinkage its primacy.