Planning Concepts and Evolution

PLANNING CONCEPTS
• City beautiful movement
• Urban Utopia
• Garden city
• Radburn Theory
• Neighbourhood planning.
Planning concepts related to City beautiful
movement
DANIEL BURNHAM BIOGRAPHY
 Daniel Hudson Burnham was one of the Chicago
architects
 He is responsible for the earliest development of
the American sky scraper.
 He was designed the flatiron building in New
York(1902)
 He was also commissioned by the U.S Philippine
commission in 1904
 he was the co-author of the Chicago plan, which
laid out plans for the future of Chicago in 1909
 He died on June 1, 1912 in Heidelberg, Germany
 BIRTH OF THE CONCEPT
•The 1890s and early years of the twentieth century were a turning point in
American society. The economic system struggled to define itself social unrest and
violence, results of economic depressions, disgust with corruption in government,
and overcrowded urban centers erupted periodically throughout the era.

•Most important of all, the triumph of industry over agriculture was now assured.

•the middle and upper-middle class retreated from the cities into the suburbs. The upper classes
traveled into the city to attend to their business, consume the leisure activities contained therein, and
the return to their comfortable and beautiful suburban homes.

•What they left behind in the cities is poverty-stricken to the quickly decaying urban center.
• The middle and upper-class reformers who
sought to remedy this situation did so, for
the most part, out of their own fear. They
knew that for their own safety and business
viability something had to be done; but
how to attack the problem?
• "Common to almost all the reformers...was
the conviction-- explicit or implicit--that
the city, although obviously different from
the village...should nevertheless replicate
the moral order of the village. City
dwellers, they believed, must somehow be
brought to perceive themselves as members
of cohesive communities knit together by
shared moral and social values."
• Generally stated, the City Beautiful sought to improve their city through
beautification, which would have a number of effects:
1) social ills would be swept away, as the beauty of the city would inspire civic
loyalty and moral rectitude in the impoverished;
2) American cities would be brought to cultural parity with their European
competitors through the use of the European Beaux- Arts idiom;
3) More inviting city center still would not bring the upper classes back to live,
but certainly to work and spend money in the urban areas.
• The premise of the movement was the idea that beauty could be an effective
social control device
• The idiom the City Beautiful leaders used in their ideal civic centers was the
Beaux-Arts style, named for the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which
instructed artists and architects in the necessity of order, dignity, and harmony in
their work.
• The first expression of this monumental style in the United States was found at
the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The shimmering "White City," as the
fair came to be known during that summer in Chicago, was a tour de force of
early city planning and architectural cohesion.
• The first organized expression of the City Beautiful movement as a means of
beautification and social control was the 1901 Plan for Washington D.C.,
designed by Daniel Burnham, former Director of Construction for the fair, and
his Senate Parks Commission.
 Urban Utopia
• The imaginary city where there is no issue of more related
Urban growth.

• There is well synchronization to the growth of the city.

• People don't have any problem relating to the society or to the

Urban designing
• satisfying all the need of the society of individuals.

• Its transcends the limitation and gets extended to the stage

where no modification is needed, neither with designing nor
with the administration.

• It's well noted from centuries that when cities grow , due to
whereas reasons, it has
• always face the issue of Urban gentrification.

• Some or other issue relating to lifestyle, transport,

communication, population, pollution, etc. is administered.
 Garden city
 Concept of “Garden City” was introduced by
,Ebenezer Howard (London,1898) in his small
remarkable book “To-morrow”(later re-published as
“Garden cities of To-morrow”.
 He wanted to design an alternative for overcrowded
and polluted industrial cities of that century.
 His solution centered in developing smaller
“garden cities” ,linked by canal and transit
and covered by a permanent green belt.
 He founded the Garden City Association
(later known as the Town and Country
planning Association or TCPA which
created First Garden City, Ltd. in 1899 to
create the garden city of Letchworth and
Welywn
 Howard wanted to design an alternative to the overcrowded
and polluted industrial cities of the turn of the century, and his
solution centered on creating
smaller “garden cities” (with 32,000 people each) in the country
linked by canals and transit and set in a permanent greenbelt.
His scheme included vast open space, with the aim of giving
urban slum-dwellers the best of both city and country living. He
captioned the above diagram “A Group of smokeless, Slumless
Cities.”
Garden City concept,
Core with garden surrounded
by residential and green spacing over layered by industrial blocks.
RADBURN’S PLANNING CRITERIAS
Radburn Theory
 Neighbourhood planning.
It is an American idea and is based on the simple principle that one is planning for
society and not for aggregate of houses.

In case of big towns, it sometimes becomes difficult to develop a sense of neighbourliness,

mainly for two reasons.
They are:
1. The neighbours are not dependent on one another’s company and aid because city life
gives a wide field of acquaintance and entertainment.
2. The neighbours may not have common modes and habits of living.
 The neighbourhood planning is an attempt to form various physical units of residential
areas in which people belonging to a particular rank of life settles or stay.

It is the intention of a town planner to rejuvenate the valuable idea of neighbourhood

which have been lost in busy uncontrolled city life.
 All the residential units are now planned on neighbourhood principle.

 It is a small unit which serves the local community and encourages them to foster a
neighbourhood spirit or relationship which seems to have been lost in the modern city
life.

 It should possess the best qualities of small town to faciliitate the acquaintance and
neighbourly relations and also be broad enough to accommodate sufficient people to
enable each individual to come in contact with people of different strata of society and
compatible tastes. (Unity in Diversity)
Principles of Neighbourhood
Planning
1. Size
2. Boundaries
3. Protective Strips
4. Internal Streets
5. Layout of buildings
6. Shopping Centres
7. Community Centres
8. Facilities
•Size Protective Strips
 The town is divided into self-contained  These are necessary to protect the
units or sectors of 10,000 population. neighbourhood from annoyance of traffic
 This is further divided into smaller and, to provide suitable facilities for
units called neighbourhood unit with developing parks, playgrounds, and road
2,000 to 5,000 based on the widening scheme in future.
requirement of one primary school. These are also called Minor Green Belts.
Internal Streets
 The size of the unit is therefore limited  The internal streets are designed to
to about 1 to 1. 5 sq km i.e. within ensure safety to the people and the
walkable distance of 10 to 15minutes. school going children in particular,
•Boundaries since the mothers are anxious every day till
 The unit should be bounded on all its the safe return of the child.
sides by main road, wide enough for
traffic.  The internal streets should circulate
throughout the unit with easy access to
shops and community centres.
• Layout of Buildings Community Centres
 To encourage neighbourhood  Each
relation and secure social community will have its centre with
stability and balance, social, cultural and recreational amenities.
•houses to suit the different
income group should be Facilities
provided such as single
family houses, double family  All public facilities required for the family for
houses, cottages,flats, etc. their comfort and convenience should be
within easy reach.
•Shopping Centres  These include the primary school, temple, club,
retail shop, sport centre, etc.
 Each shop should be located on  These should be located within 1km in the
the circumference of the unit, central place so as to form a nucleus to develop
preferably at traffic junctions and social life of the unit.
adjacent to the neighbourhood
units.