Abstract:
Urbanization is the movement of population from rural to urban areas
and the resulting increasing proportion of a population that resides in urban rather than
rural places. Urban sociology is the sociology of urban living of people in groups and
social relationship in urban social circumstances and situation. Urbanization is a two way
process because it involves not only movement from village to cities and change
from agricultural occupation to business, trade, service and profession, but it also
involves change in the migrants attitudes, beliefs, values and behavior patterns. The
process of urbanization is rapid all over the world. The facilities like education,
healthcare system, employment avenues, civic facilities and social welfare are reasons
attracting people to urban areas.
Due to the rapid course of urbanization, the haphazard growth of major cities is
one of the challenging situations in front of any country. As unorganized urbanization is
becoming the major problem, it requires the immediate solution for sustainable
development of urban land. In the emerging scenario it is essential to have updated
information on urban growth patterns and its impact on the living environment. The
growth and development of cities are likely to continue and therefore there will be a
need for proper planning and managing or improving the existing infrastructure
facilities. In this juncture, the state of the art technologies Remote Sensing (RS) and
Geographic Information System (GIS) can play an imperative role. Patna metropolis is
one such rapidly developing city in Bihar. This paper explores the study of Urbanization
growth of Patna city using RS data and GIS.
The present study focuses on the nature and pattern of urban expansion of
Patna city over its surrounding region during the period from 1991 to 2008. Patna urban
agglomeration area consists of eleven constituents. Subsequently, two sample towns
from the respective zones were selected to study the pattern of urban expansion and
there from identify the factor responsible for the urban sprawl of Patna city. The study
has indicated that road and rail transport was solely responsible for the rapid urban
development in the sample towns. In addition, GIS based analysis of the pattern of
urban expansion over the demographic change and land use modifications has also
indicated that urban growth of the Patna city has mainly taken place linearly along the
major river Ganga in the study area.
