The Concept Plan sees Thimphu as a system of communities. There are “family communities,” neighborhood communities, the city community, and specialized communities of interest groups within the city and there is the national community. All of these communities fit into an urban hierarchy in a manner similar to the way Russian Dolls fit one within the other. The most essential community is the neighborhood community, or the Urban Village.

In the early stages the neighborhoods of Thimphu may have populations as low as 7,500 people, or about fifteen hundred families. These would grow as densification takes place, up to about two thousand families.

Each neighborhood would have a node, which would be like a traditional village center. It would have a small park with a toddler’s play area. It would have a “phone-in” taxi kiosk, with a newsstand, a clinic, provisions shop, barber, neighborhood pub, bakery, cyber café, laundry and other convenience shops. These would be a vibrant nodes where mothers can ‘take a break’ during the day and saunter down to meet friends and do a little shopping. It would be linked by pedestrian walkways. The park would abut the transport station, so that alighting passengers could relax and do some shopping on the way home from work. The parking area would also be attached so that shopping can be more pedestrianized and the node and the transport station can use the facility together. There are ample Bhutanese examples (Ura Village below) of traditional communities, and also of cozy, intimate designed neighborhoods abroad, as seen in Chatham Village, Pittsburgh, USA.

Ura Village is a Classic Model of Bhutanese Urban Order

Chatham Village at Pittsburgh, USA, Engenders Human Scale, Pedestrian Movement, Compact, High Density Urban Fabric