Tracking morphological changes and development dynamics of a City

By - Anoop Jha

Reinventing landscape in the heart of Delhi – A case of Central Park, Connaught Place

Lively and green Central Park of Connaught Place is situated right in the of heart of Delhi, enveloped by colonial architecture and streets radiating from its centre. Above, it’s a ground for recreation, occasional festivals and celebration and below its transit hub with massive underground network of metro rail system.

Visible changes in Central Park character

This park has gone through several physical changes, adopted new landscape strategies to adjust to the social and infrastructural needs of time, as apparent from the changing views of satellite images captured at different time of last decade. Some of these landscape changes can be due to emergence of underground metro system and in view of recent Common Wealth Game as part of city revitalization projects. Though changes in any city are not mush apparent as experienced in day to day life, but these changes can be easily noticeable if observed for a long span of time.

Study of changing morphology and understanding the built dynamics of any city or part of it can be a very interesting subject as well as very valuable input for planners to project and decide the course of future development of that city. It can also enrich the knowledge of planners and will helps understand the nature, behavior and temperament of city. Fortunately there are many tools and much data is available for the study in this direction and will be available more abundantly in the future. May be its time to review and revise the planning course structures as well in the light of emerging technologies and data inflow which was not the case few years back.