IMPACT OF LAND USE CONVERSION ON BUILT ENVIRONMENT OF PLANNED NEIGHBORHOODS OF LAHORE (A CASE STUDY OF WAPDA TOWN LAHORE)
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Date
2017
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UMT, Lahore
Abstract
Lahore, the city of gardens as the provincial capital of Punjab and the fourteenth most populous
city of world have gone through major physical spatial expansion due to continuous population
increase. The land use of the city is in continuous transformation due to population increase and
is expanding in south and south east directions through planned settlements. Land being an
important resource accommodates the expansion and various activities within the residential
areas of the city. Wapda town cooperative housing society is a planned public society located in
the southern part of Lahore. Presently the situation of the society was not the same 15 years
back. Transformation of land use is one of the issues, to be addressed immediately. Increase in
land use change in residential areas and formation of main streets as a commercial street greatly
affects in terms of increased neighborhood density and overloading the existing infrastructural
facilities. This has questioned that how these transformations took place and what the strong
factors behind this are. To find the solution to such questions it was therefore essential to analyze
the structure and pattern of the land use changes. Neighborhoods are important for their
residents; it has significant implications on neighborhood satisfaction which is affected by
various factors of the neighborhood built environment. The impacts are usually felt by the people
residing in the society. Therefore a correlation exists between the neighborhood built
environment and its resident‟s satisfaction.
The proposed area of research is the identification of factors causing land use change and their
impacts on neighborhood built environment. The study mainly focused on the information
obtained through available literature and data collected through physical surveys that enabled to
explore the transformation of designated land use pattern of Wapda town cooperative housing
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society. It helped in selecting the main roads of Wapda town where maximum number of
conversion was seen and identifies the causes of its conversion. A comparative analysis of
residential and commercial property users has been done in order to evaluate the overall
satisfaction level on physical, social and economic grounds through yeh‟s index of satisfaction.
The study of users revealed that overall satisfaction level among residential property users lies in
negative range whereas for users of commercial property give it a positive value. This indicates
that economically the commercialization has created positive impacts however in this prospect,
commercialization is causing detrimental impacts on environmental and social factors of the built
environment.
The findings suggest that policy makers should enact such laws which can strengthen land use
management and maintain quality of life for the residents. Thus reducing the negative and
adverse effects of property conversion and causing dissatisfaction among residents. To create a
livable environment for the resident‟s, integration of physical, social and economic
considerations by proper land use pattern must be maintained. Furthermore government should
introduce an investment framework that encourages the building of shopping centers as well as
apartments catering both the residential and commercial users. By doing so, they can provide
more customized built environments; increasing residents‟ life satisfaction.