Multi-temporal transect analysis of peri-urban developments in Faridabad, India

Abstract

Dynamic land-use changes in peri-urban areas in the Global South are often characterized by a juxtaposition of planned and unplanned, formal and informal, legal and illegal developments. India faces rapid (peri-)urbanization and great challenges to govern these sprawling, spatially fragmented, and socially uneven developments at the fringe of cities. Under these circumstances, up-to-date maps of (peri-)urban development processes are essential for effective governance. However, mapping the processes of urbanization is a challenging exercise. The developed map visualizes the heterogeneous spatio-temporal reality of periurban India using the case study of the dynamically growing city of Faridabad, a satellite city of Delhi. The multi-temporal map is based on field mapping and the interpretation of Google Earth imagery. These spatial data sources have been triangulated with findings from qualitative semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders, expert interviews, and secondary data in order to incorporate and visualize contextual spatial knowledge in the map.