Attached
The nature of urban growth is such that it moves to fringe areas changing non-urban uses to urban
uses. It is a spatio-temporal process and a result of changes of different driving factors in the socio-economic, physical, and environmental sub systems that are directly linked with the main urban
system. Deriving those driving factors is complex, but essential for urban planners and urban policy
makers. Previously, urban scholars had considered those sub systems individually. However, these
three sub systems directly influence the main urban system and consideration of all the driving
factors in the three different sub systems together is necessary for modelling urban growth. There
is a lack of studies, which have considered the effects of the urban sub systems on the fringe urban
system, and this research aims to address this gap. Colombo urban fringe was chosen for the case
study. In order to model the Colombo fringe growth and explore the relationship between urban
growth and its driving factors, GIS based logistic regression modelling was used. The findings of
the study highlighted the positive and negative influencing factors in terms of “where the growth
should go?” and “how much of it should go?”. Driving factors in the socio-economic, physical, and
environmental sub-systems can exert their influence positively or negatively. Proximity to green
areas, land value and population density were the most influential in stimulating urban growth in
the Colombo urban fringe. The cumulative results of the various influences caused a unique pattern
of growth in the Colombo urban fringe that is quite distinct from the pattern witnessed in other
Asian countries