URBAN PLANNING

PRINCIPLES
THEORIES AND PRACTICES
CONCENTRIC ZONE MODEL
- by E.W. Burgess, a University of
Chicago Sociologist, in 1925. The city
grows in a radial expansion from the
center to form a series of concentric
zones or circles such as in Chicago

- CBD (cope, loop)

- zone of transion
- homes of factory workers
- residential zone of high class
apartment buildings or single-family
dwellings
- commuter zone
- the process of invasion and
succession explains the successive rings
HOYT MODEL OR SECTOR MODEL
• by Homer Hoyt, an economist in
1939. Hoyt examined the spatial
variations in household rent in 1942
American cities.
• It is a modification of
the concentric zone
model of city development. The
benefits of the application of this
model include the fact it allows for
an outward progression of growth.
Multiple Nuclei Model

Developed by two geographers Chauncy

Harris and Eduard Ullman in 1945. Cities
tend to grow around not one but several
districts nuclei.

A city might start with a single central

business district (CBD), but over the time the
activities scatter and gets modified. The
scattered activities attract people from
surrounding areas and act as smaller nuclei in
itself. These small nuclei gain importance and
grow in size and start influencing the growth
of activities around them.
THE CONSERVATIONIST AND THE PARK
MOVEMENT
Frederick Law Olmsted
• Pioneer of the American park system
• He was a social reformer, concerned with
the moral disintegration in large formless
cities.
• “Public Parks and the Enlargement of
Towns”
• cities planned for two generations ahead.
• maintain sufficient breathing space.
THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT
Ebenezer Howard
• Three magnets in his paradigm depicted
both the city and the countryside had
both advantages and disadvantages.
• Creation of jobs and and urban services
resulted in poor natural environment.
• The countryside offered an excellent
natural environment of any kind.
THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT
Ebenezer Howard
• Showed how workable and livable cities
could be formed within a capitalist
framework.
• Cluster concept whereby a central city of
58,000 people was surrounded by “garden
cities” of 30,000 people each separated by
permanent green belts serving as
horizontal fence of farmlands
THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT
Ebenezer Howard
• Rails and roads would link the towns with
industries and nearby towns supplying
fresh food.
• In 1902, a garden city was established in
Letchworth, 35 miles from London
(Planned by Architects Barry Parker and
Raymond Unwin)
CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT

Daniel Burnham
• Father of American City Planning
• Prophet of City Beautiful Movement in America
• Greatest achievement is the Chicago Plan of
1909
CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT
• The golden age of urban design in the US.
• According to Burnham, city was a totally designed system of main circulation
arteries, a network of parks building blocks of civic centers including city hall,
a country court house, a library, an opera house, a museum and a plaza.
• The movement gave way to the city functional concepts including zoning.
COLUMBIAN EXPO, 1893. A panoramic view of the World's
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1892-1893 contemporary
American lithograph poster.
NEW COMMUNITY MOVEMENT
SUPER BLOCK CONCEPT
• City blocks are the space for buildings within
the street pattern of a city, and form the basic
unit of a city's urban fabric.
• City blocks may be subdivided into any
number of smaller land lots usually in private
ownership, though in some cases, it may be
other forms of tenure.
NEW COMMUNITY MOVEMENT
NEIGHBORHOOD UNIT
• Creation of neighborhood centers and physical
delineation of neighborhood groups.
• organization of town into cohesive neighborhoods.
Walking distance radius is one mile.
• Residential streets are suggested as cul-de-sacs to
eliminate through traffic and park space flows into
the neighborhood.
• “The neighborhood unit” by Clarence Stain
NEW COMMUNITY MOVEMENT
RADBURN’S CONCEPT
• Separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
• Large block surrounded by main roads
• Cul-de-sacs
• Remaining land will be Park areas
• Allotted walkways for pedestrians to reach
social places without crossing the roads.
IMAGE OF THE CITY
• The elements in a built structure of a city are
important in the perception of the city.
• What does the city actually mean to the people
who live there? What can the city planner do to
make the city’s image more vivid and
memorable to the dweller?
ELEMENTS
• PATHS
• Paths are the channels along which the
observer customarily, occasionally, or
potentially moves.
• They may be streets, walkways, transit
lines, canals, railroads.
• along these paths the other
environmental elements are arranged and
related.
ELEMENTS
• EDGES
• Edges are the linear elements not used or
considered as paths by the observer.
• They are the boundaries between two
phases, linear breaks in continuity: shores,
railroad cuts, edges of development, walls.
ELEMENTS
• DISTRICT
• Districts are the medium-to-Iarge sections of
the city, conceived of as having two-
dimensional extent, which the observer
mentally enters "inside of," and which are
recognizable as having some common,
identifying character.
• Always identifiable from the inside, they are
also used for exterior reference if visible from
the outside.
ELEMENTS
• NODES
• Nodes are points, the strategic spots in
a city into which an observer can enter,
and which are the intensive foci to and
from which he is traveling.
• They may be primarily junctions, places
of a break in transportation, a crossing
or convergence of paths, moments of
shift from one structure to another.
ELEMENTS
• LANDMARK
• They are usually a rather simply
defined physical object: building, sign,
store, or mountain.
• Their use involves the singling our of
one element from a host of
possibilities. Some landmarks are
distant ones, typically seen from many
angles and distances, over the tops of
smaller elements, and used as radial
references.
IAN BENTLEY’S RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENT
Clearly demonstrates the specific characteristics
that make for comprehensible, friendly and
controllable places; 'Responsive Environments'
The design of a place affects the choices people
can make, at many levels:
1. Permeability
2. Legibility
3. Variety
4. Robustness
5. Visual Appropriateness
6. Richness
7. Personalization
PERMEABILITY
• It affects where people can go, and where they cannot.
• Only places which are accessible to people can offer them
choice.
• The extent to which an environment allows people a choice of
access through it, from place to place, is therefore a key
measure of its responsiveness.
• The decline of public permeability three current design trends
work against permeable public space:
• Increasing scale of development. Smaller blocks, give more physical
permeability for a given investment
• Use of hierarchical layouts. in public space. They also increase
• Pedestrian vehicle segregation. visual permeability, improving
people’s awareness of the choice
available
VARIETY
• Variety of experience implies places with
varied forms, uses and meanings.
• Variety of use unlocks the other levels of
variety:
• A place with varied uses has varied building
types, of varied forms.
• It attracts varied people, at varied times, for
varied reasons.
• Because the different activities, forms and
people provide a rich perceptual mix,
different users interpret the place in
different ways: it takes on varied meanings.
LEGIBILITY
• The quality which makes a place graspable.
• Legibility is important at two levels:
• Physical form.
• Activity patterns.

• Legibility in old days:

• Legibility worked well, Places that looked
important were important, and places of public
relevance could easily be identified.
• Important building stood out.

• Legibility in modern days:

• legible only in the sense that ‘buildings cannot lie.
LEGIBILITY ANALYSIS THROUGH
5 ELEMENTS OF A CITY
(Kevin Lynch)
ROBUSTNESS
• Places which can be used for many different purposes offer their
users more choice than places whose design limits them to a
single fixed use.
• Experience suggests that there are three key factors which
support long-term robustness,:
• Building depth : The vast majority of building uses
require natural light and ventilation.
• Access: All building uses need some links to the
outside world.
• Height: The importance of access also affects
building height.
• Preferred configuration:
• shallow in plan
• many points of access
• limited height
VISUAL APPROPRIATENESS
• A vocabulary of visual cues must be found to
communicate levels of choice
• Is mostly important in the more public spaces of
the scheme.
What makes visual appropriate?
The interpretations people give to a place can
reinforce its responsiveness at three different
levels:
• by supporting its legibility, in terms of form.
• by supporting its variety.
• by supporting its robustness, at both large
and use small scales.
RICHNESS
• Variety of sense experiences that users can
enjoy
• Dealing with the smallest details of the
project. The planner must decide
whereabouts in the scheme to provide
richness, both visual and non-visual, and
select appropriate materials and
constructional techniques for achieving it.
• Visual richness depends on the presence of
visual contrasts in the surfaces concerned.
PERSONALIZATION
• Allows and encourages people to achieve an environment that
bears the stamp of their values and tastes
• The stages of design already covered have been directed at
achieving the qualities which support the responsiveness of the
environment itself, as distinct from the political and economic
processes by which it is produced.
• Users personalize in two ways:
• to improve practical facilities.
• to change the image of a place.

• Personalization is affected by three main factors:

• Tenure
• Building type
• Technology
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
• PERMEABILITY : Designing the overall layout of routes and
development blocks.
• VARIETY : Locating uses on the site.
• LEGIBILITY : Designing the massing of the buildings and the
enclosure of public space.
• ROBUSTNESS : Designing the spatial and constructional arrangement of individual
buildings and outdoor spaces.
• VISUAL APPROP. : Designing the external image.
• RICHNESS : Developing the design for sensory choice.
• PERSONALIZATION : Making the design encourage people to put their
own mark on the places where they live and work.
URBAN FORM AND FUNCTION
• URBAN FORM : The physical patterns, layouts, and structures that make up an
urban center.
• Urban forms are ever changing, adapting with every new building, park, sidewalk,
road, or gate that's erected.
• As urban forms develop and change, we can identify two major variations.
• Organic urban form is one that develops without centralized planning.
• Planned urban form is designed and coordinated. The ways that urban centers
grow, whether in organic or planned ways, can tell us a lot about the attitudes,
beliefs, lifestyles, and influences of people who live there.
URBAN FORM AND FUNCTION
Concerns:
• Landforms
• Shape
• Size and Density
• Routes
• Urban spaces
• Architecture
• Details
• Inhabitants
• Movement
• City Functions
LANDFORMS
• Topography • Relationship with Nature

Cities within Nature Cities and Nature

Nature within
Cities
SHAPE
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
RADIOCENTRIC

PARIS, FRANCE
SATELLITE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA GRID
SIZE AND DENSITY
• Physical extent : Measured in KM across, or center to outskirts, or
square KM.
• Density formula : number of inhabitants with respect to physical size;
can be computed in several ways:
• Number of people per sq.KM or hectare
• Number of families per block (residential density)
• Number of houses per sq,KM or hectare
• Amount of building floor area per section
• Automobile population, Floor Area Ratio (FAR), etc.
ROUTES
HEIRARCHY OF URBAN ROADS
EXPRESSWAYS / FREEWAYS (Controlled access highways)
• Limited-access highways, often with tolls.
• Along expressways, the motor traffic attains very high speeds.
• A controlled-access highway provides an unhindered flow of traffic, with no traffic
signals, intersections or property access.

ARTERIAL ROADS
• The city roads which are meant for through traffic usually on a continuous route.
• Arterial roads are also divided highways with fully or partially controlled access.
• major through roads that are expected to carry large volumes of traffic.
• The width of arterial roads can range from four lanes to ten or more
• In many cities, arteries are arranged in concentric circles or in a grid.
HEIRARCHY OF URBAN ROADS
COLLECTOR ROADS
• The city roads which are constructed for collecting and distributing the traffic to and
from local streets, and also to provide an access to arterial and sub-arterial streets
• A collector road usually consists of a mixture
of signaled intersections, roundabouts, traffic circles, or stop signs, often in the form of
a four-way stop.
LOCAL ROADS
• The city roads which provide an access to residence, business and other buildings
• Along local streets pedestrians may move freely and parking may be permitted without
any restriction
• These roads have the lowest speed limit, and carry low volumes of traffic.
• In some areas, these roads may be unpaved.
URBAN SPACE
• well-defined public streets; plazas, parks, playgrounds, quadrangles, etc.
ARCHITECTURE
• Scale
• Character
• Texture
DETAILS
• traffic signs, billboards, store signs,
etc. - sidewalks, street furniture,
urban landscaping, pavers, etc.
• street vendors, traffic enforcers,
entertainers, etc.
INHABITANTS
• ethnic background, social class, sex, etc.
• activities
MOVEMENT
• Vehicular
• Pedestrian
CITY FUNCTIONS
ECONOMIC
• A basic and continuing function. The city acts as producers and marketplaces.
• Locating cities at strategic points is important for the exchange of goods.

DEFENSE AND PROTECTION

• Historic urban functions of the city, though quite obsolete at present -Cities
were once built to withstand sieges from migrating tribes, or frequent raids from
enemies.
CITY FUNCTIONS
WORSHIP AND GOVERNMENT
• The prime function of the city throughout history
• Cities were built around temples, shrines, and pyramids in ancient Egypt,
Greece, and Rome.
• The medieval cathedral was the center of the city, as were renaissance palaces
and castle
TRANSPORTATION
• Greatly influences the location of cities since they are dependent on geography
• New means of transportation have enabled people to live in much larger more
spread out cities
CITY FUNCTIONS
Education and Culture
• Cities have always been the seat of academy and scholarship and is a continuing
function.
• Due to the diversity of people, ideas, jobs, etc., the city is seen as an educator.
• Ancient theaters, religious festivals, city beautification, etc. is a reflection of
cultural pride.
Housing
• The largest and simplest function of a city.
• Through the years, housing functions of the inner city have shifted to outlying
areas.
URBANIZATION
• The process by which large numbers of people become permanently concentrated
in relatively small areas, forming cities.
• It predominantly results in the physical growth of urban areas, be it horizontal or
vertical.
• Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic
transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly
rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture.
URBANIZATION
PRIMARY CAUSES OF URBANIZATION FACTORS LEAD TO URBANIZATION
• Job Opportunities • Economic opportunities
• Migration • Proper infrastructure and availability
of utilities
• Availability of Transportation
• Availability of public facilities
• Infrastructure facilities
• Growth of private sector
TOP 5
BEST CITIES IN THE WORLD
as of 2019
According to Business insider
Los Angeles, US #5
London, UK #4
Chicago, US #3
Melbourne, Aus. #2
New York, US #1
URBANIZATION PROBLEMS
TOP TEN?
URBAN SPRAWL
• Refers to the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial
development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban
planning.
• Uncoordinated growth: the expansion of community without concern for its
consequences, in short, unplanned, incremental urban growth which is often regarded
unsustainable.
• It is criticized for causing environmental degradation, intensifying segregation, and
undermining the vitality of existing urban areas and is attacked on aesthetic grounds.
URBAN SPRAWL
CHARACTERISTIC OF URBAN SPRAWL:
• Low or Single-use development
• Job Sprawl
• Leapfrog development
• Automobile dependency
• Undefined space between urban and rural areas
• Conversion of agricultural land to urban use
• Housing subdivisions
• Commercial characteristics
• Strip “Ribbon” Development
MIGRATION CONSEQUENCES
• Over population
• Rapid increase of housing demand
• Slums
• Unhygienic conditions
• Health issues

• Urban Crimes
• Pollution
• Inadequate Facilities and Supplies
7 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING BETTER
CITIES
1. Preserve : the natural environment, the history and the critical agriculture.
2. Mix : Mixed-use is popular but it is meant as, mixed incomes, mixed age group, as well
as mixed land-use.
3. Walk : There is no great city that you don’t enjoy walking in.
4. Bike : The most efficient means of transportation we know.
5. Connect : It’s a street network that allows many routes instead of singular route and provides
many kinds of street instead of just one.
6. Ride : We have to invest more on transit.
7. Focus : We have a hierarchy of the city based on transit rather than an old armature
freeways. It is a big paradigm shift but those two thing have to get reconnected in
ways that really shape the structure of the city