Impact of unregulated developments in urban villages of hyderabad city on outdoor thermal comfort

Abstract

Indian Cities are transforming at a frantic pace. As cities expand, villages and rural areas on the periphery become an integral part of the city fabric. Unregulated Developments are often a byproduct of urban villages formed by this frantic pace of development, especially in developing countries. Urban villages have some statutory provisions decentralized from the central city planning agencies that are often exploited. There is a morphological divergence in this transition resulting in unstructured and possibly unregulated development; the impact of which is not often delineated. This is further complicated by the disconnect between urban climate and urban planning. The morphological characteristics of the development have an impact on the outdoor thermal comfort that has a significant impact on the health and well being of the people. This study is focused on Hyderabad; the fourth most populous city in India that is rapidly expanding due to the advent of the IT industry. Presently, there are 175 urban villages in the Hyderabad metropolitan area. This paper evaluates the case of two urban villages Nizampet Village and Pragathi Nagar. Nizampet Village is an extreme case of exploitation of the urban village provisions leading to unregulated development while Pragathi Nagar has a stricter implementation. This presents an interesting case to study the impact of unregulated developments associated with the urban villages in Hyderabad city on outdoor thermal comfort while exploring the effect of morphological parameters like orientation, vegetation.