For decades Chennai has been growing at an unprecedented rate and most of this growth is not pre-planned. While the city and its residents benefit from the economic expansion, rapid unplanned urbanization takes its toll in the form of traffic congestion, overcrowding and acute resource shortages. Today Chennai (not accounting outlying townships) stretches over non-homogenous metropolitan area of 4400 sq km and has city population of approximately 8 million. According to state officials this is expected to double in the next 20 years. This means the city limits are set to expand yet again, the question is if it can be planned and executed in time to accommodate the increasing demands of urbanization.