ABSTRACT
Hill regions of India are known for their magnificent cultural values, landscapes, climatic conditions, and tourist destinations. Beyond for the aesthetic and pleasant endeavors, hill regions hold 7.5 crores of the total population across an area of 7.08 lakh km2 in India. Over the years, the natural and floating population are growing drastically which has led to the haphazard development in these areas. The prevailing and upcoming development activities have become a major concern, creating an adverse impact on the natural ecosystem. Also, the planning in the hills is a challenging task due to the steep slopes, diverse climatic conditions, proneness to disasters, and difficult terrain.
These challenges are more pronounced in the medium-sized towns of the hill regions as the size of these towns are small; however, majority of towns in hill regions are medium-sized towns, where the urban development is expanding beyond the set limits. Also, there is a lack of efficient governing bodies, limited master plans i.e., only for a few towns, and also state authorities are focusing more on large towns or cities as compared to medium towns resulting in poor living conditions due to which these towns have become major centres of environmental degradation. Therefore, these towns need to be taken care of, from numerous challenges occurring in these eco-sensitive areas for a contextual urban growth in hill regions.
The paper focuses on the literature review related to urban development scenarios, urban challenges, case studies of mediumsized towns followed by the inference and conclusion. The paper is developed from the literature and onsite visits of case towns, with major focus on the development pattern of medium-sized towns to address the urban challenges which are deteriorating the overall essence of these fragile areas.
