Sustainable Urban

Planning
Mysore City(India): A Case Study

By : Shivaprakash
Yaragal
Introduction
Mysore officially renamed as
Mysuru, is the third most populous
city in the state of Karnataka ,
Republic of India. Mysore served
as the capital city of Kingdom of
Mysore for nearly six centuries,
from 1399 until 1947. The
Kingdom of Mysore was ruled by
the Wodeyar Dynasty. After Indian
independence, Mysore city
remained as part of the Mysore
State now known as Karnataka.
Mysore has a tropical savanna
climate designated Aw under the
Köppen climate classification. The
main seasons are summer from
March to June, the monsoon
season from July to November and
winter from December to February.
city's average annual rainfall is
804.2 mm (31.7 in).
This is study area
Mysore . Legend
descried the colour
and their
represented area
 Figure A : Mysore Palace was built in
1912 . It’s a single building however it
shows the architectural things of the
Traditional City
time. Mysore palace is unique blends of
Hindu, Muslim, Rajput, and Gothic
styles. The architectural style of domes
of the palace is commonly described as
Indo-Saracenic. Its now a popular civic
place equivalent to Town square.
Figure B: K R Circle. Below figure
shows its location on ESRI Maps along
with aerial view and street view. Street
here are broad. And straight. Its
example of radial road plan.Old building Figure A: Mysore
built during 1920s are common sight. Its palace

Figure B: popular market place.

K R Circle
 Figure c: Road Network 1914
Figure D : Clock Tower .
A.D.

Source
:http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/baedeker_indien_1914/txu-
pclmaps-mysore_1914.jpg
Figure c shows the digitized road network of the old Figure E: Irwin Road
Map of Mysore 1914 A.D. This map has been geo
rectified and overlaid on ESRI map in ArcGIS. Straight
and broad roads are the characteristics, which can be
seen in the above map.. Irwin road in figure E has
circular plazza.

Figure D shows clock tower and town hall and a broad

straight road is big market road.
Figure E is Irwin road which was built during the
construction of Railway station (1890s ). This road
connects city with railway station.
 Green City Design: University of Mysore
area
Established in 1916. Its state
university. Its well planned mini city
with wide roads, staff quarters
plantation, trees along roads. Even
a lake comes under this. Map
shows how green cover, lake ,
open space, institution and staff
quarters are spread in the region

Figure G shows broad roads that are

present inside and around the university Figure F: Map of Green City Design
. The green cover can be been seen in
back ground

Figure G : Broad roads and Institution of University of Mysore

Images are that of building that
are related to university.
Traditional building architecture
is used. Its one of the most
green part of Mysore.

Lake in picture is called kukkarahalli

lake which means Village of Crane .
This lake is attached to University
Property. Here some species are
resident and some are migratory.
However there has been reports that
lake is suffering from eutrophication.
 Modern City Design : Infosys city ,
SEZ(Special Economic Zone)
Infosys is the major IT company in
India. It has established largest IT
training centre in Hebbal industrial
area of Mysore City. Its SEZ ie
SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE . It is
spread across 337 acres, which can
train 14000 trainees at any given
time. It’s a mini city with
• Cricket ground
• ground for athletics
• indoor game facilities
• Hostel facility
• Multiplex
• Training facility
• Food court

The location of these along with the

photos is present in the story map
Figure H: Bird view of the Infosys SEZ

The main office of Infosys is example of

Greek architecture. The Glass doom
houses 4 multiplexs. SEZ also athletic
ground. The glass building in the back
ground is training centre. All hostel are
like high rise residential complex. Huge
food court is also part of the SEZ. Figure
H gives bird view of the Infosys SEZ.
 System Design : Chamundi Vihar
Sports complex
In Figure I, 3 parts of sports complex are
shown by numerical 17, 18 , 19. This
complex has indoor and out door facility.
Athletics are conducted in number 17. In
number 18 you can see hockey ground and
in back ground there is indoor stadium. This
is for basket ball and batminton.

Number
17

Figure I: Shows location

Chamudivihar Sports complex.
Number
18

Number 18
 Figure A . LULC 2001 Figure B . LULC 2014

Figure A and B are the out come supervised classification of

Landsat Imagery of 2001 and 2011. Month taken are March in each
y = 81.867x2 - 312599x +
3E+08 case. March in this part will be summer, hence the green cover that
R² = 0.9911 exist is near to minimum for particular area.
• Green cover which is denoted by green colour in legend is both
forest and agricultural land.
• Settlement is both image is shown by Red color in the legend
• Blue represent water body and remaining can be seen in legend
Figure C shows population decadal growth . Data is from Census
of India. Accordingly by 2020 Mysore will have more than 1 million
Figure C . Population. residents
According to 2011 census 8.9 lakh population hence within9 years more than 1 lakh people will be added to this city. So its
necessary to give direction to growth of the city. If you see Figure A and B there is exist spatial pattern with respect to Mysore
city. Urban settlement which is in Red is surrounded by Green cover which is agricultural land from the North. And from north west
there exist Dam so Future city must not spread towards North and North west. We also need to verify about what type of green
cover or agricultural land it is. Is it
For city to have food security then crop land must be used for city development, especially 2
• 1 season crop land
season crop land or 3 season crop land. In next page I have used MODIS NDVI product
• 2 season crop land
MOD13A2 of July, November and February to detect the vegetation area.
• Or 3 season crop land
 As previously said Red color represents Urban Settlement. In legends
represents. 1 Season represents 4 month. Dark color are water bodies.
• 0 – very low green cover
• 1 – atleast 1 season green cover
• 2 – atleast 2 season green cover
• 3 – green cover all round the year.
Hence from this image only the areas that are Blue in nature are
better suited expansion of city in near future.

Figure E is 2014 NDWI from LandSat 8 . 2014 is EL-NINO year for

India, but even then water content in this area is fair enough. NDWI
gives area which has moisture content. It can be either agriculture
or forest or water bodies or wet lands. In the image Blue are area
which has high water content these should be No go area for City
expansion. This image is spatially similar to figure D. “No go” will
Figure D: MODIS NDVI help to conserver wet lands, preserver water bodies and will
provide future food security. As there exist other land which has
low water content shown is graded red is suitable for plan. This
a district administration could decide on.

Its also import to understand the pressure points that exist

Figure E: NDWI(Normalized difference water index).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalized_difference_water_index
in and around cities that leads to expansion of that area.
There are such point in Mysore. This is given in Figure F.
Bangalore which is Information Technology hub of
Karnataka is 147 Km. There is proposal of connecting
Mysore-Bangalore with Express highway called NICE
Corridor, which run parallel to existing National Highway
275. Part of NH 275 also goes towards western
ghats(Mountain Range). Intersection of Ring Road with
NH275 and Ring Road with NICE corridor will generate
huge pressure points. NICE corridor also passes through
some of the agricultural lands and wet lands. This pressure
has also to be pointed out so has to sustainably develop
the area.
 NICE corridor will connect one of the biggest IT hub in India to this
City. Hence lot of planning has been done but its being opposed
by farmer in the area as most of agricultural land is being used for
development. Buffer of 1 km on both side of Corridor along
This is NH275 . the NICE will be under pressure. Towards Mysore NICE would
Srirangapatanum and Other Mahadevpura along include Ecological tourism as main theme . These will be
junction is pressure point proposed NICE
corridor is pressure
developed near Rammanahalli which is near Ring Road(that
point encircle the City). From the Figure F NICE corridor that passes
A between Taripur and Rammanahalli doesn’t have considerable
amount of Agricultural lands but its after Taripur where ecological
Taripur is
tourism is being promoted. Area between Taripur and
village which is Mahadevpura has lot of Agricultural land and wet lands which
another
pressure point
the responsible authorities like District administration and Highway
authority must keep in mind and develop it sustainably.

There are other 2 pressure points near Srirangapatanum along

NH275 denoted by “A” in the Figure F. These 2 points need to
developed sustainably else these will become Urban spread
points in near future resulting in destruction of Wet lands and
Agricultural lands. Srirangapattanum is Island Town attracts huge
tourist which and hence must be developed as both economically,
ecologically and culturally. There are other pressure points which
are
In shown
order tobyplan
buffer 1 km.
development of Mysore it should involve
• Creation of Green buffer
Figure F : Pressure points around Mysore • Ecological and cultural tourism city
• Preservation of wet lands
To do these 3 things following are the stake holder that need to be
involved
• Divisional administration of Mysore and Mandya
• Farmer unions and local political leaders
• Mysore citizen forums and rotary club Next page has image of City Design using
• Developers guild , contractors and academia SketchUp. It’s a little effort to design My
Public consultation is very necessary in bringing transparency and Own City(MOC)
validity . There has been cases in Mysore where people have protested
against administrative decision on urban development.
 Figure G : Top View of MOC
Figure H shows 3D view of City that can be planned along the NICE corridor .
These will be green project which are possible in 3 location Taripur and
Rammanahalli and another pressure points. Figure G show top view of MOC city.
It has following
• Solar roofing for Business District and Residential parcel. 30 % of electricity
should be developed via solar.
• Green roofing on building in Business district for reducing power consumption.
• Wide and straight roads with dedicated public
transport lane equivalent to Bagota model of
Bus transport(Bus Rapid Transit).
• Wind power will power the components of the
city
• City administration will have building which
are shaped in semicircle. Basically a
“Panopticon” . So that they can manage the
city. This is shown in Red Color building .
• City centre will be large green area filled with
parks and trees. It will have a City centre and
a Mall.
• There will 7 Residential components .These
may have common architectural rules or
separate architectural rules.
• Each component will be independent of each
other, which mean every one will have there
own utility centres and other amenities.

Creating sustainable and Smart city is main

agenda where sensor network integrated with
GIS could play a important role. This design can
be further enhanced using ESRI’s City Engine.
Figure H : My Own City (MOC) Which I will be working in coming day.
Street : Sayaji Rao Road
 Sayaji Rao Road (Figure A)is one the most vibrant part
of the old Mysore city. Its named after Maharaja
Sayajirao Gaekwad in Vadodara who was the friend of
the Maharaja of Mysore, Chamaraja Wodeyar who ruled
the southern princely state between 1881 and 1894. The
old building are of that age. The road start from K R
Circle . Both on left side road its filled with street shops
starting from food to cloths. Road starts with Dufferin
Clock Tower(Figure B) which was commissioned in
1886. Figure B shows Dufferin Clock Tower . This place
is daily occupied by retail vegetable sellers. Shops that
supply sweets faces this clock. In Figure B you could see
cars parked in the back ground.

Figure A
If we move along the same road we have Devaraja
Market(Figure C: Next Page). Its both retail and whole
sale market for Mysore resident . Its The conservative
estimates put the age of the Devaraja market about
120 years. The original market place could be much
older, as old at the origin of this city as settlement.
The place were people lived in this part of Mysore
was called Devaraja Mohalla, named afer one of the
two successive maharajas shared the same name (ie,
Figure B Dodda Devaraja Wodeyar (1659-1673) or Chikka
 It has more than 800 traders. It’s the typical example of how dynamic and how colourful the Indian
markets will be. Its has Spice market, flower traders market, bangles market, sweet market, fruits
market, color market. Below pictures are show these. These has been changing and has modified
over years.

Figure C
 If we move ahead in the road on the opposite side we
stumble upon Cauvery Emporium. Its built during
regime of Chamaraja Wodeyar IX (1868 - 1894) .
Figure D shows it. Its now occupied by Government
which runs emporium which has sandal wood sculpture
and other souvenirs. This attract huge number of
tourist both local and foreign. It also has stalls of
authentic Chanapattana Toys(Figure F) which are
made of “wood”. Figure E shows sandal wood
sculpture which are of Indian Gods and Goddess,
these varies in prices from as high as $1000 to $5000 Figure D
and as low as $50

Figure F Figure E
 Figure G Garuda mall by MCC

Figure H JSS Medical Figure I : Mall of

College Mysore
The following discussion that will be followed are not specific to Mysuru, these are general advise that could
be followed while working of design aspect of the city. On each element there could be reach, that should be
carried out to get precise development agenda. Here in the following discussion Mumbai and London are
mentioned as example and comparative understanding is drawn using these 2 cities.

 Public space
 Mixed use building
 Planning
 Govern the rural-urban continuum
 Enhance the resilience
 Protect ecological systems
 Develop critical infrastructure
 Housing
Figure J: Number of planner
 Livelihood opportunities
 Enable the Integration
 Peace and Public Order
 Public financing for public systems
 Managing Political Institutions
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Thank You