The city plan is laid down in a grid pattern. Divided into identical looking sectors, each sector measures 800m x 1200m. The sectors were to act as self-sufficient neighborhoods, each with its own market, places of worship, schools and colleges - all within 10 minutes walking distance from within the sector. The original two phases of the plan delineated sectors from 1 to 47, with the exception of 13.

The city was to be surrounded by a 16 kilometer wide greenbelt that was to ensure that no development could take place in the immediate vicinity of the town, thus checking suburbs and urban sprawl.

While leaving the bulk of the city’s architecture to other members of his team, Le Corbusier took responsibility for the overall master plan of the city, and the design of some of the major public buildings including the High Court, Assembly, Secretariat, the Museum and Art Gallery, School of Art and the Lake Club. Most of the other housing was done by Le Corbusier’s cousin Pierre Jeanneret, the English husband and wife team of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, along with a team of nine Indian architects — M. N. Sharma, A. Ar. Prabhawalkar, B. P. Mathur, Piloo Moody, U. E. Chowdhury, N. S. Lamba, J. L. Malhotra, J. S. Dethe and Aditya Prakash.

The city in its final form, while not resembling his previous city projects like the Ville Contemporaine or the Ville Radieuse, was an important and iconic landmark in the history of town planning. It continues to be an object of interest for architects, planners, historians and social scientists.

Social Life and Patterns

Sector 17 is the city’s heart and retail centre. It is a favourite haunt for the city inhabitants for an evening out and has many restaurants and hotels. Sector 17 is also renowned for its many shops which carry a huge diversity of goods including most Indian and foreign brands. Another commercial hub is in Sector 34.

Chandigarh is known for its high literacy rate (97%). Its popular schools and colleges include St.John’s High School, St. Anne’s Convent School, St.Xavier’s, Sacred Heart Convent High School, Carmel Convent High School, New Public School,St. Kabir High School, St. Stephens High School, DAV School, Shiwalik Public School, Government College for Girls, Government College for Men, Home Science College for Girls, Guru Gobind Singh College, Government Teacher Training College (Chandigarh, India),Govt. Teacher Training College, MCM College (Girls), SD College and DAV College. There are model schools set up by the government in various sectors, originally aimed to cater the needs of each sector. It is a major study hub for students all over Punjab, Harayana and Himachal Pradesh, and students from South-East Asia

Chandigarh also has outlets of worldwide chain restaurants like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut, Dominos and Ruby Tuesday. Chandigarh has one multiplex, Fun Republic, which is 10Km from sector 17. Chandigarh has a number of movie theatres, viz. Batra (Sector 37), Kiran (Sector 22), Piccadilly (Sector 34), Nirman (Sector 32), Neelam (Sector 17), Jagat (Sector 17) and KC (Sector 17).

Chandigarh also houses many institutes of higher learning, such as the Punjab Engineering College, PEC (Deemed University) , the Panjab University in sector 14, and the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.