Urban Sprawl and its effect on Sustainable Urban Development: A Case Study of Shimla City

A fast-growing developing country like India is witnessing the phenomena of Urban Sprawl and land-use changes in almost all of its megacities which are the epicenters of economic growth, administration, and tourism prospects. The proximity to the growth center, availability of space, and increasing migration mainly lead to the gradual spreading of the urban landscape towards its adjacent regions, resulting in the loss of productive and agricultural lands, open green spaces, and surface water bodies. Considering the speed of urban sprawl growth rate, the city's scale and role have changed frequently. Thus, there is a need to study, surveil, and quantify the urban sprawl for sustainable development of the urban areas. The current study examines the importance of sustainable urban development, which seeks to create cities and towns to improve the long-term health of the planet's human beings and ecological systems. The main focus of this paper is to illustrate the analytical approach and challenges resulting from increasing population growth that has created a need for high-performing, cost-effective, resource-efficient, and environmentally friendly sustainable infrastructure. The task comprises steps delineation of urban area for consecutive years, comparison between urban areas, identification of the urban sprawl pattern, recognition of magnitude and direction of changing sprawl, and its effect on land use/land cover.