The concept of a self-contained neighbourhood is ambitious, idealistic, and even Utopian. In a self-contained neighbourhood, it only takes a bit of walking or cycling to reach one’s workplace, school, college, a shopping centre, and spaces of entertainment. With the proliferation of townships and gated communities in our urban spaces, people do manage to find their self-contained neighbourhood — or, something that comes close to it — but they constitute a miniscule section of the population. The vast majority however lead complex lives and have needs far too many to be met by one neighbourhood.
The more realistic alternative to self-contained neighbourhoods is “development grids”. A development grid consists of two or more major corridors that are linked to each other through connecting roads — together, these stretches, big and small, form a physical structure that roughly resembles a grid. At least one of the corridors within the grid should play host to one or more industries that generate jobs on a massive scale — a key factor encouraging people to look for housing in localities within the grid. Residents of a locality that falls within a grid can access resources offered by other localities within it as the network of roads enables them to travel easily within the grid. Housing projects abound within a well-developed grid.
In Chennai, infrastructure developments in the last ten years have led to the emergence of two such grids. The first, consisting of three corridors — Old Mahabalipuram Road, East Coast Road and Tambaram-Velachery Main Road — is still largely a work in progress. And the other — consisting of two major corridors: Vandalur-Oragadam-Walajabad Road, Singaperumal Koil-Oragadam-Sriperumbudur Road and a section of Outer Ring Road and a section of Grand Southern Trunk Road — is still in its nascent stage.
Both these development grids are expected to define housing in Chennai in the future to a great extent. There is already evidence of this in the OMR-centred grid. The three corridors are distinctly different from each other, but borrow resources through a network of connecting roads, a factor that is driving housing in various neighbourhoods found between them. Sanjay Chugh of Skylines Property Consultants says housing in Perumbakkam, a newly-sprung residential locality, is driven by this factor. Perumbakkam is located on the Medavakkam-Sholingnallur link road, which connects OMR and Tambaram-Veachery Main Road, and therefore is able to access what these two corridors have to offer.
There is a marked concentration of IT professionals in localities such as Perumbakkam that are found on connecting roads as they offer the advantages of proximity to their workplaces and access to diverse services found on the two corridors. The options for shopping are increasing by the day on Tambaram-Velachery Main Road. A majority of these establishments offer essential items. On OMR, there is a raft of colleges and schools, many of which belong to international streams, which meet another major need. “On OMR, there is a plethora of options for dining. There are now more restaurants on OMR, a new region, than Anna Nagar,” says Chugh. Through the ECR Link Road, which connects OMR to ECR, residents of OMR have more options for dining.
Link roads are the lifelines in a development grid. They serve as conduits of development. K.P. Subramanian, retired professor, Urban Engineering, Anna University, explains this: “Link roads have the potential of distributing development, thereby preventing development from being focussed only on the corridors, and they shift part of the attention to the interior areas between them.” Thanks to the Taramani 100-ft Link Road, Sholinganallur-Medavakkam Link Road, and the Thoraipakkam-Pallavaram Radial Road (which is a major road in its own right), Tambaram-Velachery Main Road has witnessed a spurt in the growth of commuter towns. Many prefer to live in these towns and travel to work on OMR, a factor that has led to an increase in apartment projects there.
Another advantage of living in a well-developed grid is its ability to disperse traffic and traffic congestion. At present, traffic snarls are a sore point for residents and commuters on OMR. Effective planning of junctions where a link road connects to a corridor, and creating more link roads wherever possible constitute a two-pronged and effective solution. “When the ECR-OMR Link Road (from Neelangarai to Thoraipakkam) is completed, traffic congestion on that section of ECR will be considerably eased. Traffic will be distributed,” explains Chugh. “Not only do they disperse and distribute traffic, but connecting roads also prevent detours (having to take a circuitous route to reach destinations), which can have an adverse effect on workplace productivity and quality of life,” says Subramanian.
On the other grid — the one centred around Oragadam, one does find many significant connecting roads now. Chugh says link roads will emerge once the areas in this region get more thickly populated. The demand for housing will steadily increase as the region supports industries that have a huge capacity for job generation. “This region will be markedly different from the OMR-centred region, as it will draw a mammoth number of blue collar workers. Sixty to eighty per cent of those working in the Oragadam-centred region will be blue collar workers. Therefore, builders will be speaking a different language of affordability. If a flat costing Rs. 25 lakh is affordable on OMR, which has a predominantly white collar working population, something that comes at half that price will be affordable here,” says Chugh. He cautions against comparing these two development grids. Doing so would be the same as comparing apples and oranges. They are different in character. “They are not in any competition. In fact, they complement each other. In the future, there will be greater connectivity between the two regions,” says Chugh.
The Grand Southern Trunk Road now serves as a point of connection between these two grids, primarily at Vandalur and Tambaram. Even now, there are many cases of people travelling from ECR to workplaces in the Orgadam region. Expatriates working in some of the companies that have set up factories here live in beach houses on ECR. When mass transit systems are established in these two development grids, there will be greater movement between them, one that would involve a wider segment of the population. Says Chugh, “With mass transit systems, there will be greater integration of the two regions which will decongest the city.”
