Spatial modelling of urban infrastructure: a study from a developing country (India)

摘要

Regional disparity is a challenging issue for urban planners, policy makers, academicians, bureaucrats andtechnocrats in the developing countries. In India, a wide-range of socio-economic disparities are commonlyevident even in Class – I cities. Such an undesirable phenomenon reflects on the spatial variation of the qualityof life, level of living, as well as well-being and welfare of the inhabitants. Moreover, it is against theconstitutional law of equity and social justice. The present study is based on the empirical observation focusedon ward wise variation of availability and accessibility to the socio-economic utility services and infrastructureaccessibility in Rajarhat – Gopalpur Municipality of West Bengal. On the basis of ‘Cronbach’s Alpha’ and‘Principal Component Analysis’, the entire set of data has been arranged by five factors of which the first three(cumulative percentage of variance is 89.84) have been considered to examine the dimension of socioeconomic disparities and the level of development in the city. From Cronbach’s Alpha Analysis of thirty-fourvariables, eleven were eliminated, while transport facilities (i.e. Auto stand, Bus terminus, Bus stop, Post Office),health facilities (i.e. Hospital, Nursing Homes, PHC, etc.) and education services (Schools and Colleges) weretaken into consideration for further study. The factor score determines the first three components with 89.84 %of variance. In the first component the highlight falls on the economic factors, while the second and the thirdcomponents depict education and transport factors, respectively.