Urban Sprawl and its Smart Management

Aristotle once wrote that men come together in cities to live, but stay in them to live the good life. "Cities are now junctions in the flows of people, information, finance and freight....They‘re less and less places where people live and work ” says Nigel Harris, a professor of development planning (Ellis and Harris, 2004). However, the urban dynamics and growth has led to the spatial problem of urban sprawl. For developing countries like India, where pace of economic growth is going higher, an idea of smart growth or planned growth can provide benefits in long term planning. The article explains briefly about how and why the idea of urban sprawl initiated and developed all across the globe. In order to understand this phenomenon, its causes and effects are being explained with few probable solutions through which a smart management strategy can be foreseen by the urban planners and professionals. Concentrating growth is what many planners recommend as a measure against sprawl for a sustainable city. The idea of "Smart Growth" involves controlled or managed sprawl where balance is the watchword for developing communities. Sensitive policies and directional economic growth and management are the possible solutions