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Planning theory is the body of scientific concepts, definitions, behavioral relationships, and assumptions that define the body of knowledge of
urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
. Urban planning is the strategic process of designing and managing the growth and development of human settlements, from small towns to sprawling metropolitan areas. Various planning theories guide urban development decisions and policies. Over time, different schools of thought have emerged, Evolving in response to shifts in society, economy, and technology.". This article explores the key theories and movements that have shaped urban planning.There is no one unified planning theory but various. Whittemore identifies nine procedural theories that dominated the field between 1959 and 1983: the Rational-Comprehensive approach, the Incremental approach, the Transformative Incremental (TI) approach, the Transactive approach, the Communicative approach, the Advocacy approach, the Equity approach, the Radical approach, and the Humanist or Phenomenological approach.


Background

Urban planning can include
urban renewal Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...
, by adapting urban planning methods to existing cities suffering from decline. Alternatively, it can concern the massive challenges associated with urban growth, particularly in the
Global South Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly com ...
. All in all, urban planning exists in various forms and addresses many different issues. The modern origins of urban planning lie in the movement for urban reform that arose as a reaction against the disorder of the
industrial city An industrial city or industrial town is a town or city in which the municipal economy, at least historically, is centered around industry, with important factories or other production facilities in the town. It has been part of most countries' ...
in the mid-19th century. Many of the early influencers were inspired by
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
, which was popular in the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The new imagined urban form was meant to go hand-in-hand with a new society, based upon voluntary co-operation within self-governing communities. In the late 20th century, the term
sustainable development Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...
has come to represent an ideal outcome in the sum of all planning goals. Sustainable architecture involves renewable materials and energy sources and is increasing in importance as an environmentally friendly solution


Blueprint planning

Since at least the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...
, urban planning had generally been assumed to be the physical planning and design of human communities. Therefore, it was seen as related to architecture and civil engineering, and thereby to be carried out by such experts. This kind of planning was physicalist and design-orientated, and involved the production of masterplans and blueprints which would show precisely what the 'end-state' of land use should be, similar to architectural and engineering plans. Similarly, the theory of urban planning was mainly interested in visionary planning and design which would demonstrate how the ideal city should be organised spatially.


Sanitary movement

Although it can be seen as an extension of the sort of civic pragmatism seen in Oglethorpe's plan for Savannah or
William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...
's plan for Philadelphia, the roots of the rational planning movement lie in Britain's Sanitary movement (1800–1890). During this period, advocates such as Charles Booth argued for central organized, top-down solutions to the problems of industrializing cities. In keeping with the rising power of industry, the source of the planning authority in The Sanitary Movement arose as a direct response to the appalling living conditions in rapidly industrializing cities, focusing on improving public health through the creation of better sanitation infrastructure, including sewage systems and clean water supplies..


Garden city movement

The
Garden city movement The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...
was founded by
Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication '' To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in wh ...
(1850-1928).The Garden City Movement advocated for the development of self-sufficient, planned communities that combined the best aspects of both urban and rural living. These communities would be surrounded by green belts to provide residents with access to nature while maintaining proximity to urban amenities.ref>
His ideas were expressed in the book
Garden Cities of To-morrow ''Garden Cities of To-morrow'' is a book by the British urban planner Ebenezer Howard. When it was published in 1898, the book was titled ''To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform''. In 1902, it was reprinted as ''Garden Cities of To-Morrow'' ...
(1898). His influences included Benjamin Walter Richardson, who had published a pamphlet in 1876 calling for low population density, good housing, wide roads, an underground railway and for open space;
Thomas Spence Thomas Spence ( 17508 September 1814) was an English RadicalProperty in Land Every One's Rightin 1775. It was re-issued as ''The Real Rights of Man'' in later editions. It was also reissued by, amongst others, Henry Hyndman under the title o ...
who had supported
common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise, or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...
of land and the sharing of the rents it would produce;
Edward Gibbon Wakefield Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 179616 May 1862) was an English politician in colonial Canada and New Zealand. He is considered a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a ...
who had pioneered the idea of colonizing planned communities to house the poor in
Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
(including starting new cities separated by green belts at a certain point);
James Silk Buckingham James Silk Buckingham (25 August 1786 – 30 June 1855) was a British author, journalist and traveller, known for his contributions to Indian journalism. He was a pioneer among the Europeans who fought for a liberal press in India. Early life B ...
who had designed a model town with a central place, radial avenues and industry in the periphery; as well as
Alfred Marshall Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was an English economist and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book ''Principles of Economics (Marshall), Principles of Economics'' (1890) was the dominant economic textboo ...
,
Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later s ...
and the
back-to-the-land movement A back-to-the-land movement is any of various agrarianism, agrarian movements across different historical periods. The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree o ...
, which had all called for the moving of masses to the countryside. Howard aimed to merge urban convenience with rural tranquility to promote healthier communities called Town-Country. To make this happen, a group of individuals would establish a limited-dividend company to buy cheap agricultural land, which would then be developed with investment from manufacturers and housing for the workers. No more than 32,000 people would be housed in a settlement, spread over 1,000 acres. Around it would be a permanent green belt of 5,000 acres, with farms and institutions (such as mental institutions) which would benefit from the location. After reaching the limit, a new settlement would be started, connected by an
inter-city rail Inter-city rail services are Express train, express trains that run services that connect cities over longer distances than Commuter rail, commuter or Regional rail, regional trains. They include rail services that are neither short-distance co ...
, with the polycentric settlements together forming the "Social City". The lands of the settlements would be jointly owned by the inhabitants, who would use rents received from it to pay off the mortgage necessary to buy the land and then invest the rest in the community through
social security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...
. Actual garden cities were built by Howard in
Letchworth Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2021 census was 33,990. Letchworth ...
, Brentham Garden Suburb, and
Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second Garden city movement, garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first New towns in the United Kingdom, new towns (designated 1948). It is ...
. The movement would also inspire the later
New towns movement While purpose-built towns and cities have many precedents in antiquity - the 195 BC iteration of Chang'an providing a case in point - the New Towns ''movement'' refers to an ideologically-driven social campaign. The best-known and possibly most inf ...
.


Linear city

Arturo Soria y Mata's idea of the Linear city (1882) replaced the traditional idea of the city as a centre and a periphery with the idea of constructing linear sections of infrastructure - roads, railways, gas, water, etc.- along an optimal line and then attaching the other components of the city along the length of this line. As compared to the concentric diagrams of
Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication '' To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in wh ...
and other in the same period, Soria's linear city creates the infrastructure for a controlled process of expansion that joins one growing city to the next in a rational way, instead of letting them both sprawl. The linear city was meant to ‘ruralize the city and urbanize the countryside’, and to be universally applicable as a ring around existing cities, as a strip connecting two cities, or as an entirely new linear town across an unurbanized region. The idea was later taken up by
Nikolay Alexandrovich Milyutin Nikolay Alexandrovich Milyutin, alternatively transliterated as Miliutin (, – 4 October 1942) was a Russian trade union and Bolshevik activist, participant in the October Revolution in Petrograd and Soviet statesman and architect. After th ...
in the planning circles of the 1920s Soviet Union. The
Ciudad Lineal Ciudad Lineal (, "Linear City") is one of 21 district of Madrid, districts of Madrid, Spain. Geography Wards The district is administratively divided into nine wards: * Atalaya (Madrid), Atalaya * Colina (Madrid), Colina * Concepción (Ma ...
was a practical application of the concept.


Regional planning movement

Patrick Geddes Sir Patrick Geddes (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, Comtean positivist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban plannin ...
(1864-1932) was the founder of regional planning. His main influences were the geographers
Élisée Reclus Jacques Élisée Reclus (; 15 March 18304 July 1905) was a French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, ''La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes'' ("Universal Geography"), over a period of ...
and
Paul Vidal de La Blache Paul Vidal de La Blache (, Pézenas, Hérault, 22 January 1845 – Tamaris-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, 5 April 1918) was a French geographer. He is considered to be the founder of modern French geography and also the founder of the Fr ...
, as well as the sociologist
Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play (; April 11, 1806 – April 5, 1882) was a French engineer, sociologist and economist. Life The son of a custom-house official, Le Play was educated at the École Polytechnique and the École des Mines. He ...
. From these he received the idea of the
natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora and ...
. According to Geddes, planning must start by surveying such a region by crafting a "Valley Section" which shows the general slope from mountains to the sea that can be identified across scale and place in the world, with the natural environment and the cultural environments produced by it included. This was encapsulated in the motto "Survey before Plan". He saw cities as being changed by technology into more regional settlements, for which he coined the term ''
conurbation A conurbation is a region consisting of a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ...
''. Similar to the garden city movement, he also believed in adding green areas to these urban regions. The
Regional Planning Association of America The Regional Planning Association of America ("RPAA"), formed by Clarence Stein was an urban reform association developed in 1923. The association was a diverse group of people all with their own talents and skills. The goal of this group was to ...
advanced his ideas, coming up with the 'regional city' which would have a variety of urban communities across a green landscape of farms, parks and wilderness with the help of telecommunication and the automobile. This had major influence on the
County of London Plan The County of London Plan was an urban planning proposal prepared for the London County Council in 1943 by John Henry Forshaw (1895–1973) and Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie (1879–1957), with foreword from Charles Latham, leader of ...
, 1944.


City Beautiful movement

The
City Beautiful movement The City Beautiful movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of th ...
was inspired by 19th century European capital cities such as Georges-Eugène Haussmann's
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
or the
Vienna Ring Road The Ringstrasse or Ringstraße (pronounced ɪŋˌʃtʁaːsə ⓘ, lit. ''ring road'') is a 5.3 km (3.3 mi) circular grand boulevard that serves as a ring road around the historic city centre, the Innere Stadt, of Vienna, Austria. The road is bu ...
. An influential figure was
Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the ''Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been "the most successful power broker the American archi ...
(1846-1912), who was the chief of construction of the
World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...
in 1893. Urban problems such as the 1886
Haymarket affair The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square (C ...
in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
had created a perceived need to reform the morality of the city among some of the elites. Burnham's greatest achievement was the Chicago plan of 1909. His aim was "to restore to the city a lost visual and aesthetic harmony, thereby creating the physical prerequisite for the emergence of a harmonious social order", essentially creating social reform through new
slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low-income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...
and creating public space, which also endeared it the support of the Progressivist movement. This was also believed to be economically advantageous by drawing in tourists and wealthy migrants. Because of this it has been referred to as " trickle-down urban development" and as "centrocentrist" for focusing only on the core of the city. Other major cities planned according to the movement principles included British colonial capitals in
New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...
,
Harare Harare ( ), formerly Salisbury, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metrop ...
,
Lusaka Lusaka ( ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was abo ...
Nairobi Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...
and
Kampala Kampala (, ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,875,834 (2024) and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kampala, Kawempe Division, Kawempe, Makindy ...
, as well as that of
Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...
in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, and Albert Speer's plan for the Nazi capital
Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...
.


Towers in the park

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...
(1887–1965) pioneered a new urban form called
towers in the park Towers in the park is a morphology of modernist
. His approach was based on defining the house as 'a machine to live in'. The Plan Voisin he devised for
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, which was never fulfilled, would have involved the demolition of much of historic Paris in favour of 18 uniform 700-foot tower blocks.
Ville Contemporaine The Ville contemporaine (, ''Contemporary City'') was an unrealized utopian planned community intended to house three million inhabitants designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1922. Plan The centerpiece of this plan was a group of ...
and the
Ville Radieuse Ville radieuse (; ) was an unrealised urban design project designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1930. It constitutes one of the most influential and controversial urban design doctrines of European modernism. Although Le Corbus ...
formulated his basic principles, including decongestion of the city by increased density and open space by building taller on a smaller footprint. Wide avenues should also be built to the city centre by demolishing old structures, which was criticized for lack of environmental awareness. His generic ethos of planning was based on the rule of experts who would "work out their plans in total freedom from partisan pressures and special interests" and that "once their plans are formulated, they must be implemented without opposition". His influence on the Soviet Union helped inspire the 'urbanists' who wanted to build planned cities full of massive apartment blocks in Soviet countryside. The only city which he ever actually helped plan was
Chandigarh Chandigarh is a city and union territory in northern India, serving as the shared capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana. Situated near the foothills of the Shivalik range of Himalayas, it borders Haryana to the east and Punjab in the ...
in
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
.
Brasília Brasília ( ; ) is the capital city, capital of Brazil and Federal District (Brazil), Federal District. Located in the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region, it was founded by President Juscelino ...
, planned by
Oscar Niemeyer Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was b ...
, also was heavily influenced by his thought. Both cities suffered from the issue of unplanned settlements growing outside them.


Decentralised planning

In the United States,
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...
similarly identified vehicular mobility as a principal planning metric. Car-based suburbs had already been developed in the Country Club District in 1907-1908 (including later the world's first car-based shopping centre of
Country Club Plaza The Country Club Plaza (often called The Plaza) is a privately owned regional shopping center in the Country Club District of Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri. Opened in 1923, it is considered to be the first planned large outdoor su ...
), as well as in
Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
in 1914 and
Palos Verdes Estates Palos Verdes Estates is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and neighboring Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates. The city was master-planned by the noted American lan ...
in 1923. Wright began to idealise this vision in his
Broadacre City Broadacre City was an urban or suburban development concept proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright throughout most of his lifetime. He presented the idea in his book ''The Disappearing City'' in 1932. A few years later he unveiled a very detailed twelve ...
starting in 1924, with similarities to the garden city and regional planning movements. The fundamental idea was for technology to liberate individuals. In his Usonian vision, he described the city as
"spacious, well-landscaped highways, grade crossings eliminated by a new kind of integrated by-passing or over- or under-passing all traffic in cultivated or living areas … Giant roads, themselves great architecture, pass public service stations . . . passing by farm units, roadside markets, garden schools, dwelling places, each on its acres of individually adorned and cultivated ground".
This was justified as a democratic ideal, as "“Democracy is the ideal of reintegrated decentralization … many free units developing strength as they learn by function and grow together in spacious mutual freedom.” This vision was however criticized by
Herbert Muschamp Herbert Mitchell Muschamp (November 28, 1947 – October 2, 2007) was an American architecture critic. Early years Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: "The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. ...
as being contradictory in its call for individualism while relying on the master-architect to design it all. After
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
,
suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
s similar to Broadacre City spread throughout the US, but without the social or economic aspects of his ideas. A notable example was that of
Levittown Levittown is the name of several large suburban housing developments created in the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning white veterans and thei ...
, built 1947 to 1951. The suburban design was criticized for their lack of form by
Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...
as it lacked clear boundaries, and by
Ian Nairn Ian Douglas Nairn (24 August 1930 – 14 August 1983) was a British architectural critic who coined the word "Subtopia" to indicate drab suburbs that look identical through unimaginative town-planning. He published two strongly personalised cr ...
because "Each building is treated in isolation, nothing binds it to the next one". In the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
too, the so-called deurbanists (such as
Moisei Ginzburg Moisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg (, ; – 7 January 1946) was a Soviet constructivist architect, best known for his 1929 Narkomfin Building in Moscow. Biography Education Ginzburg (Ginsberg) was born in Minsk into a Jewish architect's family. ...
and
Mikhail Okhitovich Mikhail Aleksandrovich Okhitovich () (1896–1937) was a Soviet sociologist, town planner and Constructivist architectural theorist, most famous for his 'Disurbanist' proposals of 1929–30. Okhitovich, born in Saint Petersburg, joined the Bols ...
) advocated for the use of electricity and new transportation technologies (especially the car) to disperse the population from the cities to the countryside, with the ultimate aim of a "townless, fully decentralized, and evenly populated country". However, in 1931 the Communist Party ruled such views as forbidden.


Opposition to blueprint planning

Throughout both the United States and Europe, the rational planning movement declined in the latter half of the 20th century. Key events in the United States include the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in
St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
and the national backlash against urban renewal projects, particularly urban expressway projects. An influential critic of such planning was
Jane Jacobs Jane Isabel Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book ''The Death and Life of Great American Ci ...
, who wrote ''
The Death and Life of Great American Cities ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the urban decay, decline of many city neighborhoods in the U ...
'' in 1961, claimed to be "one of the most influential books in the short history of city planning". She attacked the garden city movement because its "prescription for saving the city was to do the city in" and because it "conceived of planning also as essentially paternalistic, if not authoritarian". The Corbusians on the other hand were claimed to be egoistic. In contrast, she defended the dense traditional inner-city neighborhoods like
Brooklyn Heights Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south ...
or
North Beach, San Francisco North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, the Financial District, and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's "Little Italy" and has historically been home to a large Italian American popul ...
, and argued that an urban neighbourhood required about 200-300 people per acre, as well as a high net ground coverage at the expense of open space. She also advocated for a diversity of land uses and building types, with the aim of having a constant churn of people throughout the neighbourhood across the times of the day. This essentially meant defending urban environments as they were before modern planning had aimed to start changing them. As she believed that such environments were essentially self-organizing, her approach was effectively one of
laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( , from , ) is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies or regulations). As a system of thought, ''laissez-faire'' ...
, and has been criticized for not being able to guarantee "the development of good neighbourhoods". The most radical opposition to blueprint planning was declared in 1969 in a manifesto on the ''
New Society ''New Society'' was a weekly magazine of social inquiry and social and cultural comment, published in the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1988. It drew on the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, social history and s ...
'', with the words that:
The whole concept of planning (the town-and-country kind at least) has gone cockeyed … Somehow, everything must be watched; nothing must be allowed simply to “happen.” No house can be allowed to be commonplace in the way that things just are commonplace: each project must be weighed, and planned, and approved, and only then built, and only after that discovered to be commonplace after all.
Another form of opposition came from the
advocacy planning Advocacy planning is a theory of urban planning that was formulated in the 1960s by Paul Davidoff and Linda Stone Davidoff. It is a pluralistic and inclusive planning theory where planners seek to represent the interests of various groups withi ...
movement, opposes to traditional top-down and technical planning.


Modernist planning

Cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...
and
modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
inspired the related theories of rational process and systems approaches to urban planning in the 1960s. They were imported into planning from other disciplines. The systems approach was a reaction to the issues associated with the traditional view of planning. It did not understand the social and economic sides of cities, the complexity and interconnectedness of urban life, as well as lacking in flexibility. The 'quantitative revolution' of the 1960s also created a drive for more scientific and precise thinking, while the rise of
ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...
made the approach more natural.


Systems theory

Systems theory Systems theory is the Transdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, de ...
is based on the conception of phenomena as 'systems', which are themselves coherent entities composed of interconnected and interdependent parts. A city can in this way be conceptualised as a system with interrelated parts of different land uses, connected by transport and other communications. The aim of urban planning thereby becomes that of planning and controlling the system. Similar ideas had been put forward by Geddes, who had seen cities and their regions as analogous to organisms, though they did not receive much attention while planning was dominated by architects. The idea of the city as a system meant that it became critical for planners to understand how cities functioned. It also meant that a change to one part in a city would have effects on others parts as well. There were also doubts raised about the goal of producing detailed blueprints of how cities should look like in the end, instead suggesting the need for more flexible plans with trajectories instead of fixed futures. Planning should also be an ongoing process of monitoring and taking action in the city, rather than just producing the blueprint at one time. The systems approach also necessitated taking into account the economic and social aspects of cities, beyond just the aesthetic and physical ones.


Rational process approach

The focus on the procedural aspect of planning had already been pioneered by Geddes in his Survey-Analysis-Plan approach. However, this approach had several shortfalls. It did not consider the reasons for doing a survey in the first place. It also suggested that there should be simply a single plan to be considered. Finally, it did not take into account the implementation stage of the plan. There should also be further action in monitoring the outcomes of the plan after that. The rational process, in contrast, identified five different stages: (1) the definition of problems and aims; (2) the identification of alternatives; (3) the evaluation of alternatives; (4) implementation: (5) monitoring. This new approach represented a rejection of blueprint planning.


Incrementalism

Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, critiques of the rational paradigm began to emerge and formed into several different schools of planning thought. The first of these schools is Lindblom's
incrementalism :''In politics, the term "incrementalism" is also used as a synonym for Gradualism#Politics and society, Gradualism.'' Incrementalism is a method of working by adding to or subtracting from a project using many small wikt:incremental, incremental ...
. Lindblom describes planning as "muddling through" and thought that practical planning required decisions to be made incrementally. This incremental approach meant choosing from small number of policy approaches that can only have a small number consequences and are firmly bounded by reality, constantly adjusting the objectives of the planning process and using multiple analyses and evaluations.


Mixed scanning model

The mixed scanning model, developed by Etzioni, takes a similar approach to Lindblom. Etzioni (1968) suggested that organizations plan on two different levels: the tactical and the strategic. He posited that organizations could accomplish this by essentially scanning the environment on multiple levels and then choose different strategies and tactics to address what they found there. While Lindblom's approach only operated on the functional level Etzioni argued, the mixed scanning approach would allow planning organizations to work on both the functional and more big-picture oriented levels.Etzioni, A. (1968). The active society: a theory of societal and political processes. New York: Free Press.


Postmodern planning

Modernism sought to design and plan cities that followed the logic of the new model of industrial
mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...
; reverting to large-scale solutions, aesthetic standardization, and
prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some research ...
design solutions. This approach was found to have eroded urban living by its failure to recognize differences and aim towards homogeneous landscapes.
Jane Jacobs Jane Isabel Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book ''The Death and Life of Great American Ci ...
's 1961 book ''
The Death and Life of Great American Cities ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the urban decay, decline of many city neighborhoods in the U ...
,'' was a sustained critique of urban planning as it had developed within modernism, and played a major role in turning public opinion against modernist planners, notably
Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influentia ...
. Postmodern urban planning involves theories that embrace and aim to create diversity, elevating uncertainty, flexibility, and change, and rejecting utopianism while embracing a utopian way of thinking and acting. The postmodernity of "resistance" seeks to deconstruct modernism, a critique of the origins without necessarily returning to them. As a result, planners are much less inclined to lay a firm or steady claim to there being one single "right way" of engaging in urban planning and are more open to different styles and ideas of "how to plan". This postmodern reaction is often compared with the modernist Chicago School, the then dominant movement founded at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
in the 1920s. Sociologist
Ernest Burgess Ernest Watson Burgess (May 16, 1886 – December 27, 1966) was a Canadian-American urban sociologist who was professor at the University of Chicago. He was the 24th President of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Early life He was bo ...
's prominent concentric circle model depicted urban areas as a series of concentric functional zones that sorted population groups. It proposed a central business core, circled by transitional immigrant and working class areas, then by more affluent outer commuter rings. In contrast, for example, the postmodernist Los Angeles School, primarily associated with the University of California at LA, viewed
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
as a prototypical postmodern city, a "multi-nucleated megacity encompassing hundreds of municipalities", sprawling and centerless. The LA School analysis emphasized the global-local connection, pervasive social fragmentation, and a "reterritorialization of the urban process in which hinterland organizes the center (in direct contradiction to the Chicago model)". A review of postmodern urbanism literature, published in 2018 in the ''Journal of Architectural and Planning Research'', examined coverage of style, epoch, and method, noting a general lack of cohesive definition, and the use of questionable interpretation to form conceptual statements. The review concluded that as a theoretical construct, postmodern urbanism "is relevant to planning and design theory insofar as it rejects modernist 'rational' planning." However, given that urban planning and design are grounded in practice, postmodern theoretical ideas offer "little insight that professionals can use."


Political planning

In the 1960s, a view emerged of planning as an inherently normative and political activity. Advocates of this approach included
Norman Dennis Norman Dennis (16 August 1929 – 13 November 2010) was a British sociologist. Early life and education Born one of four sons to a tram driver, Norman Dennis was educated at Bede Collegiate Boys' School. He was offered a place at Corpus Chris ...
, Martin Meyerson, Edward C. Banfield,
Paul Davidoff Paul Davidoff (February 14, 1930 – December 27, 1984) was an American planner, planning educator, and planning theoretician who conceptualized "advocacy planning" with his wife, Linda Stone Davidoff. In legal scholarship, he is known as the pri ...
, and Norton E. Long, the latter remarking that:
Plans are policies and policies, in a democracy at any rate, spell politics. The question is not whether planning will reflect politics but whose politics it will reflect. What values and whose values will planners seek to implement? . . . No longer can the planner take refuge in the neutrality of the objectivity of the personally uninvolved scientist.
The choices between alternative end points in planning was a key issue which was seen as political.


Participatory planning

Participatory planning is an urban planning
paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...
that emphasizes involving the entire community in the strategic and management processes of urban planning; or, community-level planning processes, urban or rural. It is often considered as part of
community development The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activist ...
. Participatory planning aims to harmonize views among all of its participants as well as prevent conflict between opposing parties. In addition, marginalized groups have an opportunity to participate in the planning process.
Patrick Geddes Sir Patrick Geddes (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, Comtean positivist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban plannin ...
had first advocated for the "real and active participation" of citizens when working in the
British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...
, arguing against the "Dangers of Municipal Government from above" which would cause "detachment from public and popular feeling, and consequently, before long, from public and popular needs and usefulness". Further on,
self-build Self-build is the process of creating an individual home or building through a variety of methods. The self-builder's input into this process varies from doing the actual construction, also known as Do it yourself, DIY, to contracting certain wor ...
was researched by
Raymond Unwin Sir Raymond Unwin (2 November 1863 – 29 June 1940) was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner, with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing. Early years Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham, Yor ...
in the 1930s in his ''Town Planning in Practice''. The Italian anarchist architect
Giancarlo De Carlo Giancarlo De Carlo (1919−2005) was an Italian architect and anarchist. He was a member of the ''Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne'' (CIAM) and became closely linked to Urbino as its town planner and creator of its master plan. Thr ...
then argued in 1948 that "“The housing problem cannot be solved from above. It is a problem of the people, and it will not be solved, or even boldly faced, except by the concrete will and action of the people themselves", and that planning should exist "as the manifestation of communal collaboration". Through the
Architectural Association School of Architecture The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest private school of architecture in the UK. The AA hosts exhibitions, lectures, academic conference, symposia and publications. Histo ...
, his ideas caught
John Turner John Napier Wyndham Turner (June 7, 1929September 19, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party and leader of the Opposit ...
, who started working in
Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
with Eduardo Neira. He would go on working in
Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...
from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s. There he found that the ''barrios'' were not
slum A slum is a highly populated Urban area, urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are p ...
s, but were rather highly organised and well-functioning. As a result, he came to the conclusion that:
"When dwellers control the major decisions and are free to make their own contributions in the design, construction or management of their housing, both this process and the environment produced stimulate individual and social well-being. When people have no control over nor responsibility for key decisions in the housing process, on the other hand, dwelling environments may instead become a barrier to personal fulfillment and a burden on the economy."
The role of the government was to provide a framework within which people would be able to work freely, for example by providing them the necessary resources, infrastructure and land. Self-build was later again taken up by
Christopher Alexander Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander (4 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an Austrian-born British-American architect and Design theory, design theorist. He was an Professors in the United States#Professor emeritus and emerita, emeritus profes ...
, who led a project called People Rebuild Berkeley in 1972, with the aim to create "self-sustaining, self-governing" communities, though it ended up being closer to traditional planning.


Synoptic planning

After the "fall" of blueprint planning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the synoptic model began to emerge as a dominant force in planning. Lane (2005) describes synoptic planning as having four central elements: :"(1) an enhanced emphasis on the specification of goals and targets; (2) an emphasis on quantitative analysis and predication of the environment; (3) a concern to identify and evaluate alternative policy options; and (4) the evaluation of means against ends (page 289)."
Public participation Public participation, also known as citizen participation or patient and public involvement, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder e ...
was first introduced into this model and it was generally integrated into the system process described above. However, the problem was that the idea of a single public interest still dominated attitudes, effectively devaluing the importance of participation because it suggests the idea that the public interest is relatively easy to find and only requires the most minimal form of participation.


Transactive planning

Transactive planning was a radical break from previous models. Instead of considering public participation as a method that would be used in addition to the normal training planning process, participation was a central goal. For the first time, the public was encouraged to take on an active role in the policy-setting process, while the planner took on the role of a distributor of information and a feedback source. Transactive planning focuses on interpersonal dialogue that develops ideas, which will be turned into action. One of the central goals is mutual learning where the planner gets more information on the community and citizens to become more educated about planning issues.Friedman, J. (1973). Retracking America: A Theory of Transactive Planning. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press/Doubleday.


Advocacy planning

Formulated in the 1960s by lawyer and planning scholar
Paul Davidoff Paul Davidoff (February 14, 1930 – December 27, 1984) was an American planner, planning educator, and planning theoretician who conceptualized "advocacy planning" with his wife, Linda Stone Davidoff. In legal scholarship, he is known as the pri ...
, the advocacy planning model takes the perspective that there are large inequalities in the political system and in the bargaining process between groups that result in large numbers of people unorganized and unrepresented in the process. It concerns itself with ensuring that all people are equally represented in the planning process by advocating for the interests of the underprivileged and seeking social change.Davidoff, P. (1965). Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 31 (4), 331–338.Mazziotti, D. F. (1982). The underlying assumptions of advocacy planning: pluralism and reform. In C. Paris (Ed.), Critical readings in planning theory (pp. 207–227) New York: Pergamon Press. Again, public participation is a central tenet of this model. A plurality of public interests is assumed, and the role of the planner is essentially the one as a facilitator who either advocates directly for underrepresented groups directly or encourages them to become part of the process.


Radical planning

Radical planning is a stream of
urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
which seeks to manage development in an equitable and
community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...
-based manner. The seminal text to the radical planning movement is ''Foundations for a Radical Concept in Planning'' (1973), by Stephen Grabow and Allen Heskin. Grabow and Heskin provided a critique of planning as elitist, centralizing and change-resistant, and proposed a new paradigm based upon systems change, decentralization,
communal society An intentional community is a voluntary residential community designed to foster a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. Such communities typically promote shared values or beliefs, or pursue a common vision, which may be political ...
, facilitation of human development and consideration of ecology. Grabow and Heskin were joined by ''Head of Department of Town Planning'' from the Polytechnic of the South Bank Shean McConnell, and his 1981 work ''Theories for Planning''. In 1987
John Friedmann John Friedmann (April 16, 1926 – June 11, 2017) was an Honorary Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Af ...
entered the fray with ''Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action'', promoting a radical planning model based on "decolonization", "democratization", "self-empowerment" and "reaching out". Friedmann described this model as an "Agropolitan development" paradigm, emphasizing the re-localization of
primary production In ecology, primary production is the synthesis of organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis, which uses light as its source of energy, but it also occurs through ...
and
manufacture Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
. In "Toward a Non- Euclidian Mode of Planning" (1993) Friedmann further promoted the urgency of decentralizing planning, advocating a planning paradigm that is normative, innovative, political, transactive and based on a social learning approach to knowledge and policy.


Bargaining model

The bargaining model views planning as the result of giving and take on the part of a number of interests who are all involved in the process. It argues that this bargaining is the best way to conduct planning within the bounds of legal and political institutions.McDonald, G. T. (1989). Rural Land Use Planning Decisions by Bargaining. Journal of Rural Studies, 5 (4), 325–335. The most interesting part of this theory of planning is that it makes public participation the central dynamic in the decision-making process. Decisions are made first and foremost by the public, and the planner plays a more minor role.


Communicative approach

The communicative approach to planning is perhaps the most difficult to explain. It focuses on using communication to help different interests in the process to understand each other. The idea is that each individual will approach a conversation with his or her own subjective experience in mind and that from that conversation shared goals and possibilities will emerge. Again, participation plays a central role in this model. The model seeks to include a broad range of voice to enhance the debate and negotiation that is supposed to form the core of actual plan making. In this model, participation is actually fundamental to the planning process happening. Without the involvement of concerned interests, there is no planning. Looking at each of these models it becomes clear that participation is not only shaped by the public in a given area or by the attitude of the planning organization or planners that work for it. In fact, public participation is largely influenced by how planning is defined, how planning problems are defined, the kinds of knowledge that planners choose to employ and how the planning context is set. Though some might argue that is too difficult to involve the public through transactive, advocacy, bargaining and communicative models because
transportation Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...
is some ways more technical than other fields, it is important to note that transportation is perhaps unique among planning fields in that its systems depend on the interaction of a number of individuals and organizations.Wachs, M. (2004). Reflections on the planning process. In S. Hansen, & G. Guliano (Eds.), The Geography of Urban Transportation (3rd Edition ed., pp. 141–161). The Guilford Press.


Process


Changes to the planning process

Strategic Urban Planning Strategic Urban Planning (SUP) is a methodical approach aimed at shaping the future of urban areas. It involves setting clear objectives, coordinating public and private efforts, and adapting to new circumstances to enhance the living conditions o ...
over past decades have witnessed the metamorphosis of the role of the urban planner in the planning process. More citizens calling for democratic planning & development processes have played a huge role in allowing the
public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
to make important decisions as part of the planning process. Community organizers and
social workers Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
are now very involved in planning from the grassroots level. The term advocacy planning was coined by
Paul Davidoff Paul Davidoff (February 14, 1930 – December 27, 1984) was an American planner, planning educator, and planning theoretician who conceptualized "advocacy planning" with his wife, Linda Stone Davidoff. In legal scholarship, he is known as the pri ...
in his influential 1965 paper, "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning" which acknowledged the political nature of planning and urged planners to acknowledge that their actions are not value-neutral and encouraged minority and underrepresented voices to be part of planning decisions. Benveniste argued that planners had a political role to play and had to bend some truth to power if their plans were to be implemented. Developers have also played huge roles in development, particularly by planning projects. Many recent developments were results of large and small-scale developers who purchased land, designed the district and constructed the development from scratch. The
Melbourne Docklands Docklands is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on the western end of the central business district. Docklands had a population of 15,495 at the 2021 census. Primarily a waterfront area centred on the banks of the Yarra R ...
, for example, was largely an initiative pushed by private developers to redevelop the waterfront into a high-end residential and commercial district. Recent theories of urban planning, espoused, for example by Salingaros see the city as an
adaptive system An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either cont ...
that grows according to process similar to those of
plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...
. They say that urban planning should thus take its cues from such natural processes. Such theories also advocate participation by inhabitants in the design of the urban environment, as opposed to simply leaving all development to large-scale construction firms. In the process of creating an urban plan or
urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes based on geographical location. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, city, ...
, carrier-infill is one mechanism of spatial organization in which the city's figure and ground components are considered separately. The urban figure, namely buildings, is represented as total possible building volumes, which are left to be designed by architects in the following stages. The urban ground, namely in-between spaces and open areas, are designed to a higher level of detail. The carrier-infill approach is defined by an urban design performing as the carrying structure that creates the shape and scale of the spaces, including future building volumes that are then infilled by architects' designs. The contents of the carrier structure may include street pattern,
landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
, open space, waterways, and other
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...
. The infill structure may contain
zoning In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into land-use "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for ...
,
building code A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for construction objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permis ...
s, quality guidelines, and
Solar Access Solar access is the ability of one property to continue to receive sunlight across property lines without obstruction from another’s property (buildings, foliage or other impediment). Solar access is calculated using a sun path diagram. Solar ac ...
based upon a solar envelope.Nelson, Nels O
Planning the Productive City
2009, accessed 30 December 2010.
Carrier-Infill urban design is differentiated from complete urban design, such as in the monumental axis of
Brasília Brasília ( ; ) is the capital city, capital of Brazil and Federal District (Brazil), Federal District. Located in the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region, it was founded by President Juscelino ...
, in which the urban design and architecture were created together. In carrier-infill
urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes based on geographical location. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, city, ...
or urban planning, the negative space of the city, including landscape, open space, and infrastructure is designed in detail. The positive space, typically building a site for future construction, is only represented in unresolved volumes. The volumes are representative of the total possible building envelope, which can then be infilled by individual architects.


See also

*
Index of urban planning articles Urban, city, or town planning is the discipline of planning which explores several aspects of the built and social environments of municipalities and communities: A Ancient Chinese urban planning - American Institute of Certified Planners (AI ...
*
Index of urban studies articles Urban studies is the diverse range of disciplines and approaches to the study of all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. This includes among others: urban economics, urban planning, urban ecology, urban transportation systems, ...
*
List of planned cities This is a list of planned cities (sometimes known as planned communities or new towns) by country. Additions to this list should be cities whose overall form (as opposed to individual neighborhoods or expansions) has been determined in large part ...
* List of planning journals *
List of urban planners A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
List of urban theorists This is a list of urban theorists notable in their field, in alphabetical order: * Christopher Alexander (1936-2022) * Donald Appleyard (1928-1982) * Michael E. Arth * Christopher Charles Benninger (1942) * Walter Block (1941) * Ernest Burgess ...
*
MONU – magazine on urbanism ''MONU'' is an English-language, annual magazine on urbanism that focuses on the city in a broad sense, including its politics, economy, geography, ecology, its social aspects, as well as its physical structure and architecture. Therefore, architec ...
* ''
Planetizen Planetizen is a planning-related news website and e-learning platform based in Los Angeles, California. It features user-submitted news, editor-evaluated news and weekly user-contributed op-eds about urban planning and several related fields. Th ...
'' * Transition Towns (network) * Transportation demand management * Urban acupuncture *
Urban vitality Urban vitality is the quality of spaces in urban area, cities that attract diverse groups of people for a range of activities at different times of the day. Such spaces are often be perceived as being alive, lively or vibrant, in contrast with lo ...


References

Notes * * * * * * Bibliography * * * (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 * * Hoch, Charles, Linda C. Dalton and Frank S. So, editors (2000). ''The Practice of Local Government Planning'', Intl City County Management Assn; 3rd edition. (The "Green Book") * * 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. . * * * * 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, * * 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 New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...
:
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
Press. (This book won the
National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...
, 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. * *
A Short Introduction to Radical Planning Theory and Practice
Doug Aberley Ph.D. MCIP, Winnipeg Inner City Research Alliance Summer Institute, June 2003 *McConnell, Shean. ''Theories for Planning'', 1981, David & Charles, London.


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 Camillo Sitte (17 April 1843 – 16 November 1903) was an Austrian architect, painter and urban theorist whose work influenced urban planning and land use regulation. Today, Sitte is best remembered for his 1889 book, ''City Planning According to ...
, 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. (). * ''Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'',
Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication '' To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in wh ...
, 1898 * ''The Improvement of Towns and Cities'',
Charles Mulford Robinson Charles Mulford Robinson (1869–1917) was a journalist and a writer who became famous as a pioneering urban planning theorist. He has the greatest influence as a missionary for urban beautification. He was the first Professor for Civic Design at ...
, 1901 * ''Town Planning in practice'', Raymond Unwin, 1909 * ''
The Principles of Scientific Management ''The Principles of Scientific Management'' (1911) is a monograph published by Frederick Winslow Taylor where he laid out his views on principles of scientific management, or industrial era organization and decision theory. Taylor was an American ...
'',
Frederick Winslow Taylor Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consulting, management consultants. In 190 ...
, 1911 * ''Cities in Evolution'',
Patrick Geddes Sir Patrick Geddes (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, Comtean positivist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban plannin ...
, 1915 * ''The Image of the City'', Kevin Lynch, 1960 * ''The Concise Townscape'',
Gordon Cullen Thomas Gordon Cullen (9 August 1914 – 11 August 1994) was an influential British architect and urban designer who was a key motivator in the Townscape movement. Cullen presented a new theory and methodology for urban visual analysis and design ...
, 1961 * ''
The Death and Life of Great American Cities ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the urban decay, decline of many city neighborhoods in the U ...
'',
Jane Jacobs Jane Isabel Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book ''The Death and Life of Great American Ci ...
, 1961 * '' The City in History'',
Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...
, 1961 * ''The City is the Frontier'', Charles Abrams, Harper & Row Publishing, New York, 1965. * ''
A Pattern Language ''A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction'' is a 1977 book on architecture, urban design, and community livability. It was authored by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein of the Center for Environmental Stru ...
'',
Christopher Alexander Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander (4 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an Austrian-born British-American architect and Design theory, design theorist. He was an Professors in the United States#Professor emeritus and emerita, emeritus profes ...
, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, 1977
''What Do Planners Do?: Power, Politics, and Persuasion''
American Planning Association, 1994. * ''Planning the Twentieth-Century American City'', Christopher Silver and Mary Corbin Sies (Eds.),
Johns Hopkins University Press Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...
, 1996 * "The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History",
Spiro Kostof Spiro Konstantine Kostof (7 May 1936, Istanbul – 7 December 1991, Berkeley) was a Turkish-born American leading architectural historian, and educator. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His books continue to be widel ...
, 2nd Edition, Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1999 * ''The American City: A Social and Cultural History'', Daniel J. Monti, Jr., Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts:
Blackwell Publishers Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
, 1999. 391 pp. .
''Urban Development: The Logic Of Making Plans''Lewis D. Hopkins
, Island Press, 2001. *

', Susan Fainstein and James DeFilippis, Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts:
Blackwell Publishers Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
, 2016. * 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

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