Technical aspects of urban planning
Technical aspects of urban planning involve the technical processes, considerations and features that are involved in planning for land use, urban design, natural resources, transportation, and infrastructure.
Aesthetics
In developed countries, there has been a backlash against excessive human-made clutter in the visual environment, such as signposts, signs, and hoardings.[1] Other issues that generate strong debate among urban designers are tensions between peripheral growth, housing density and new settlements. There are also debates about the mixing tenures and land uses, versus distinguishing geographic zones where different uses dominate. Regardless, all successful urban planning considers urban character, local identity, respects heritage, pedestrians, traffic, utilities and natural hazards.
Planners can help manage the growth of cities, applying tools like zoning and growth management to manage the uses of land. Historically, many of the cities now thought[by whom?] the most beautiful are the result of dense, long lasting systems of prohibitions and guidance about building sizes, uses and features.[2] These allowed substantial freedoms, yet enforce styles, safety, and often materials in practical ways. Many conventional planning techniques are being repackaged using the contemporary term smart growth.
There are some cities that have been planned from conception, and while the results often do not turn out quite as planned, evidence of the initial plan often remains. (See List of planned cities)
The 20th and 21st century trend for
Safety and security
Historically within the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the Old World, settlements were located on higher ground (for defense) and close to fresh water sources.[citation needed] Cities have often grown onto coastal and flood plains at risk of floods and storm surges. Urban planners must consider these threats. If the dangers can be localised then the affected regions can be made into parkland or green belt, often with the added benefit of open space provision.
Extreme weather, flood, or other emergencies can often be greatly mitigated with secure emergency evacuation routes and emergency operations centres. These are relatively inexpensive and unintrusive, and many consider them a reasonable precaution for any urban space. Many cities will also have planned, built safety features, such as levees, retaining walls, and shelters.
In recent years,[when?] practitioners have also been expected to maximise the accessibility of an area to people with different abilities, practicing the notion of "inclusive design," to anticipate criminal behaviour and consequently to "design-out crime" and to consider "traffic calming" or "pedestrianisation" as ways of making urban life more pleasant.
Some city planners try to control
Oscar Newman's
Jane Jacobs is another notable environmental determinist and is associated with the "eyes on the street" concept. By improving ‘natural surveillance’ of shared land and facilities of nearby residents by literally increasing the number of people who can see it, and increasing the familiarity of residents, as a collective, residents can more easily detect undesirable or criminal behaviour, as, she argued, used to be the case in small traditional communities.
Jacobs went further, though, in emphasising the details in how to achieve this 'natural surveillance', in stressing the necessity of multiple uses on city streets, so that different people co-mingle with different stores and parks in a condensed part of city space.[5] By doing this, as well as by making city streets interesting, she theorised a continuous animation of social actions during an average city day, which would keep city streets interesting and well occupied throughout a 24-hour period. She presented the North End in Boston, Massachusetts, as an idealisation of this persistent occupation and tasking in a condensed city space, as a model for criminal control.
The
Some planning methods might help an elite group to control ordinary citizens.
Decay
During the 1970s and 1980s, urban decay was often associated with central areas of cities in North America and Europe. During this time, changes in global economies, demographics, transportation, and policies fostered urban decay.[7] Many planners spoke of "white flight" during this time. This pattern was different from the pattern of "outlying slums" and "suburban ghettos" found in many cities outside of North America and Western Europe, where central urban areas actually had higher real estate values.
Starting in the 1990s, many of the central urban areas in North America have been experiencing a reversal of the urban decay, with rising real estate values, smarter development, demolition of obsolete social housing and a wider variety of housing choices.[8] However, reversal of urban decay (gentrification) often causes housing affordability in the inner city to decrease, with the consequence that poorer residents are pushed out, often to older inner and middle ring suburbs. This "suburbanisation of poverty" has important implications for siting affordable housing, and transportation and social services planning.
Slums
The rapid
Slums were often "fixed" by clearance. However, more creative solutions are beginning to emerge such as Nairobi's "Camp of Fire" program, where established slum-dwellers promise to build proper houses, schools, and community centres without government money, in return for land on which they have been illegally squatting on for 30 years. The "Camp of Fire" program is one of many similar projects initiated by Slum Dwellers International, which has programs in Africa, Asia, and South America.[10]
Reconstruction and renewal
Areas devastated by war or invasion challenge urban planners. Resources are scarce. The existing population has needs. Buildings, roads, services and basic infrastructure like power, water and sewerage are often damaged, but with salvageable parts. Historic, religious or social centres also need to be preserved and re-integrated into the new city plan. A prime example of this is the capital city of
Urban reconstruction development plans must also work with government agencies as well as private interests to develop workable designs.
New master-planned cities
In the 21st century, countries in Asia and the Middle East have embarked on plans to build brand new large cities.[11][12][13] Masdar City, a new city in the UAE, cost $18 billion.[12]
One expert has said building a brand new city for 1 million people would be regarded as a "terrifying concept" in the United Kingdom[14] while in Asia brand new large cities are being built.[14]
Many of these new cities are built to use new technologies such as
Saudi Arabia is building 5 new cities to control congestion and sprawl in existing cities.
Transport
Transport within urbanised areas presents unique problems. The density of an urban environment increases traffic, which can harm businesses and increase pollution unless properly managed. Parking space for private vehicles requires the construction of large parking garages in high density areas. This space could often be more valuable for other development.
Good planning uses
Floor area ratio is often used to measure density. This is the floor area of buildings divided by the land area. Ratios below 1.5 are low density. Ratios above five constitute very high density. Most exurbs are below two, while most city centres are well above five. Walk-up apartments with basement garages can easily achieve a density of three. Skyscrapers easily achieve densities of thirty or more.
City authorities may try to encourage higher densities to reduce per-capita infrastructure costs. In the UK, recent years have seen a concerted effort to increase the density of residential development in order to better achieve sustainable development. Increasing development density has the advantage of making mass transport systems, district heating and other community facilities (schools, health centres, etc.) more viable.
Problems can often occur at residential densities between about two and five.
The
Suburbanisation
In some countries, declining satisfaction with the urban environment is held to blame for continuing
Environmental factors
Environmental protection and conservation are of utmost importance to many planning systems across the world. Not only are the specific effects of development to be mitigated, but attempts are made to minimise the overall effect of development on the local and global environment. This is commonly done through the assessment of Sustainable urban infrastructure and microclimate.
Zoning
The primary purpose of zoning is to segregate uses that are thought to be incompatible. In practice, zoning is used to prevent new development from interfering with existing
Zoning may include regulation of the kinds of activities which will be acceptable on particular
Light and sound
The urban canyon effect is a colloquial, non-scientific term referring to street space bordered by very high buildings. This type of environment may shade the sidewalk level from direct sunlight during most daylight hours. While an oft-decried phenomenon, it is rare except in very dense, hyper-tall urban environments, such as those found in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, Chicago's Loop and Hong Kong's Kowloon and Central.
In urban planning, sound is usually measured as a source of pollution. Another perspective on urban sounds is developed in Soundscape studies emphasising that sound aesthetics involves more than noise abatement and decibel measurements. Hedfors[23] coined 'Sonotope' as a useful concept in urban planning to relate typical sounds to a specific place.
Light pollution has become a problem in urban residential areas, not only as it relates to its effects on the night sky, but as some lighting is so intrusive as to cause conflict in the residential areas and paradoxically intense improperly installed security lighting may pose a danger to the public, producing excessive glare. The development of the full cutoff fixture, properly installed, has reduced this problem considerably.
Water and sanitation infrastructure
Access and health impacts
Water and sanitation services are key considerations in the planning of cities. This encompasses water provision, waste-water treatment, and sewage infrastructure. These services are crucial for public health – thus, one aspect of urban planning is to consider how to best provide these services to urban residents in effective and cost-sensitive ways.
Within urban environments, there are a number of disparities with regards to access to these services. For example, as of 2006, among the poorest quartile of the urban population in India, over 80% lacked access to piped water at home and over half did not have sanitary flushes or pit toilets.
Economic status is highly correlated to water and sanitation service access in urban environments. But economic status is often tied to other demographic characteristics such as caste, ethnicity, and race. Therefore, access to water and sanitation services is an equity issue that faces urban planners working for urban governments. In the absence of policy to address these infrastructural disparities, the urban poor and minorities suffer disproportionately. A study of the social determinants of children's health in urban settings in India looked at data from India's National Family Health Survey and found that even within poor urban areas, caste status, religion, and sex are major factors which determine family employment and education level, factors which in turn affect access to sanitation and water.[27]
Water and sanitation issues relate directly to health outcomes due to the susceptibility to disease experienced by populations that lack adequate access. In the 19th and 20th centuries, diseases like cholera were particularly feared due to their devastating effects and due to their proliferation in areas with poor waste management practices.[28] Today diseases such as dengue fever, Hepatitis A, and intestinal parasites, are all examples of water-borne illnesses that affect the urban poor. Diarrheal illnesses are perhaps today the leading type of waterborne disease with cities like Jakarta experiencing disease rates as high as 50 cases per 1000 people.[29] In India, waterborne disease accounts for the loss of roughly 180 million person-workdays annually, the economic equivalent of approximately 12 billion rupees.[25] Thus inadequate access to water and sanitation among the urban poor and socially disadvantaged leads to systematic vulnerability to disease, which has both public health and economic consequences.
In Uganda, in order to address some of these access issues, NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs) have stepped in. The government in Uganda has acknowledged the role of sanitation in improving public health among the poor, but as NGOs and CBOs have pointed out, the government has been unable to adequately address the need for these services in urban environments or the high cost of procuring these services from private service providers.[30] However, NGOs and CBOs are inherently limited in their ability to provide sanitation services due to the need to obtain permissions for undertaking infrastructure projects and due to the high costs of implementing them.
Latrines
One aspect of sanitation infrastructure that is a major determinant of environmental health in slums is the latrine. There are a number of variables surrounding latrines and sewage which can play a critical role in determining health outcomes for urban families, including latrine location (in house versus out of house), latrine usage (family vs community), and latrine type (for example pit latrine versus toilet). Furthermore, the latrine is a critical aspect of urban household-level layouts and designs.
Waste-water
Waste-water collection and treatment has always been an important consideration in urban planning, but it is becoming increasingly critical as urban population levels rise and water conservation becomes a growing concern. Many planners are now considering how to properly incorporate waste-water treatment into urban environments in effective, and equitable ways.
In the US, prior to the 19th century, cities often used a de-centralised privy vault-cesspool model for waste management. Urban households had vaults or tubs beneath their latrines, which would collect waste-water until the vaults needed to be emptied into a nearby cesspool. This model worked at the time due to relatively low urban populations. However, industrialisation, urbanisation, and population growth during the 19th century led to a dramatic increase in America's city-dwelling population and thus increased the need for a centralised waste-water collection and processing system.[31] With the introduction of piped water, such a centralised system became possible as larger quantities of water were necessary for water-carriage waste removal. Since the 19th century, water-carriage sewage management has been preferred by planners due to its scalability.
However, more recently, de-centralised waste water management has made a resurgence among planners and researchers. While centralised water-carriage systems have more potential for scalability, de-centralised systems are simply more efficient because the waste-water is managed closer to where it is generated, thus allowing for each management system to be adapted to the local community/household needs.[32]
See also
References
- ^ Orsman, Bernard (16 March 2007). "Tensions spill over in billboard row". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 26 November 2011.
- ^ Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, Towns Buildings, Construction
- ^ "Charter of the New Urbanism". Cnu.org. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
- ^ "Beauty, Humanism, Continuity between Past and Future". Traditional Architecture Group. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
- ^ "City Planning". An article on Jane Jacobs. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014.
- ^ George L. Kelling, Catherine M. Coles, Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order And Reducing Crime In Our Communities
- ISBN 0-7546-3305-5. 2003.
- ISBN 0-19-504983-7
- ^ Reinventing planning: A new governance paradigm for managing Human settlements, Commonwealth Association of Planners
- ^ The Christian Science Monitor: Kenyans buy into slum plan, 26 May 2004
- ^ a b "A New City in the Saudi Desert". Archived from the original on 22 August 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
- ^ a b Vidal, John (26 April 2011). "Masdar City – a glimpse of the future in the desert". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "Build it and they will come? Korea's whopping US$275 billion tourism city plan". CNN.
- ^ a b Withers, Iain. (2013-04-12) Jason Prior: The big picture man | Magazine Features. Building. Retrieved on 2014-05-21.
- ^ "To use energy-efficient district cooling system – GIFT City: Interesting facts about the project". The Times Of India.
- ^ India's GIFT City to have country’s first public district cooling system | www.commodityonline.com | 3. http://www.commodityonline.com (2014-04-30). Retrieved on 2014-05-21.
- ^ District Cooling System | GIFT Gujarat, Gujarat International Tec City, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT). Giftgujarat.in. Retrieved on 2014-05-21.
- ^ Masdar City's PRT, a test drive for future of transport | The National. Thenational.ae (2011-01-21). Retrieved on 2014-05-21.
- ^ India’s ambitious plans for 7 new Smart Cities across the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor - URENIO Watch. Urenio.org (2012-09-13). Retrieved on 2014-05-21.
- ^ Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn
- ^ Transportation Efficient Land Use- Municipal Services and Research Center of Washington, Accessed 09nov09, says that each 40% increase in density reduces trips by 20–30%.
- Baltimore, while § 2.01(c) limits the grant of powers. By contrast, the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law grants uniform zoning powers (with uniform limitations) to all municipalities in that state.
- ISBN 91-576-6425-0) – book & CD-Rom
- ^ Agarwal, Siddharth. "The state of urban health in India; comparing the poorest quartile to the rest of the urban population in selected states and cities." Environment and Urbanization 23.1 (2011): 13–28
- ^ a b Chaplin, Susan E. "Indian cities, sanitation and the state: the politics of the failure to provide." Environment and Urbanization 23.1 (2011): 57–70.
- ^ Agarwal, Siddharth, et al. "Urbanization, urban poverty and health of the urban poor: status, challenges and the way forward." Demography India 36.1 (2007): 121.
- ^ Agarwal, Siddharth, and Aradhana Srivastava. "Social Determinants of Children's Health in Urban Areas in India." Journal of health care for the poor and underserved 20.4A (2009): 68-89.
- ^ Chaplin, Susan E. "Cities, sewers and poverty: India's politics of sanitation." Environment and Urbanization 11.1 (1999): 145–158.
- ^ Alirol, Emilie, et al. "Urbanisation and infectious diseases in a globalised world." The Lancet Infectious Diseases 11.2 (2011): 131–141.
- ^ Tukahirwa, J. T., A. P. J. Mol, and P. Oosterveer. "Access of urban poor to NGO/CBO-supplied sanitation and solid waste services in Uganda: The role of social proximity." Habitat International 35.4 (2011): 582–591.
- ^ Burian, Steven J., et al. "Urban wastewater management in the United States: Past, present, and future." Journal of Urban Technology 7.3 (2000): 33–62.
- ^ Wilderer, P., and D. Schreff. "Decentralized and centralized wastewater management: a challenge for technology developers." Water Science and Technology 41.1 (2000): 1–8.
Bibliography
- Allmendinger, Phil and Michael Gunder, 2005, "Applying Lacanian Insight and a Dash of Derridean Deconstruction to Planning's 'Dark Side'," Planning Theory, vol. 4, pp. 87–112.
- Atmospheric Environment Volume 35, Issue 10, April 2001, Pages 1717–1727. "Traffic pollution in a downtown site of Buenos Aires City"
- Garvin, Alexander (2002). The American City: What Works and What Doesn't. New York: McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-137367-5. (A standard text for many college and graduate courses in city planning in America)
- Dalley, Stephanie, 1989, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford World's Classics, London, pp. 39–136
- Gunder, Michael, 2003, "Passionate Planning for the Others' Desire: An Agonistic Response to the Dark Side of Planning," Progress in Planning, Vol. 60, no. 3, October, pp. 235–319.
- Hoch, Charles, Linda C. Dalton and Frank S. So, editors (2000). The Practice of Local Government Planning, Intl City County Management Assn; 3rd edition. ISBN 0-87326-171-2(The "Green Book")
- James, Paul; Holden, Meg; Lewin, Mary; Neilson, Lyndsay; Oakley, Christine; Truter, Art; Wilmoth, David (2013). "Managing Metropolises by Negotiating Mega-Urban Growth". In Harald Mieg and Klaus Töpfer (ed.). Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development. Routledge.
- Kemp, Roger L. and Carl J. Stephani (2011). "Cities Going Green: A Handbook of Best Practices." McFarland and Co., Inc., Jefferson, NC, USA, and London, England, UK. ISBN 978-0-7864-5968-1.
- Oke, T. R. (1982). "The energetic basis of the urban heat island". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 108: 1–24.
- Pløger, John, 2001, "Public Participation and the Art of Governance," Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 219–241.
- Roy, Ananya, 2008, "Post-Liberalism: On the Ethico-Politics of Planning," Planning Theory, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 92–102.
- Santamouris, Matheos (2006). Environmental Design of Urban Buildings: An Integrated Approach.
- Shrady, Nicholas, The Last Day: Wrath, Ruin & Reason in The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, Penguin, 2008, ISBN 978-0-14-311460-4
- Tang, Wing-Shing, 2000, "Chinese Urban Planning at Fifty: An Assessment of the Planning Theory Literature," Journal of Planning Literature, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 347–366.
- Tunnard, Christopher and Boris Pushkarev (1963). Man-Made America: Chaos or Control?: An Inquiry into Selected Problems of Design in the Urbanized Landscape, New Haven: Yale University Press. (This book won the National Book Award, strictly America; a time capsule of photography and design approach.)
- Wheeler, Stephen (2004). "Planning Sustainable and Livable Cities", Routledge; 3rd edition.
- Yiftachel, Oren, 1995, "The Dark Side of Modernism: Planning as Control of an Ethnic Minority," in Sophie Watson and Katherine Gibson, eds., Postmodern Cities and Spaces (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell), pp. 216–240.
- Yiftachel, Oren, 1998, "Planning and Social Control: Exploring the Dark Side," Journal of Planning Literature, vol. 12, no. 4, May, pp. 395–406.
- Yiftachel, Oren, 2006, "Re-engaging Planning Theory? Towards South-Eastern Perspectives," Planning Theory, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 211–222.
Further reading
- Urban Planning, 1794-1918: An International Anthology of Articles, Conference Papers, and Reports, Selected, Edited, and Provided with Headnotes by John W. Reps, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University.
- City Planning According to Artistic Principles, Camillo Sitte, 1889
- Missing Middle Housing: Responding to the Demand for Walkable Urban Living by Daniel Parolek of Opticos Design, Inc., 2012
- Kemp, Roger L. and Carl J. Stephani (2011). "Cities Going Green: A Handbook of Best Practices." McFarland and Co., Inc., Jefferson, NC, USA, and London, England, UK. (ISBN 978-0-7864-5968-1).
- Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, Ebenezer Howard, 1898
- The Improvement of Towns and Cities, Charles Mulford Robinson, 1901
- Town Planning in practice, Raymond Unwin, 1909
- The Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor, 1911
- Cities in Evolution, Patrick Geddes, 1915
- The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch, 1960
- The Concise Townscape, Gordon Cullen, 1961
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs, 1961
- The City in History, Lewis Mumford, 1961
- The City is the Frontier, Charles Abrams, Harper & Row Publishing, New York, 1965.
- A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, 1977
- What Do Planners Do?: Power, Politics, and Persuasion, Charles Hoch, American Planning Association, 1994. ISBN 978-0-918286-91-8
- Planning the Twentieth-Century American City, Christopher Silver and Mary Corbin Sies (Eds.), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996
- "The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History", ISBN 978-0-500-28099-7
- The American City: A Social and Cultural History, Daniel J. Monti, Jr., Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts: ISBN 978-1-55786-918-0.
- Urban Development: The Logic Of Making Plans, Lewis D. Hopkins, Island Press, 2001. ISBN 1-55963-853-2
- Readings in Planning Theory, Susan Fainstein and Scott Campbell, Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2003.
- Taylor, Nigel, (2007), Urban Planning Theory since 1945, London, Sage.
- Planning for the Unplanned: Recovering from Crises in Megacities, by Aseem Inam (published by Routledge USA, 2005).
External links
- Urban and Regional Planning at Curlie
Library guides for urban planning
- Libraries. "Urban Planning Resources". Research Guides. USA: Arizona State University.
- Library. "Urban Planning". Research Guides. University of California, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on 30 March 2014.
- Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. "Urban Planning". Research Guides. New York: Columbia University.
- Library. "Urban & Regional Policy". Research Guides. USA: Georgia Tech.
- Harvard University Graduate School of Design. "Urban Planning and Design". Research Guides. Massachusetts: Harvard Library.
- Hunter College Libraries. "Urban Affairs & Planning". Topic Guides. New York City: CUNY Hunter College. Archived from the originalon 22 February 2014.
- University Library. "City Planning". LibGuides. University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
- MIT Libraries. "Urban Studies & Planning". Research Guides. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- "Urban & Regional Planning". Research Guides. USA: University of Michigan.
- Library. "Urban Studies & Planning". Research Guides. Oregon, USA: Portland State University. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
- Reps, John W. (27 November 2002). "Urban Planning, 1794-1918: An International Anthology of Articles, Conference Papers, and Reports". Research Guides.