Urban Planning Theories

Presented by: Ar. Akanksha Modi

Poornima University, Jaipur, Rajasthan
Urban planning
The design and regulation of the uses of space that
focus on the physical form, economic functions, and
social impacts of the urban environment and on the
location of different activities within. This involves
goal setting, data collection and analysis,
forecasting, design, strategic thinking, and public
consultation.
Three actors have main role in urban planning
• The decision-makers
• The technicians
 Introduction to Urban Planning
• Spatial is relating to space
• Urbanization is the movement of population from
rural to urban areas
• A theory is an organized system of accepted
knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances
to explain a specific set of phenomena.
• Urbanization is a relatively new global issue.
• In 1950 only 30% of the world’s population was
urbanized and 50% in 2009 lived in urban centres
• The big question is how do towns come about to be?
 History of Urban Planning
• The first recorded description of urban planning is
described in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
• Designed cities were characteristic of the Minoan,
Mesopotamian, Harrapan, and Egyptian civilizations
of the ancient period.
• Aristotle says- “Hippodamus invented the vision of
cities”. Therefore he was called the father of Urban
planning in the 5th century BC.
• Ideal cities centrally planned in the 15th century.
• In 1876 the term urbanisation posed by Ildefons
Cerdà due to the re construction processes
Grid model/Hippodamian plan
The city of Priene

• Proposed by Hippodamus of Miletus who is considered

the father of rational city planning
• The center of the city contains the agora (Market place),
theaters, and temples.
• Private rooms surround the city’s public arenas.
• The plan can be laid out uniformly over any kind of
terrain since it’s based on angles and measurements.
Grid model/Hippodamian plan

Priene city
 Modern Urban Planning
• Planning and architecture went through a paradigm
shift at the turn of the 20th century.
• The industrialised cities of the 19th century had
grown at a tremendous rate, with the pace and style
of building largely dictated by private business
concerns.
• The evils of urban life for the working poor were
becoming increasingly evident as a matter for
public concern.
Modern Urban Planning
•Planning theorist- Paul Knox argues that the
profession of planning emerges out of a series of
crisis and people’s responses to them
• health crisis (epidemics)
• social crisis (riots, strikes)
• other crisis (fire, flood, etc.)
Urban planning is a response to these crisis or
problems
Modern Urban Planning
• Physician Benjamin Ward Richardson wrote Hygeia,
City of Health (1876) envisioning:
• air pollution control
• water purification
• sewage handling
• public health inspectors
• replacement of the gutter with the park as the site of
children’s play
• Such concerns motivated the Parks Movement.
• Naturalistic parks were created in the U.S. by Frederick
Law Olmstead, Central Park being the Ist, New York, 1857.
Modern Urban Planning Theories
• 1883 Linear City- Don Asturo Soria Y Mata
• 1902 Garden Cities - Sir Ebenezer Howard
• 1909 Region City- Sir Patrick Geddes
• 1922 Radiant city- Le Corbusier
• 1925 Concentric Zone theory- Sociologist Ernest Burgess
• 1929 The Neighbourhood Unit theory- Clarence Perry
• 1929 Radburn City- Clarence Stein & Henry Wright
• 1933 Central place Theory- Walter Christaller
• 1934 Broad Acre city- Frank Lloyd Wright
• 1932 Sector Theory- Economist Homer Hoyt
• 1945 Multiple Nuclei - C.D Harris &Edward L Ullman
 The Linear City
• A town for 30,000 people based upon the principal
transport route which is 100 meter wide of infinite
length depending upon urban growth.
• All services channeled along the street
• Other community facilities group at regular intervals
• Residential area is limited to 200 meter either side
beyond which would lie the Countryside.
• The linear city gears away from the usual centric
urban forms. The lines help control the expansion of
a city.
 The linear city gears away from the usual centric urban
forms. The lines help control the expansion of a city.
The Linear City

prezi.com
Garden city– Sir Ebenezer Howard
• Addressed population and pollution that came about by
the industrial revolution by creating garden cities.
• Created by Ebenezer Howard in 1898 to solve urban and
rural problems
• “Garden City”, most potent planning model in Western
urban planning
• Source of many key planning ideas during 20th century.
• Welwyn and Letchworth are the cities designed for 40,000
and 35000 people respectively.
• Influenced the later strategy of building new towns in the
UK, US, Canada, Argentina, Israel and Germany.
Sir Ebenezer Howard’s Three Magnets
Garden City

A great deal of criticism has been

levelled at Howard’s plans as being
unrealistic in their adherence to
geometric proportion, but he
presented his design of concentric
circles of varying land use as a
universal rather than as a particular
mode.
Garden city– Sir Ebenezer Howard
• The possibility that the best
of urban and rural could be
incorporated on “Garden
City”.
• Inspired by the idea of ideal/
Utopian cities.
• Was intended to bring
together the economic and
cultural advantages of city
and country life while at the
same time discouraging
metropolitan sprawl and
industrial centralisation.
Garden city– Sir Ebenezer Howard
• As with most instances of
social engineering, it
didn’t quite achieve what
it set out to do.
• an ideal, self-contained
community of pre
determined area &
population surrounded by
a greenbelt.
• Land ownership would be
vested in the community
(socialist element)
Garden city Welwyn– Sir Ebenezer
Howard
http://www.letchworth.com/sites/default/files/images/letchworth_aerial_photos_142.jpg
The Region City- Sir Patrick Geddes
• Introduced the notion of a region
• Called the Father of Modern Town Planning.
• Biologist,sociologist,and geographer.
• Wrote the book Cities in Evolution.
• Dissected the planning environment by analysing
occupational activities.
• Used observation and the rational planning method
of Survey Analysis
The Region City- Sir Patrick Geddes

• Introduced the term conurbation, which means “an

aggregation of continuous network of urban communities.
• Patrick Geddes explained an organism’s relationship
to its environment as follows:
• This can be understood as a place acting through
climatic and geographic processes upon people and
thus shaping them.
• At the same time people act, through economic
processes such as farming and construction, on a
place and thus shape it.
• Thus both place and folk are linked and through
work are in constant transition.
• Emphasised the relationships of people & cities, thus
the city- region term.
The Region City- Sir Patrick Geddes
Radiant City,
● Le Corbusier: Founding father of the modernist
movement.
● Had a very high density:

● 1,200 people per acre in skyscrapers

● overcrowded sectors of Paris & London ranged from

169-213 pers./acre at the time.
● 120 people per acre in luxury houses

● 6 to 10 times denser than current luxury housing in

the U.S
● Multi-level traffic system to manage the intensity of
traffic
 GRIDS

60-STOREY BOX-TYPE
BUILDINGS HOUSES
CUBIST
AESTHETICS

ORDERLY, RATIONAL

Radiant City,
CITY BLOCKS

LE VILLE RADIEUSE
(THE RADIANT CITY)
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Corbusier_cartesian_skyscrapers.jpg
Concentric Zone Theory
Also known as The Bull's Eye Model
• The concentric zone model, also known as the Burgess
model or the CCD model, is one of the earliest
theoretical models to explain urban social structures.
• It was created by sociologist Ernest Burgess in 1925.
• The model portrays how cities social groups are
spatially arranged in a series of rings.
• The size of the rings may vary, but the order always
remains the same.
Concentric Zone Theory
 Concentric Zone Theory
1. Central Business District (CBD) - This area of the
city is a non-residential area and it’s where businesses
are. This area s called downtown ,a lot of sky scrapers
houses government institutions, businesses, stadiums,
and restaurants
2. Zone of Transition- the zone of transition contains
industry and has poorer-quality housing
available.Created by subdividing larger houses into
apartments
 Concentric Zone Theory
3. Zone of the working class- This area contains modest
older houses occupied by stable, working class families. A
large percentage of the people in this area rent.
4. Zone of better residence- This zone contains newer and
more spacious houses. Mostly families in the middle-class
live in this zone.
5.Commuter’s Zone/Suburbs- This area is located beyond
the build-up area of the city. Mostly upper class residents
live in this area.
Concentric Zone Theory
Model Chicago

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I - Loop (downtown; CBD) IV – working class area

II – industries V – residential area
III – transition area VI – suburban area
 CLARENCE PERRY

Neighbourhood
1872-1944 unit theory
•  Conceptualized
• Clarence Perry the
neighborhood unit
conceptualised
•  Similar to the
the
neighbourhood
superblock unit 


•  Bounded by major
• Similar to the super block
streets 


bounded
•  Has aby major
church, streets 

school,
and shops
• Has
•  a church,school,
200 sqm to 2 sqkm and
shops 


• 200 sqm to 2 sqkm.

Wikipedia
Neighbourhood unit theory
● The objectives were:
● To make the people socialize with one and
another.
● To enable the inhabitants to share the public
amenities and recreational facilities.
● To support a safe and healthy environment
within the neighborhood.
● To provide safety and efficiency to road users
and pedestrians.
● To maintain, enhance, and improve area for
Neighbourhood Design Principles
• Size of neighborhood unit related to the
catchment area of a primary school.
• No through traffic- residential area bounded on
all sides by arterial roads
• Ample parks and play areas
• A neighborhood center containing school, local
center and other services
• A hierarchy of roads/ streets (to promote road
safety, pedestrian safety, conserve residential
environment) 

Neighbourhood Design Principles
 Radburn Superblock
• A town for the motor age.
• Encourage pedestrian accessibility.
• Low traffic volume in the neighborhood
• Open space linked the residential areas.
• Houses built around cul-de-sac which are connected
to open space
• Houses are segregated from main roads
• Pedestrian paths and walkways linked the houses to
primary school and local centre
 Radburn Superblock, New Jersey
• Mechanical means to be
Radburn Superblock
planned for
• Facilitate Human life &
Characteristics-

civilization.
a) Encourage pedestrian
accessibility
b) Low traffic volume in the
• Comprehensive planning
b)
neighborhood
Open space linked the

• Industries to be close to
residential areas
c) Houses built around cul-de-sac
which are connected to open
transportation nodes.
space
d) Houses are segregated for

• Services to be well planned.

e)
main roads
Pedestrian paths and
walkways linked the houses to
• Private public partnership for
primary school and local
centre

convenience of public – group

of building be planned.
Radburn Superblock, New Jersey
 GARDEN CITY

SUPERBLOCK
SEPARATES
VEHICLES FROM
PEDESTRIANS

CUL-DE-SACS

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architects-projects-3-radburn-nj-1130x640.jpg
Central Place Theory
• Examples. Polders of the Netherlands, the Fens of East
Anglia in the UK
• Developed by the German geographer Walter Christaller in
1933
• It explains the reasons behind the distribution patterns,
size, and number of cities and towns.
• Tested in Southern Germany and came to the conclusion
that people gather together in cities to share goods and
ideas.
Central place theory
Assumptions
• humans will always purchase goods from the
closest place
• unbounded all flat, homogeneous, limitless surface
• evenly distributed population
• all settlements are equidistant and exist in a
triangular lattice pattern
• evenly distributed resources
Central place theory
 Broadacre City Theory

• low-density
• car-oriented
• freeways +feeder
roads
• multi nucleated
Broadacre City Theory
• Champion and proponent of urban
decentralisation
• Involved communities
• Designed the 1000-hectare Broadacre City
• Included social services in the forms of
schools,trains, and museums, as well as
employment in the forms of markets, offices,
nearby farms, and industrial areas.
 Sector Theory
Chicago and Newcastle upon Tyne/Newcastle
• Developed in 1939 by land economist Homer Hoyt
• It is a model of the internal structure of cities.
• Social groups are arranged around a series of
sectors, or wedges radiating out from the central
business district (CBD) and centred on major
transportation lines
• low-income households to be near railroad lines,
and commercial establishments to be along
business thoroughfares
 Sector Theory

Stresses the importance of transportation corridors.

Sees growth of various urban activities as expanding
along roads, rivers, or train routes.
Theories: ‘sectors’ (Hoyt) &

‘multiple Nuclei’ (Harris and Ullman)
Sector Multiple nuclei
2 3 3

4 1
2
3
3 5
3 4
1 3 3
5 7
3
6
3 4
2
9 8

1 CBD 6 Heavy manufacturing

2 Wholesale and light manufacturing 7 Sub business district
3 Low-class residential 8 Residential suburb
4 Middle-class residential 9 Industrial suburb
5 High-class residential
Sector Theory
Shortcomings
• Applies well to some towns only
• Low cost housing is near industry and
transportation proving Hoyt’s model
• Theory based on 20th century and does not take
into account cars which make commerce easier
• With cars, people can live anywhere and further
from the city
Multiple Nuclei Theory
• The Multiple Nuclei Model is an ecological model
created by Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman in the
1945
• City grows from several independent points rather
than from one central business district.
• As these expand, they merge to form a single urban
area.
• Ports, universities, airports and parks also act as nodes
• Based on the idea that people have greater movement
due to increased car ownership.
Multiple Nuclei Cities: Harris-Ullman
Multiple Nuclei Theory
• The model has four geographic principles
• Certain activities require highly specialised facilities.
• Accessible transportation for a factor
• Large areas of open land for a housing transition
• Certain activities cluster because they profit from
mutual association
• Certain activities repel each other and will not be
found in the same area.
• Certain activities could not make a profit if they paid
the high rent of the most desirable locations
Multiple Nuclei Cities: Harris-Ullman

Stresses the importance of multiple nodes of activity,

not a single CBD. Ports, airports, universities attract
certain uses while repelling others.
Multiple Nuclei Theory
Assumptions Criticisms
• Land is Flat • Each zone displays a
• Even Distribution of
significant degree of internal
Resources heterogeneity
• and not homogeneity
• Even Distribution of
people in Residential • No consideration of influence
areas of physical relief and
government policy.
• Even Transportation
Costs • Not applicable to oriental cities
with different cultural,
economic and political
backgrounds
Thanks