Since its inception, we have known there is no better place to live in than Chandigarh. Neatly planned and divided symmetrically, Chandigarh is nothing short of a utopia. And BBC agrees, for they have just named it the most perfect, 'remarkable ideal' city in the world.

In a story that the BBC ran, 'Is this the perfect city?', 1writer Jonathan Glancey takes us down its history and bares open its soul. He discusses how the planning, infrastructure, neighbourhood and the amalgam of tradition and modernity makes Chandigarh a flawless metropolis.

• 1. The question is especially important now, given the world’s rapidly increasing population and the accelerating drift of people from countryside to cities. Should we tinker or somehow revamp existing cities to cope, or should we build new places to dwell?

  History, however, offers words of warning: it is littered with failed ideal cities. While we do not know exactly how, where, when and why the very first cities emerged, it seems likely that, to begin with, they grew organically. Yes, there were clearly moments in their history when grand new city centres with great, civic, religious and military monuments were decreed, yet often when cities have been conjured this way, they have ground to a halt, or turned into dust.

  When, for example, Pharaoh Akhenaten decreed a new capital city in 1346BC, his subjects were unconvinced by his dramatic gesture. Not only was Amarna an entirely new city, it also represented the overthrow of Egypt’s ancient religious culture. Akhenaten – father of Tutankhamun and husband of Nefertiti – had created his own monotheistic religion, confining the old gods to history

  Source: BBC.