Planning Theories

By: Dr. Leena Thombre

Garden City
Following the Industrial Revolution, many European
cities faced an unprecedented rise in the rate of
population growth, intensified by the migration of
people from rural areas to urban areas seeking better
opportunities.

Although cities became more inviting, problems such

as pollution and the growth of informal settlements
also intensified. Meanwhile, the countryside provided
proximity to nature and an abundance of natural
resources, but it also suffered from isolation and a
decrease in employment opportunities.
In light of these issues, in the late nineteenth century,
the concept of garden cities was created. This model
of urban planning was characterized by progressive
ideals to solve the problems of rural flight and the
resulting disorderly growth of urban areas. The
garden city concept was based on the creation of a
series of small cities that would combine the
advantages of both environments.
Ebenezer Howard's Garden City
concept
 Three magnet concept

• The three magnet concept was an

utopian vision by Ebenezer Howard, a
well known urban planner of the 19th
century.
• The illustration shows the three kinds,
two which were existing with some
positives and some negatives, and the
third one Howard proposed by
combining the two; i.e. town-country.
• The amalgamation of these two
magnets helped in compensating the
disadvantages of both; the town and
countryside.
• Introducing the greenbelts in cities
brought the working class people near
to the farm side and empowered the
lifestyles of both. The concept evolved
in many stages from the “three
magnet theory’’ to “Garden cities of
to-morrow”.
Components of GARDEN CITY
As the name suggests, the park is supposed to be located in the centre
of the city, comprising a green space with public buildings such as a
town hall, concert and lecture hall, theatre, library, museum, gallery
and hospital around it.

Avenues, Boulevards and Roads

These are the main structural elements of the City which become the
spines and connect every element into one integrated and compact city
with easy commuting access.
Quarter garden city plan
Outer Ring

The outer ring brings the industrial element to the city which primarily
offers employment to the residents. The outer ring ensures people
work in an industrial area but with a beautiful countryside atmosphere.
The outer ring is connected with a circle railway which ensures easy
commuting and boosts efficiency.

Green Space: Green Belt, Park & Tree-Lined Street

The City promises a new way of working in a productive industrial city

while still enjoying the beautiful scenery of the countryside through
strictly sustainably planned green belts, parks, and houses with access
to gardens and avenues and boulevards with lush green trees and
shrubs.
Letchworth Garden City is situated in the county of Hertfordshire,
England, and is the world’s first Garden City.Commonly known as
Letchworth was created envisioning as a solution to the squalor
and poverty of urban life in Britain in the late 19th Century.

During the initial years, Letchworth gradually attracted more

residents by offering low taxes, low rents and more space.

Despite Howard’s best efforts, with changing times, the home

prices in this city could not remain affordable for the working
class.

Many would view Letchworth as a success, but it did not

immediately inspire government investment in the next line of
garden cities.

Due to this, Howard bought land at Welwyn to house the second

garden city in 1919. As a result, The Welwyn Garden City
Corporation was established to oversee the new City’s
construction.

Situated just 20 miles away from London, Welwyn failed to

become a self-sustaining community and city.
Linear City
• The linear city is an
urban plan for an
elongated urban
formation that was
proposed by Arturo
Soria y Mata in 1882.
The city would consist
of a series of
functionally specialized
parallel sectors.
• The heart of his project
was the idea of building
a light rail line, which
was supposed to link
Madrid with several
settlements in the
surrounding area.
Arturo Soria y Mata
Arturo Soria y Mata (1844-1920) was an
internationally important Spanish urban planner
whose work remains highly inspirational today. He is
most well known for his concept of the Linear City
(exemplified in Madrid's Ciudad Lineal).

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 Arturo Soria y Mata (1844-1920)
this line. As compared to the concentric diagrams of
Ebenezer Howard 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 streets were 200 meters long and 20

meters wide, and the center line of the street
connected with the different blocks of houses,
each of which were square, rectangular or
trapezoid in shape. Thus, the city grew parallel
to the main street,

The new houses were bigger and had a garden.

There was also a vegetable garden or a space
for working the land. Arturo Soria left the
architects free to build different models of
houses in order to avoid monotony.
A classic example of the linear city is Volgograd — one of the largest cities-centres in the
South of Russia, which is mentioned in all the world's publications on linear development
planning structures. Initial prerequisites for the linear development of the city, which was
named Tsaritsyn (then since 1925 Stalingrad, since 1961 Volgograd) were natural factors — a
big river and a surrounding steppe, which were not supposed to contribute to the deep-laid
development of the city. Soviet period became fundamental in urban planning fate of
Stalingrad-Volgograd, embodying the linear form of development.
Patrick Geddes
• The central Geddesian lessons — his
emphasis of the fundamental unity and
interdependence of culture and nature,
and his emphasis on transdisciplinary
education and locally adapted direct action
as a means of cultural transformation —
are of profound contemporary significance.
• For Geddes the role of the designer was
two-fold:
• i) to contribute to the material adaptation
of people and their livelihood to the
specific opportunities and challenges of the
places they inhabit
• ii), to affect in the transformation of culture
through education.
Seeing ʻlife as wholeʼ, which is to understand life as a dynamic ecological, social, and
cognitive process in which humanity participates, raises awareness of the fundamental
interconnection of nature and culture. Patrick Geddes understood that such a
participatory worldview informed by detailed knowledge about the ecological, social,
geological, cultural and hydrological conditions of the local region would be instrumental
in facilitating the emergence of sustainable human societies uniquely adapted to their
particular region.
In 1880, Patrick Geddes was appointed Assistant in Practical
Botany at Edinburgh University and was based at the Royal Botanic
Garden. He settled in Edinburgh with his wife, Anna. Over the next
20 years he initiated a number of social experiments designed to
improve housing and living conditions in the Old Town.

By the mid 19th century, many of Edinburgh's most prosperous

citizens had moved to the New Town or the newly-built suburbs to
the south and west of the city. The Old Town was in desperate
need of improvement, with poor housing and sanitation.

Geddes believed that, in order to understand and improve a

community, one had to be a part of it. In a bold move, he
transferred his family to James Court, a near-slum off the
Lawnmarket at the top of the Royal Mile. He started by improving
the building in which he lived, but he was soon inspiring and
mobilising his neighbours into communal action.

In 1884, Geddes established the Environment Society (later the

Edinburgh Social Union) to encourage local residents to survey,
plan, and improve the local environment.

Geddes wanted to encourage a mixture of people from different

backgrounds and professions to settle in the Old Town to create a
mixed, vibrant community. He founded University Hall, the first
Hall of Residence in Edinburgh. The hall was set up in renovated
properties around the Lawnmarket, including one in Riddle's Court
(soon to be transformed into the Patrick Geddes Centre for
Learning and Conservation).
The valley section depicts an ideal regional-urban
condition, whereas the Notation of Life embodies
concrete architectural proposals how to realise that
ideal condition. Geddes expresses in the valley region
that Enlightenment theory of social evolution that
describes mankind’s development through the four
stages of hunting, pastoral, and agriculture toward The section of the tower reflects Geddes’ idea that
commercial societies. to reach an understanding of the whole universe
one should start from a local point of view and
progressively increase the scope of the vision
without forgetting the different stages previously
crossed. In this sense, a series of superposed
rooms of the same size would contain information
about “Edimburg”, then “Scotland”, “English
speaking countries”, “Europe” and finally the
“World”

Valley sections based on Geddes 'The Valley Section from Hills to Sea'.

Outlook Tower
"Geddes formulated his place/work/folk triad in 1904 in two lectures (Civics. An
applied sociology). These three components also highlight the interdisciplinary
relationships between geography (place), economics (work) and anthropology
(folk), relationships that also evolve over time.
Patrick Geddes in India
• His principles for town planning in Bombay demonstrate his views on the relationship
between social processes and spatial form, and the intimate and causal connections
between the social development of the individual and the cultural and physical
environment. They included: ("What town planning means under the Bombay Town
Planning Act of 1915")

• Preservation of human life and energy, rather than superficial beautification.

• Conformity to an orderly development plan carried out in stages.
• Purchasing land suitable for building.
• Promoting trade and commerce.
• Preserving historic buildings and buildings of religious significance.
• Developing a city worthy of civic pride, not an imitation of European cities.
• Promoting the happiness, health and comfort of all residents, rather than focusing on
roads and parks available only to the rich.
• Control over future growth with adequate provision for future requirements.
Le Corbusier- (Ville Contemporaine)

The Ville contemporaine (French pronunciation: Contemporary City) was an unrealized

utopian planned community intended to house three million inhabitants designed by
the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1922.
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 1887 –
27 August 1965), French: was a Swiss-French
architect, designer, painter, urban planner and
writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is
now regarded as modern architecture. He was
born in Switzerland and acquired French
nationality by naturalization on 19 September
1930.His career spanned five decades, in
which he designed buildings in Europe, Japan,
India, as well as North and South America.He
considered that "the roots of modern
architecture are to be found in Viollet-le-Duc".
Philosophy of Le Corbusier
• No matter how open and green, cities should be frankly urban, urban surroundings are to
be definitely contrasting with rural surroundings.
• Densities are in themselves not a problem. Congestion and slum conditions in the cities
are due to excessive coverage, persistence of old street patterns and unrestricted land
speculation
• Slums exist because of the failure to provide the proper surrounding for high density living.
• He protests against strict functionalism. “Human creations that survive are those which
produce emotions, and not those which are only useful”.

Concentric City
A city for 3 million people was proposed by Le Corbusier in 1922, which was based on four
principles.
1. Decongestion of the centre of the cities
2. Augmentation of the density
3. Enlargement of the means of circulation
4. Increase in the number of parks and open spaces
 Three Zones in Concentric City
• Central city
• Protected green belt
• Factories and satellite towns

• It consists of rectangle containing two cross axial

highways.
• At its heart was a six-level transport interchange – centre
for motor, rail lines (underground and main line railways)
and roof of which is air-field.
• 24 cruciform skyscrapers - 60 storied office building with
density 1200 ppa and covers 5% of the ground.
• Surrounding skyscrapers was apartment district – 8
storey buildings arranged in zigzag rows with broad open
spaces with density of 120 ppa (people per acre).
• The buildings in the central area were raised on stilts
(pilotis) so as to leave panoramas of unbroken greenery
at ground level.
• The city espoused space, speed, mass production and
efficient organization, but also offered combination of
natural and urban environments.
Frank Lloyd Wright- Broad Acre
City
• Frank Lloyd Wright, the renowned American architect, was born on June 8, 1867, in
Richland Center, Wisconsin, USA. From an early age, he displayed a fascination with
nature and its organic forms, a passion that would profoundly shape his architectural
philosophy.
• Broadacre City was an urban or suburban
development concept proposed by Frank
Wright. Broadacre's vast suburban landscape,
seemingly scattered across an entire
continent, anticipates the prevailing urban
context.
• Wright envisioned that the low-density
community represented in the Broadacre
model would be replicated across the United
States, creating a network of small
communities that would be connected
together by highways and telecommunication
systems, such as radio and telephone
As early as the 1920s, Frank Lloyd Wright began to regard his architectural work as an
integral part of a larger concept which he called Broadacre City. This new democratic
city, as envisioned by Wright, would take advantage of modern technology and
communications to decentralize the old city and create an environment in which the
individual would flourish.

According to Wright, structures in a Broadacre

city ought to be organic and in harmony with
humanity as well as the environment. Wright
developed a 12 by 12-foot scale model to
represent a hypothetical 4 square mile
community.
Design
• Broadacre City was designed to be a continuous urban area with a low
population density and services grouped depending on the type.
• The city had a futuristic highway and airfields in an effort to help curb traffic.
• The highways connecting different cities were gigantic, with detailed design and
landscaping.
• There were public service stations and comfortable vehicles with the city
divided into various units.
• There were farm units, factory units, roadside markets, leisure areas, schools,
and living spaces.
• Each living unit was given an acre to decorate and nurture.
• All the units were organized such that individuals would get any service or
commodity they needed within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles
accessible by road or air to make it decentralized and sustainable.
• Similar services were found in distinct zones of the city. For example, Banks
were located along the same street, same to leisure joints.
• The design was motor vehicle-friendly, reflecting Wright’s love for cars and the
living units were called minimum houses.
• The design concept focused on the social right of every citizen, especially the
family unit, to their place on land and air, where they were free to socialize.
Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer
• Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer (September 14, 1885
– May 6, 1967) was a German architect
and urban planner best known for his ties to
the Bauhaus and to Mies van der Rohe, as well
as for his work in urban planning at Armour
Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of
Technology), in Chicago, Illinois
• Hilberseimer Decentralized city was published
for the first time in. The New city in 1944. It
proposed an alternative model for the city and
suburbs.
• The main subjects that
intrested Hilberseimer were the construction
of "siedlungen" (settlements) and urban
centers, as well as new constructions in
reinforced concrete, always claiming a purified
expression of stylistic features.
The Decentralized City, 1944
Hilberseimer's Decentralized City was published for the first time in The New City
magazine in 1944. The city arose in response to the problems caused by the industrial
age.
The first phase of this industrialization was based on the concentration of production
and separation between the city and the countryside, which is why Hilberseimer
thought that the second phase should be focused on decentralization and diversification
of production, both agriculture and industry, and a closer relationship between city and
countryside.
Hilbersiemer created a system for low densities with units separated by uses. The units
differed from each other and were combined into groups. There were three elements:
traffic arteries, settlement buildings and the nature that organized it; working separately
and without conflict.
The traffic arteries consisted of a combined
system of open highways and closed structures,
such as the spine of a fish, that created closed
areas in the city and replaced intersections and
corners with safe and efficient ties.

The buildings were connected to this fishbone

structure. The different programs of the city were
separated by a very clear area. On one side you
will find industrial buildings, along the highway
the administrative and commercial buildings, and
behind them are different types of housing.
Other programs such as schools would be located
in the long green areas. In this city you could see
some L-shaped houses described above.

The vegetation in the project was treated

artificially to serve the user and everything is
surrounded by nature, allowing a more direct
relationship with it.
These apartments had always the same size and space, regardless of whether it
had a street or a courtyard in between, and they were always located taking
into account the orientation of the sun, facing east and west. The interior
layout of the apartments was designed so that the rooms faced the patio and
the living room and the stairs gave onto the street, allowing cross ventilation.
 C. A. Doxiadis (Ekistics)
Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (also Konstantinos; 14 May 1913 - 28 June 1975), often
cited as C. A. Doxiadis, was a Greek architect and town planner. He was known as the lead
architect of Islamabad, the new capital of Pakistan, and later as the father of ekistics.

Ekistics, the Science of Human Settlements

Doxiadis' Concept of Human Settlement stands

as a testament to the visionary thinking that
can shape urban planning. His emphasis on
anthropocentric design, Ekistics, hierarchical
organization, and three-dimensional planning
has provided a comprehensive framework for
understanding and shaping the built
environment.
• In order to create the cities of the future, we need to systematically develop a science of
human settlements.
• This science, termed Ekistics, will take into consideration the principles man takes into
account when building his settlements, as well as the evolution of human settlements
through history in terms of size and quality.
• The target is to build the city of optimum size, that is, a city which respects human
dimensions.
• Since there is no point in resisting development, we should try to accommodate
technological evolution and the needs of man within the same settlement.

Doxiadis, structural interpretation of the

metropolitan framework for urban design,
1960. The hand form with national park as
the palm, the three green zones and two
CBDs as fingers.
The concept of Ekistics works on the five
principles :

1. maximization of human potentials

2. minimization of efforts (in terms of time,
energy, resource, routes)
3. optimization of human's protective space
4. optimization of human's relation with his
environment
5. Optimization in the synthesis of previous
principles Five elements of Ekistics as designed initially by C.A. Doxiadis in
1947, (Fookes, 2008)
Clarence Arthur Perry
(Neighbourhood Unit)
Clarence Arthur Perry (March 4, 1872 –
September 6, 1944[1]) was an American urban
planner, sociologist, author, and educator.
Perry devised the neighbourhood unit plan, a
residential community scheme disseminated
through the Regional Plan of New York and Its
Environs in 1929 that influenced planning in US
cities.

The term “neighborhood” was first introduced into American city planning literature in the
early 1900s as part of the movement toward comprehensive planning.

Perry defined a neighborhood as a collection of dwelling units located close together, having a
common interest in the character of the surrounding areas. He also stated that a
neighborhood is a small-scale community where people know each other, share many of their
activities, and provided a sense of belonging.
• According to Perry, a neighborhood should
comprise a population of about 5000–9000
residents, with schools, places of worship,
and recreational areas at its center.

• The 160-acre neighborhood is to be

developed such that there are 10 dwellings
per acre. This would also require an
elementary school with an enrolment of
between 1,000 and 1,200 pupils.

• The design should allow the residents to

access basic facilities and services at a
distance of not more than one-quarter mile
from their place of residence.

• Further, about 10 percent of the area is to

be allocated to recreation. The arteries of
the roads are confined to the surrounding
streets, and the internal streets are limited
for access to the residents of the
neighborhood.
6 Concepts of Neighborhood Planning
Clarence Stein (American Garden
Cities)
• Clarence Samuel Stein (June 19, 1882
– February 7, 1975) was an
American urban planner, architect,
and writer, a major proponent of
the garden city movement in the
United States.
Regional Planning Association of America
(RPAA)

These communities feature gardens,

shared courtyards, and parks closely
integrated with housing. Stein and Wright
used cul-de-sacs, superblocks,
and greenbelts to separate neighborhoods
as much as possible from highways and
reduce traffic congestion. Such
arrangements drew criticism in later years
from Jane Jacobs and other advocates of
vibrant street life. The Great Depression
and World War II prevented Stein and the
RPAA from securing the financial and
political backing to realize their vision for
true garden cities (with local employment,
public transportation links, and limitations
on sprawl). However, their attempts have
inspired generations of planners and their
built projects are now being preserved
as historic landmarks.
Plan of Radburn's
Burnham Place cul-
de-sac.
 Riding by a park in Radburn. Stein was an early
supporter of bicycle paths separated from busy
streets.

Houses and green space in Pittsburgh's

Chatham Village neighborhood.
Model of Hillside Homes in the Bronx