Mitigating Urban Fragmentation: A Comparative Assessment Of Green Bridging For Peri-Urban Landscape Resilience

Abstract

The development of Lahore Ring Road (LRR) has significantly improved the regional transportation logistics; however, it is also a long-lasting ‘grey barrier' which divides the peri-urban systems and breaks the micro-social fabric of adjoining residential clusters. Considering the dynamics of traffic throughput is the main approach to infrastructure assessment, this research uses a socio-ecological approach to assess the feasibility of “Green Bridging” as a restorative landscape intervention. This paper takes an infrastructural ‘barrier effect’ approach based on the secondary sources of systematic literature review and comparative case analysis to explore the infrastructural barrier effect, experienced through the urban fabric of Lahore. The study will map out key socio-ecological break points in the most affected areas of Lahore, such as Bahria Town, Lake City and Northern Loop, by comparing international precedents of vegetated overpass, namely successful models in Singapore and the Netherlands, with Lahore's micro-climatic and spatial variables. The evaluation is organised around three thematic headings: the mitigation of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect through the creation of local metabolic corridors; the reopening of the pedestrian permeability of fragmented communities; and the use of native plants for the bioremediation of vehicles exhaust. The results show that GIs are a multipurpose solution to conventional pedestrian overpasses that can serve as a social connective tissue as well as a biological conduit. The paper concludes with a vision and a strategy for introducing living architecture into the next stages of LRR development, and suggests a paradigm change to resilient and socially-engaged urban ecosystems.