Land Use in Suburbia: Perungalathur Village of Chennai Metropolitan Area

Land use of a region is a function of use of land, community, attitude of people in their daily walks of life, occupation of the region and finally location, rate and quantum of interaction irrespective of distance with the nodal point at the region. The functionality of the region differs from place to place and remains a key factor in Suburbia. Land use is obviously constrained by environmental factors such as soil characteristics, climate, topography, and vegetation. Subject of geography deals with the study of space and the nature of people who live in it and how they advocate for the changes taking place over the region, which is clearly exposed by an understanding of the literal meaning of suburbia. The suburbanites as a distinctive social element and secondly the manners, styles and customs typical of suburban life. This reveals that the nomenclature of the region wholly depends upon the intensity and type of use of land by the people. The paper aims at examining the evolving land use patterns in a Suburb of Chennai, namely, Perungalathur. The spatial and temporal variations are studied from the land use maps prepared at the Cadastral level, demographic and occupational structures of the region for the periods of 1960 – 2001 are also discussed. The Change Deduction analysis is used in the study for understanding the evolving land use pattern. By viewing the data obtained from the Adangal (Revenue Record Book) and Census data, the study suggests that this region is subjective to higher rate of land use conversion, that is, from agriculture to plots, residential its allied activities such as shops (petty shops, construction related shops) which indirectly exposes the nature of change in occupation pattern and the pull factors which have invited a change in demographic pattern of the region which elucidates the evolving land use pattern.