Intelligent Urbanism sees the towns like Gelephu as part of a larger social, economic and geographical organism…the Sarpang-Gelephu region. Likewise, it sees the region as an integral part of Gelephu. Moreover it sees this micro-economic region as part of the larger region of Central Bhutan, and like a set of Russian dolls, this larger region of Central Bhutan is part of the national economic system. Planning of the Gelephu Structure Plan and its hinterland is a single holistic process. Intelligent Urbanism respects the fact that a vibrant town exerts an influence over its immediate surrounds. It can catalyze upliftment, or deteriorate the hinterland that supplies its raw materials, food, workers, recreation areas and environmental cushion. Town growth and development into a Growth Center is an organic part of a much larger regional organism. In Gelephu, it includes not only the Sarpang-Gelephu economic region, but also the catchment area of Central Bhutan for which Gelephu is both the port of entry and the Growth Center. If one does not recognize growth as a regional phenomenon, then development will play a hop-scotch game of moving just a little down the valley, or up the hills, keeping beyond the path of the town’s boundaries, development regulations and of the urban tax regime. If one does not recognize the wholeness of the town and its region, the town will ruthlessly exploit its surrounds, denuding the hills of trees, quarrying out hillsides for stone, grassing off the biomass for milk and meat. Moreover, the Sarpang–Gelephu Special Economic Zone must be envisioned as an economic “Power House” igniting the vast potentials of Bhutan’s people, natural resources and comparative advantages.

Socially the Gelephu region may be defined as the catchment area from which employees and students commute into the town on a daily basis. It is the catchment area from which people choose to visit one town, as opposed to another, for retail shopping and entertainment. Economically it may be seen as the zone from which perishable foods, firewood and building materials supply the town. The economic region can also be defined as the area managed by exchanges in the town. Telephone calls to and within the Gelephu region go through the town’s telephone exchange; post goes through the town’s post office; money transfers go through the town’s financial institutions and internet data passes electronically through the town’s servers. The area over which “city exchanges” disperse matter can well be called the town’s economic hinterland or region. Usually the region includes dormitory communities, airports, water reservoirs, hydro facilities, out-of-doors recreation and other infrastructure that serves the town. Intelligent Urbanism sees the integrated planning of these services and facilities as part of the town planning process. There must be an urban control and development zone which reaches well beyond municipal boundaries.

Intelligent Urbanism understands that the social and economic region linked to Gelephu also has a physical form, or a geographic character. This character may be the plain that connects mountains to the sea, or a river valley and the hill forms framing it. In Gelephu it is the unique geo-climatic zone where the great Himalayas meet the Indian plains. A hierarchy of watersheds gives pattern to the geographic character. Forest ranges, fauna and avifauna habitats are set within such regions and are connected by natural corridors for movement and cross-fertilization. Within this larger, environmental scenario, one must conceptualize urbanism in terms of watersheds, subterranean aquifer systems, and other natural systems that operate across the entire region. Economic infrastructure, such as roads, hydro basins, irrigation channels, water reservoirs and related distribution networks usually follow the terrain of the regional geography. The region’s geographic portals, and lines of control, may also define defense and security systems deployment.

Intelligent Urbanism recognizes that there is always a spillover of population from the town into the region, and that population in the region moves into the town for work, shopping, entertainment, health care and education. With thoughtful planning the Gelephu region can take pressure off of the town. Traditional and new settlements within the urban region can be enhanced and densified to house additional urban households. There are many activities within the town, which are growing and are incompatible with urban habitat. Large, noisy and polluting workshops and manufacturing units are amongst these. In this way the new industrial development estate is outside of the central Gelephu town, on the road to Sarpang. This will affect the specifications of the Sarpang to Gelephu road and the placement of workers and managers’ housing estates within the region. Large wholesale markets, storage sheds, vehicular maintenance garages, and wood working mills need to be housed outside of the town’s limits in their own satellite enclaves. These also must be on the road linking Sarpang to Gelephu. Gelephu can remain an “economic and social backwater”, or become Bhutan’s industrial heartland! It can be our very own Wild West or ‘Bihar’, or it can become our Singapore or Ruhr Valley!

Intelligent Urbanism is not planning for the present; it is planning for subsequent decades, centuries and forever. Intelligent Urbanism is futuristic, in that it must forecast the scenarios to come, within Gelephu’s own boundaries, and the boundaries of the distant future.