Patterns of Land Ownership to Patterns of Urban Form

Introduction

Human settlement is a setting formed by people for their living. The settlements have people and in a physical setup that comprise natural and man-made aspects. They tend to change in a temporally setup. A general tendency of study on settlements applies an understanding of the relationships in the elements in the context (Lahiji, 2013). The focus on the physical aspect and structure of the cities is the study of urban morphology. The ultimate result of the morphology is the creation of a theory that relates to form notions, principles and prevailing theories for elevating the design of the cities.

This paper will focus on the urban pattern of Navi Mumbai, India. The Urban pattern is the trend of interaction of varied aspects like ethnicity, religion and housing attributes. Navi Mumbai is among the first cities in India built for the common person. It is well designed with the design principles that aligns with time. The design aspects appear to have a strong impact on the contemporary life and the trends of ownership.

Theories

There are varied theories advanced to talk about the relationship of the patterns of land ownership and urban form. Theories advanced were focused in getting to know of the social structure of the city and how it developed. The method was based on economic aspects. The basis of this model is that the succession and invasion where population that slowly shifted from their economic and social status went on a high (Lahiji, 2013). This could be attributed to mobility and surge of migrant that led to the social pattern.

Other theories that focused on ownership of land applied rental value to focus on the pattern. The theory, sector theory, attributed the increase of residential houses to rise in transport routes. These arise relates to ideologies put forth by George Baird.

Urban Form and Urban Pattern

Every human settlement comprises of some aspects. Interaction of these aspects create a pattern – the urban pattern. The urban pattern arises from the relationship between people and their social and economic setting. The buildings and spaces are made by people and in most cases describe them. If the locals built the structures by themselves, they portray their lifestyles. However, if it is the government that does the construction, then it does not reflect the lifestyle of the setting.

Without regard to the manner of construction, locals later impact their urban setting, altering it to meet their way of life. On the other hand, people adapt to the physical setting they live in. The relationship between land ownership and urban form is a two way process socio-spatial dialectic. Hence urban form is not just an architectural from of an urban region.

The study of urban pattern of a city basically focusses on the land use. Focus on Mumbai shows that the pattern is not uniform and attributed by residential segregation. This variation is common in most cities since households acquire the same housing choices (Lahiji, 2013). Though, all cities have limitations like housing choices may not be acquired on economic aspects but cultural. Planned cities comprise of neighborhood units that became popular with time and acted as a base to construction of the town.

Land ownership patterns affect urban patterns. Convolutions in relationships have elevated the difficulty of urban form with time. The pattern of spatial allocation can be noted in most modern cities. Cases where market forces operate, income is of great significance. Education and values among others affect the spatial aspect. Socioeconomic elements add value to the pattern. Hence urban patterns are complicated manifestations of cultural values in relation to economic forces.

Mumbai is spatially segregated with regard to ethnicity, religion and language as opposed to economics and population. The social ties are horizontal and vertical, with the horizontal being between people with a common cultural background while vertical are on caste and class. Studies done on Indian cities reveal that they are built against social modelling (Lahiji, 2013). Though the urban setting shows two facets of non-western organization: residences do not have the symbolic aspect as in the western nations and the symbolic aspect is undertaken by religion and caste.

Studies show that considering the importance of caste for its operability in rural setups, in urban setups like Mumbai the meaning of caste is more significant in regards to identity as opposed to function. A good example is in the rural setup where the Sudra caste and religious functions are done by Brahmins. In the city, new definitions had to be made. Before long, industrial and workers belonged to all castes. The bigger complexity of urban life and complexity of sustaining caste identity using residential segregation has led to social management for all caste. Another aspect influencing urban centers is regional connection. More so cosmopolitan cities’ cultural variation and regional aspects created to exalt the culture.

Weinstein came up with a model for social segregation in the Indian city. Three aspects led to socioeconomic aspect and political aspect. These aspects varied from concentric zones. The centroid of the system shows the optimum location for accessing all aspects (Lahiji, 2013). However, real case studies went against this theory but acquired that several nuclei were available and the temple was of great significance for the spatial organization of social attributes.

A systematic analysis of Mumbai showed an evolution change in the social patterns. The patterns were accredited to Europeanism, commercialism, religious aspect and socioeconomic trend. They are quite complicated because of a number of elements; several religions, languages, castes and class that led to a heterogeneous pattern. The presence of several physical urban pattern created due to a number of traditional ownership of land, British settlements and industrial towns in the urban region.

Conclusion

The connection between the urban pattern and land ownership is a complicated indicator of the cultural values in a population found in a precise setting. In the case regarding Mumbai, India, the socio-cultural aspects are connected to caste, class and religion. These attributes describe the society in varied systems. The description causes social variation in regards to wealth and status. The historical change as described by George Baird, of urban settings, has backed this model. The design of Navi Mumbai, attempts were made to safeguard this social structure and apply residential allotments to meet this goal.

The urban pattern of cities is generalized. The leading theories put forth by and described by Baird describe the urban pattern and ownership of land. They have been applied to describe the patterns with regard to social aspects. The paper has been able to focus on these aspects and acquired a relation of land ownership and the urban form. The ideas developed by varied scholars have reinforced this theories and ideologies.

 

 

 

 

Reference

Lahiji, N. (2013). Architecture Against the Post-Political. New York: Routledge.