Impact Assessment of mass transit station on core area: a case of Nagpur

Abstract

The core city area of the city is the Image of the city defying the origin of culture and representation of the city as a whole. Core city is the place where the city was first established and has started to grow over the period of years and has undergone many changes in terms of architecture, socio-cultural characteristics and even sometimes economical change as per the need of the users. All the above factors lead to changes in land use of the city core in various ways in the due course of time. These changes may develop the city core and bring the need to redevelop it for the better living conditions. City cores do require better development guidelines, which should have an inspiration from past; thus, restoring their heritage and generic nature. “The rapid growth of cities in recent decades has put urban planners in an unpleasant position of ‘desperately trying to cope’, a position that has made for a tendency to place the problems of urban development in a perspective of quantity rather than quality, of provision rather than unkeep. A preoccupation with the design and development of new areas has come to be typical of planning agencies throughout the developing world. Whenever upgrading works are carried out, it is as one-time projects conceived as cheaper substitutes for providing new housing. This apart, maintenance and upkeep of existing, particularly old, areas have been demoted to the back seat. Considering the case of Mass transit systems or metro rail in India, as stated above the ‘desperately trying to cope’ situation is seen in many core city area where the change in land use is already in process shaping the socio-economic conditions on site. In addition to that, a major mass transit station or project in core city area has its Impact on land use, sometimes making conditions unique and critical to deal with. This has at least something to do with the relative simplicity of tasks of planning new developments as compared to the intimidatingly complex nature of issues related to interventions for old areas. These include, a number of factors like change in land use, ownership, policies for development, open spaces, height to width ratio etc., are falling out of this domain into the wider area of ‘urban planning’. The temporal changes, downtrodden conditions, ill-managed infrastructures, and dynamic nature of core cities a matter of concern; in the process, demanding better solution for the issues on site specific to the case of Core city area in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Nagpur is a Metro region with a proposed metro rail system through the city core, having an impact on the land use on the core area w.r.t. the development policies proposed in the area and the site conditions making it Impact assessment of Mass Transit Station on core area - case of Nagpur unique to study, hence the Topic “Impact assessment of Mass Transit Station on core area - case of Nagpur” Thus, this thesis will focus on the recent insertion of Metro in core city of Nagpur and its impact on the land use of the core area after implementation of modified DCR rules and TOD guidelines for the Metro rail system.