Drivers of Unfettered Urban Sprawl in Pakistan

Abstract

Urban sprawl is a global concern, however, developing countries are failing to effectively overcome this problem. For instance, in Pakistan, urban development policies are tenuous and urban areas remained without certified boundaries. This failure is mainly causing an unfettered sprawl in major cities of the country. An alarming fact is that most of the urban sprawl is consistently taking place on fertile agricultural land in the peripheries of cities. The researcher has verified the problem through literature and by supervised classification of the satellite imageries to specifically verify growth of Peshawar city. This research contributed to unveil the fundamental causes of the unrestricted urban sprawl and its aftereffects in the context of Pakistan. Finally certain reforms and techniques are suggested to curb leapfrogged and low-density haphazard growth of cities.