Expanding Cities, Contested Land: Role of Actors in the Context of Peri-Urban Interface

Abstract

The recent upsurge in urban growth and decentralization of economic activities has made peripheral urban areas, the PUI, a topical issue. However, the issues once visible in the city center have moved to this PUI culminated into land transformation and city expansion. Understanding the process and actors of land use transformation in the rural-urban boundary is crucial because of its dynamic nature. The present study tries to investigate the land transformation and different actors and their role in driving these transformations. The present study was done in Aligarh City, which is relatively a small city, compared to other cities of which literature is available but it is also a fast growing city in India. The issues examined here are certainly not limited to Aligarh City and many of the features can be traced with other cities as well. Like many other cities in north India, Aligarh City is expanding fast; moreover, it is surrounded by a populous rural area with productive and rich agricultural hinterland. Such conditions give rise to many conflicts among rural and urban economies, values, and people. However, they also generate mutually beneficial complementarities in the rural and urban spheres. The net outcome is highly selective for different groups and different locations. The role of actors in PUI is strong, because it is characterized by intermixing of rural and urban activities. The trends and patterns of land transformation at any location are the outcome of certain “alliances” and “conflicts” among these individual actors.