Exploring the dynamics of spatial inequality through the development of sub-city typologies in English Bazar Urban Agglomeration and its peri urban areas

摘要

The term peri-urban can be defined as the settlements beyond, about or around core cities. It has often observed that the areas congested with the core city are enjoying some basic facilities/amenities as urban entity whereas the areas beyond the city are lagging behind. Thus the uneven distribution of amenities increases the inequality from core to peripheries. These heterogeneous characteristics within a city and around its periphery increase the inequalities which are characterized by the formation of sub-city typologies within the city and its peripheral settlements. The goal of this study is to explore extent and magnitude of spatial inequality in levels of living and the resultant sub-city typologies of English Bazar city and its peri-urban settlements, one of the most dynamic urban agglomerations of West Bengal. Village level House listing and housing data from the 2011 census are used here to find out the magnitude of inequality and construct sub-city typologies. 19 variables from the census are selected to represent three broad class of attributes such as housing quality, access to amenities and availability of household assets through different standardize indices for developing sub-city typology. Hierarchical and nonhierarchical cluster analysis methods are then used to identify empirical typologies considering relevant principal factors from PCA analysis. It identifies a five cluster solution corresponds to five spatial typological categories (High SE-Area, Average SE-Area, Good SE-Area, Average Area, Low socio-economic area). Identification of five spatial typological categories helps to explore the urban inequality at micro level for English Bazar Urban Agglomeration and its peri-urban settlements. The result also shows that settlements lying contiguous to the Old Malda city are deprived in asset holding and household quality whereas the peripheral settlements lying along English Bazar city have better standard of living conditions.