Burgeoning population growth and wild urban sprawl has constituted serious problems especially in
developing countries with a huge demand in housing stock. This phenomenon is more aggressive in
historical cities like Srinagar. In such cities, there exists large scale variations in housing scenario due
to differential growth and expansion patterns from core to periphery of these cities. This paper
attempts to analyze the spatio-temporal dimensions of population growth, urban sprawl and housing
quality in Srinagar City. The city has an urban history of more than six hundred years and is
experiencing the fastest growth rates amongst all the Himalayan urban centers. This has resulted in
heavy demand for various facilities including quality housing. The analysis has revealed that apart
from increasing demand for new housing facility there exist marked spatial variations in housing
quality among different wards of the city. On the one hand, lower and lower-middle income group
people live in decayed old houses in the historical part of the city. These houses are closely packed
and mostly shared by more than three households. On the other hand, qualitative and spacious
housing structures have emerged in newly developing sub-urban areas. These houses mostly belong
to higher level civil servants and elite business class with one household per house. The analysis
brings to light the behavior of population growth, urban expansion and associated housing problems
in the historical mountainous urban centre and calls for an immediate attention of planners to devise
comprehensive urban renewal, land use regulations and building design policies for the sustainable
management of housing in Srinagar city.