Measuring Urban Sustainability through Compact City Approach: A Case Study of Lahore

Abstract: Achieving urban sustainability has become a prime goal for urban planners. However due to its subjective nature, it is complicated to integrate urban sustainability concept in planning practices. Moreover, it is advocated that measure of urban sustainability through the compact city is a vital solution for city management. However, due to dynamic nature of the city structures around the world, there exists a limited consensus on parameters and dimensions to measure urban compactness especially in the towns developed in unplanned manners. This study aims to explore different dimensions and relevant indicators to understand and measure compactness in the context of Lahore. The findings of the research reflected that the key factors for the urban sustainability in a compact city are density, transportation and landuse. Density profile in Lahore shows that new residential schemes are rapidly occupying the vacant land and consequently increasing average trip distances and urban sprawl. Besides this, landuse breakup in Lahore is highly variant because of the rapid change in its uses. Average land consumption per person in Lahore is 51 square meter which is on the lower side and would have grave consequences for public rely on car use in future. Moreover, public transport accessibility in Lahore is another problem faced by the general public. Finally, it is concluded that Lahore is a compact city to some extent with the absence of sustainability concepts due to lack of regularity authority control and haphazard development. The situation needs immediate attention of authorities otherwise use of public transportation will be decline and cars will encroach major part of ones' land consumption.