The city in change : socio-spatial dimensions of urban environmental change

Abstract

The physical form of the city, at any given moment in time, is the result of its historical process of formation. Change in the socio-cultural processes in a city at a given moment in its history, therefore, corresponds to and is evidenced in the physical changes of its many urban forms. The different urban forms, which are essentially manifestations of the different moments of understanding and values in the city's history, collectively give the city its distinct character. Thus, the understanding of the process of the formation of the city in time becomes crucial in the act of managing the urban environment. This study attempts to unravel the process involved in the formation of a city in time, through the study of two segments of the city of Kathmandu. The roots of the two urban forms are centuries apart, but collectively they constitute the city today. Through an analysis of these two urban forms in terms of the aforementioned process revealed through change the study tries to stress the need to understand the built-environment as a phenomenon of change in time. The underlying notion is that the actions we take to transform the city in the present and the future has to be within and supportive of the process of formation specific to that city, as revealed through change in time.