Promoting Urban Sustainability through Compact City Approach: A Case Study of Lahore

Abstract

Urban sustainability provides a decision-making approach towards urban management & planning. Today, it is complicated for the urban structure so as to relate the different land-use zoning and urban sustainability. The main objective of present study is to evaluate the current urban characteristics and indicators in city of Lahore. The findings of the research reflect that the major key factors for the urban sustainability in a compact city are density, transportation and land-use sector. Density profile in Lahore shows that new residential towns rapidly occupy the vacant land for the living having better living facilities. However, such development is increasing average trip distances and urban sprawl. Besides this, land-use breakup in Lahore is very much variant because of the rapid change in its uses. Average land consumption per person in Lahore is 51 square meters which is on the lower side and had grave consequences for public rely on car use in future. Moreover, higher Public transport accessibility in Lahore is another problem facing by the general public. Finally, it is concluded that Lahore is a compact city to some extent with the absence of sustainability concepts due to lack of regularity authority control and haphazard development. The situation needs immediate attention of authorities otherwise the use of public transportation will be declined and cars will encroach major part of one’s' land consumption.