INTEGRATED LAND-USE ZONING, USING TOPOGRAPHICAL DATA: OPTIMIZING VACANT SPACE FOR URBANIZATION AT AKOLE TALUKA, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA

Integrated urban land-use planning is becoming increasingly complex in India, as there is noticeable migration of rural population towards developed cities. Main reason behind it being, lack of education and employment opportunities, low levels of socioeconomic development, as well as poor urban infrastructural base of rural areas. It is necessary to identify these areas and optimize its poorly developed or vacant spaces, to effectively manage the transformation of India's underdeveloped and rural areas into developed cities, resulting in development of the Country. This research attempts to present an integrative approach to the problem of land-use planning with the help of a conceptual model. The study examines, congested cities and identifies vacant spaces or underdeveloped areas adjoining them. Based on it, a village - Akole taluka in Ahmednagar district, adjoining two developed cities - Mumbai and Pune, of Maharashtra State, is analyzed for transformation and re-development purpose, through the use of topographic data. Finally, it is aimed at implementing new urbanism principles to the study area and produce a land-use model to maximize the quality of life of its people. Providing useful information for development of planning and design strategies for sustainable urbanization and enhancing quality of life is need of the hour. Therefore, key purpose of this research is to increase productiveness of citizen's habitat, by optimizing the use of vacant land. This is achieved by proposing an UrbanSustainable Development Model (USDM) readily acceptable to accommodate a large number of permanent populations.