The Rise of Suburbia

Choked city centres are driving people and companies out to the quietude and lush sprawl of suburban townships.

By Angana Bharali

You: a 40-something millionaire. Job: Senior Veep. Take home: Rs 18 lakh per annum. Assets: A two-bedroom flat in city, a house in your native place; two cars; a wife; and two teenage kids. What more could you want? How about some fresh air, open space, and real greenery, you say.

As quality of life becomes a big, big work issue, both executives and their employer corporations are making a beeline to green sprawls outside cities. According to real estate consultants Jone Lang LaSalle, there's an estimated grade A stock (comprising commercial space with central air-conditioning and full power back-up) of 23.18 million square feet in the four metros of Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore. The availability of less sophisticated commercial real estate (called grade B) is even higher at 27.82 million sq. ft.

The obvious reasons for the growth are, one, growing affluence of the working class; two, relatively cheap real estate prices and better civic amenities; and the opportunity to live in a more organised community, with its share of greenery and well-designed malls. Points out Arvind Singhal, 42, Managing Director, KSA Technopak: "City centres have become overgrown, development has not kept pace with the type and quantum of demand, so people as well as companies are moving out."

Bedroom Community?

Unlike in the West, the suburbanisation of cities in India has not been driven so much by a real hankering for space as the aspirations of a certain kind of people. More often than not, they are between 35 and 45 years of age, close to the top of the corporate hierarchy, and discriminating about the choices they make in life. Take P. Dwarakanath, 52, Head, HRD, SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare. Besides the economics of it, Dwarakanath's decision factored in the prospect of living in an apartment complex that had "club life and neighbours who held similar jobs in comparable companies".

Quality, however, costs. Oak Wood, an upscale complex promoted by DLF in Gurgaon, costs something like Rs 1,300 per sq. ft, and the top-end (like Laburnum, again in Gurgaon) can cost as much as Rs 2,200 per sq. ft. Same holds true in the case of Whitefield near Bangalore, or Tidal Park off Chennai. These off-town communities are popular with expats and successful professionals. Says Pranay Sinha, 28, Retail Manager, Jones Lang LaSalle: "It is not necessarily the magnitude of people that is driving the growth, but a particular set of people with a certain kind of education and standing in life."

If the suburbia-seekers are not turning into bedroom community--people who need to commute so much daily that they only come home to sleep--it's because their employers seem keen to move with them. British Airways, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Pepsi have all moved to Gurgaon in the last four years. In Mumbai, Satyam Infoway, and IIS Infotech have moved to Andheri; ICICI and IL&FS also have new offices in Bandra-Kurla. And in Bangalore, Lucent Technology has migrated to International Technology Park in Whitefield. Points out Anshuman Magazine, 35, Managing Director (South Asia), CB Richard Ellis: "The push from corporates will come because the walk-to-work concept has caught on."

The coming together of affluent, high-life people is attracting a range of service providers, including schools to malls to theatres. In Gurgaon, a 250,000-sq. ft mall is coming up, and all its retail space is already booked. And the retailers waiting in the wings are top-notch brands like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Shoppers' Stop, Nike, and Anupam PVR. The promise, obviously, is that of roping in big-ticket customers. Says Sharavan Gupta, 27, Developer, Metropolitan mall: "We are looking at people who do not think twice before spending Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 on a day's outing."

Ultimately, most of these townships would be self-sufficient. Says M.G. Menon, 43, a city planner based in Delhi: "Suburbs, be it in Vienna or Washington D.C. or Gurgaon are not nicknamed lily-white for nothing. They are gated communities of privileged people." That's a pejorative corporate India's work-hard-and-play-hard execs aren't letting weigh down on their conscience. They are simply too busy enjoying the good things of life they work so hard for.

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