Built‐environment stocks in the context of a master‐planned city: A case study of Chandigarh, India

Abstract

Construction materials accumulate in the built environment forming material stocks (MS) of buildings and infrastructure, providing various services to society that result in a nexus of human development and environmental impact. Meanwhile, unprecedented urbanization in the Global South is set to put significant demand on the resources required to ensure adequate standards of living in new and existing urban areas. This is particularly important within India; however, no study has yet explored MS within cities in India or within master‐planned urban areas designed to accommodate urbanization and a high standard of living. The present study begins to fill these gaps and aims to investigate patterns of built‐environment MS accumulation in Chandigarh, an exceptionally quickly developed city master planned to ensure universally high standards of living through a unique urban form. We adopt a bottom‐up approach to quantify the residential building and road MS at the city and sub‐city scale. The results reveal that the master plan, while enabling high standards of living, has resulted in a relative accumulation of road‐to‐building stock that is significantly larger than in other cities. This is shown to be environmentally detrimental as future urban development is limited and promotes the demolition of existing stocks, whose composition severely limits their potential as secondary resources. The study therefore provides empirical evidence to support the integration of material stock assessments into urban planning and development to ensure resource‐efficient provisioning of key services.