The Role Of Integrated Townships In Urban Planning

Urban planning is not a term we would normally associate with a city like Pune. Basically, real estate development in this city has been taking place in an unplanned manner. Developers acquire plots according to their financial capacities and fill them to the maximum possible (or permissible) extend with saleable spaces, writes Arvind Jain, Managing Director - Pride Group, Pune..

Building designs and construction quality vary wildly, again depending on each developer's financial ability or willingness to invest in these factors of construction.  This is urbanization at its worst. While erecting buildings is definitely an integral part of making an area inhabitable, such a haphazard approach leads to multiple long-term challenges. In the first place, most of the open spaces that are so necessary for harmonious and healthy city life are consumed.

Secondly, an unplanned locality will cater to the requirements of home buyers from significantly divergent socio-economic backgrounds. This not only creates unevenly aligned neighbourhoods but also grave security issues. This is because the people who provide ancillary services in the area tend to come from even lower social strata than the owners of the cheapest homes in the locality. Crime rates tend to be particularly high in emerging locations where property prices are low.

Thirdly, non-assorted developers of different projects within a locality do not invest in the area's infrastructure - their work begins and ends with the project itself. Home buyers are informed that whatever support infrastructure is currently lacking in the area will soon be provided by the municipal corporation. However, the timelines for such local government initiatives are usually hazy at best.

This is why the new development mantra of integrated townships has now become the model of the future. The existing and upcoming mega-townships in Pune's emerging areas such as Dhanori, Charoli and Wakad have taken the task of organized urban planning to the next level.

By creating such large 'cities within cities', developers of integrated townships in Pune are able to pre-empt the degradation of a new location by setting a definite development standard for the area. Thanks to their 'integrated' nature, such townships provide their own infrastructure - electricity and water shortages thereby become a thing of the past. The preservation of open spaces as part of a fixed development plan provides the lung space that is so sadly lacking in the inner city.

Security in an integrated township is independent of the safety levels of the location itself. High-tech electronic surveillance and security personnel ensure that the entire township offers its inhabitants round-the-clock, year-round peace of mind. Shopping and entertainment facilities have been screened by the developer, and the movement and activities of the personnel that work in them are always monitored.

Thanks to integrated townships, new areas in Pune are not subjected to the jagged development pattern of the inner city. From the point of both home buyers and property investors, the value of such a location does not need to grow over time - it is locked in right from the outset.