Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Urban Growth and Slum Development among the municipalities of Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, India

The rapid urbanization in the developing world has triggered significant land-use change, a process that has an unequal impact on ecologically fragile areas and the vulnerable people. The patterns and drivers of slum growth should thus be well understood in order to develop inclusive and sustainable urban strategies. In this direction, the current paper analyses the Spatio-temporal patterns of urban growth and slum development in five municipalities of Purba Medinipur district in West Bengal, India namely Contai, Egra, Haldia, Panskura, and Tamralipta during the period 2001–2021. Using Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change detection, direction-distance analysis and linear regression modelling approach, the study establishes a strong causal association between built-up growth, ecological degradation and the development of informal settlements. Findings show that there is a considerable conversion of cropland, vegetation, and wetland into urban areas especially in transport corridors, drainage-deficient areas and administrative fringe, and this has increased the vulnerability of the slum dwellers. Regression analysis also shows that the closeness to the city centers, roads, railways, and institutional infrastructure has a statistically significant effect on the formation of slums with significant differences being noted between municipalities. Haldia and Contai are characterized by strong urban-industrial development and large-scale ecological destruction, and Egra and Panskura by slower but directionally focused slum growth. Altogether, these results highlight the importance of spatial exclusion and infrastructural neglect in the formation of informal settlements and suggest the need to plan inclusively using data.