Urbanisation in madyamgram-A study on the pattern of expansion of the urban built up area and the suitability of the urban services

Urban expansion is the process where the urban built up area encroaches upon the existing rural landscape giving rise to a new landscape. In this paper the urban expansion has been measured on the basis of the land use characteristics. The temporal expansion of the urban built up area over a region has been considered as the means of studying the intensity of urban expansion. Moreover delineating a fringe area within the municipality has been done by the help of land use diversity index. Demarcation of the fringe area has been initiated with a reason of finding the differences in the perception of the people about the quality and access to the urban facilities. As the fringe and core area has been demarcated within the municipal boundary there shouldn't be any major difference between the opinion about the accessibility and the quality of the services. Differences in the perception in such cases occur under the situation of the unequal distribution of the facilities and its services. Therefore the broader objective of the study is to find out whether the urban growth in Madyamgram is planned or not depending on the differences in perceptions of the fringe population and the core population. Madyamgram has been considered as the study area within the North 24 parganas West Bengal because of its pattern of urban expansion.