TOWN PLANNING Ar.

Shruti Sidhu
LECTURE 03 M. Ekistics
Assistant professor, UIA, CU
06.03.2023
EBENEZER HOWARD
One of the main inspirations for Ebenezer
Howard was Edward Bellamy
He wrote book ‘looking backward 2000 to
1887’
Howard published
the book To- A guy who wakes up in
morrow: a Peaceful Boston in the year 2000 and
Path to Real he's been asleep for 113
Reform in 1898 years and he's emancipated
(which was from the horrors of capitalism
reissued in 1902
he said things like why can't we
as Garden Cities of
just have communal kitchens and
To-morrow).
public laundries and sort of get
together on certain things and then
otherwise it's all about
individualism
September 1, 2025 and freedom SHRUTI SIDHU
EBENEZER HOWARD
Ebenezer Howard had this idea –
We need to plan a complete city outside of a
place like London and it needs to be planned
for colonization.
Basically these were not communities for
poor people. These were communities for
working-class people.
There was some range of income levels
intended and the idea was to purchase
farmland at an agricultural rate, establish a
limited dividend company and then as
construction of the town happened and land
values increased the profits would cycle
back into the community.
That is how the garden city is supposed to
work.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
GARDEN CITY

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

GARDEN CITY
promoting satellite communities surrounding
the central city and separated with greenbelts

His idealized garden city would house 32,000

people on a site of 9,000 acres (3,600 ha),
planned on a concentric pattern with open
spaces, public parks, and six radial boulevards,
120 ft (37 m) wide, extending from the center.

The garden city would be self-sufficient and

when it reached full population, another would
be developed nearby.

Howard envisaged a cluster of several garden

cities as satellites of a central city of 58,000
people, linked by road and rail.

an alternative to overcrowded and industrial

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
The Three Magnets
1.Town – The pull of ‘Town Magnet’ are the opportunities for work and high wages,
social opportunities, amusements and well – lit streets. The pull of ‘Country Magnet’ is
in natural beauty, fresh air, healthfulness. It was closing out of nature, offered isolation
of crowds and distance from work. But it came at a cost of foul air, costly drainage,
murky sky and slums.

2.Country – It offered natural beauty, low rents, fresh air, meadow but had low
wages and lack of drainage. Country has dullness, lack of society, low wages, lack of
amusements and general decay.

3.Town- Country – it was a combination of both town and countryside with aim of
providing benefits of both and offered beauty of nature, social opportunity, fields of
easy access, low rent, high wages and field of enterprise. Thus, the solution was found
in a combination of the advantages of Town and Country – the ‘Town – Country
Magnet’ – it was proposed as a town in the Country, and having within it the amenities
of natural beauty, fresh air and healthfulness. Thus advantages of the Town – Country
are seed to be free from the disadvantages of either.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
GARDEN CITY
Bona fide garden cities that
Ebenezer Howard was
directly involved in
Letchworth garden city &
Welwyn Garden city
The community was to be of
about thirty thousand
people on a thousand acres
of land

Architect Raymond
Unwin and Barry Parker

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CLARENCE STEIN
Elementary school at center, within ½ mile walking
Shopping center near school

Cul-de-sac or
‘dead-end’ roads
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CLARENCE PERRY
Clarence Perry's conceptualization of the
neighborhood unit evolved out of an earlier idea of
his, to provide a planning formula for the
arrangement and distribution of playgrounds in the
New York region. Clarence Perry conceived of
neighborhoods in this time period as islands locked
amidst a burgeoning sea of vehicular traffic, a
dangerous obstacle which prevented children (and
adults) from safely walking to nearby playgrounds
and amenities. Perry's neighborhood unit concept
began as a means of combating this obstacle.
Ultimately, however, it evolved to serve a much
broader purpose, of providing a discernible identity
for the concept of the "neighborhood", and of offering
to designers a framework for disseminating the city
into smaller subareas (suburbs).
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CLARENCE PERRY

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CLARENCE PERRY

Max. radius of walking – ¼ mile

Shopping areas at intersecting traffic
streets on the outside corners rather
than center

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RADBURN PLAN

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

RADBURN PLAN
The Superblock in place of the characteristic narrow, rectangular block.
Specialized roads planned and built for one use instead of for all uses.
service lanes for direct access to buildings; secondary collector roads around
superblocks; main through roads, linking the traffic of various sections,
neighborhoods and districts; express highways or parkways, for connection with
outside communities. (Thus differentiating between movement, collection, service,
parking, and visiting.)
Complete separation of pedestrian and automobile, or as complete
separation as possible. Walks and paths routed at different places from roads
and at different levels when they cross. For this purpose overpasses and
underpasses were used
Houses turned around. Living and sleeping rooms facing toward gardens and
parks; service rooms toward access roads.
Park as backbone of the neighborhood. Large open areas in the center of
superblocks, joined together as a continuous park
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
RADBURN PLAN
The distinctive
innovations of
Radburn were
the
integrating
superblocks,
specialized
and separated
means of
circulation,
the park
backbone,
Figure: Plan ofand
a typical
the
“lane”house
at Radburn. The
park in the center of the
with istwo
superblock shown at the
fronts.
top; the motorways to the
houses are at right angles
September 1, 2025 to the park. SHRUTI SIDHU
RADBURN PLAN

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY
Ernest Burgess (1886-1966) was an
American-born Urban Sociologist.
Burgess and his friends in their book
‘The City’ [1925] conceptualized the
city as concentric zones including
multiple zones that experience
evolution and change
Burgess developed the concentric
zone theory of urban land use in the
mid-1920s based on an examination
of the historical development of
Chicago through the 1890s.

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY
Burgess classified the city into 5 zones. The zones identified are:
1. The center with the central business district [CBD]: focus for urban
activity and confluence of the city’s transport infrastructure.
2. The transition zone of mixed residential and commercial uses or the
zone of transition: predominantly a manufacturing district with some
residences.
3. Working class residential homes (inner suburbs), in later decades
called working-class or zone of independent working men’s homes:
working-class population living in older houses, generally lacking
amenities.
4. Better quality middle-class homes (outer suburbs) or zone of better
housing comprising spacious housing for middle classes
5. Commuter zone, high-class homes on outskirts of outer suburbs -
homeowner can afford to commute to central business district.
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CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY
CRITICISM
1. It is descriptive and contrasts with analytical approaches
2. It describes the peculiar American geography, where the inner city
is poor while suburbs are wealthy; the inverse is the norm
elsewhere.
3. The model was developed before the advent of mass commuting
options
4. Every city is unique and there is no such thing as a typical city
5. Urban gentrification, globalization, and the total impact these two
elements will have on modern planning approaches were not
taken into account by the model.
6. Many working-class populations now choose to live and work
outside the city on the urban fringe – a phenomenon not reflected
in the Burgess model
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY hierarchical arrangements and settlement pattern

Walter Christhaller (1893-1969)

was a German geographer.
He studies the settlement patterns
in southern Germany and noticed
that towns of a certain size were
roughly equidistant.
Proposed the ordering principle
governing the distribution of towns
and cities – Central Place Theory in
1933.

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CENTRAL PLACE THEORY
Central Place – A settlement that
provides goods/services for their own
residents as well as for the people living
nearly

Centrality – The ratio between services

provided and local needs
Threshold – The minimum number of Thresh
old
people required to support service
Range of central goods/service – The
maximum distance that consumers are
willing to travel to purchase the goods
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY

Circular shape results in either un-served

areas or over-served areas, Christhaller
suggested a hexagonal shape of markets.

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

CENTRAL PLACE THEORY

Since threshold demand and market range

vary enormously for different goods and
services it is impossible for all the central
place functions to be carried on in all
central places. Lowest-order goods and
services are available at a large number of
locations, and highest-order goods at only
a small number of locations. Accordingly,
Christaller’s urban system is arranged in a
nested hierarchy of central places and
market areas with lower-order market areas
completely contained within higher-order
areas
A hierarchical spatial agreement of central places
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY

Settlements distributed along

hexagonal patterns can most efficiently
cover a uniform and plane field,
minimizing the distance of any
particular location from the nearest
settlement center. Within a region,
hierarchies of settlements of increasing
size, functional diversification and
specialization can correspond to nested
hierarchies of hexagonal lattices.

A hierarchical spatial agreement of central places

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CENTRAL PLACE THEORY
The hierarchical order
of the urban network in
Hungary. The
hierarchical levels were
classified according to
the annual turnover of
the specialist shops in
1961. At the right
bottom there is the
Christaller model
applied to the territory
of Hungary. Source:
Major, J. (1964). A
magyar va´rosha´lo
´zatro´l. Telepu¨le
´studoma´nyi
Ko¨zleme´nyek 16, 32–
September 1, 2025 65, p SHRUTI
57. SIDHU
SECTOR MODEL
Homer Hoyt (1825-1984) was an economist
and researcher in land economics.
Hoyt in 1939 proposed the sector model of
land use
The model explains the tendency for various
socio-economic groups to segregate in terms of
their locational decisions.

Hoyt presents wedge-like sectors of dominant

urban land use, within which he identifies
concentric zones of different rent.
The model suggests that, over time, high-
quality housing tends to expand outwards from
an urban
September 1, 2025 center. SHRUTI SIDHU
SECTOR MODEL

Zone of transition

The theory also does not take into account the new concepts of edge cities and suburbs,
which began to emerge in the 1980s, after the creation of the model. Since its creation, the
traditional Central Business District has diminished in importance as many retail and office
buildings have moved into the suburbs.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
EKISTICS
CONSTANTINOS
Ekistics DOXIADIS
is the science of human
settlements. The term derives
from the Greek verb oikõ, meaning
“settling down,” and denotes the
existence of an overall science of
human settlements conditioned by
man and influenced by economic,
social, political administrative, and
technical sciences as well as the
disciplines related to the arts.

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

 EKISTICS
Doxiadis defined five elements of human settlements or ekistic elements, which are essential for
an inclusive approach to human settlements.
Nature represents the ecosystem within which man and society operate and cities and
settlements are placed. The interrelation between man, machine, settlement and nature is of
high importance, as is the carrying capacity of regions, continents and ultimately the entire
planet.
Man. In the center stands man, the individual human being. The
generic term includes male and female. Later Doxiadis replaced man
with the Greek term anthropos to be more inclusive.
Society deals with people and their interaction with population
trends, group behavior, social customs, occupation, income, and
government. Of increasing, importance is the preservation of values
inherent in small communities after they have been absorbed by
larger settlements.
Shells are used
Networks as the genericcommunication,
for transportation, term for all buildings and structures.
and utilities
support the settlements and tie them together with their
organization and structure.
Their changes profoundly affect urban patterns and often
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
developments in networks have been portending new
EKISTICS
Any study of human settlements must be related to the scale. To this end, Doxiadis
proposed 15 levels of settlement size or 15 ekistic units, ranging from the individual
man or anthropos to the entire global settlement called ecumenopolis, with its
ultimate size of 30– 50 billion people. The 15 units are:
1. man (anthropos),
2. room,
3. house,
4. house group,
5. small neighborhood,
6. small city,
7. city (polis),
8. small metropolis,
9. metropolis,
10. small megalopolis,
11. megalopolis,
12. small eperopolis,
13. eperopolis,
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
14. ecumenopolis
EKISTICS

By combining the ekistic elements

with the ekistic logarithmic scale,
Doxiadis created the ekistic grid,
an organizational matrix on which
each study can be localized and
categorized.

Ekistic grid with scale defined in terms of

logarithmic scale of population (x axis)
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
EKISTICS

In order to understand settlements we must look at their

manifest spatial morphology, the underlying spatial patterns
associated with human activities and behavior, as well as the
functional and organizational structure that joins the former to
the latter, always bearing in mind that the relationships involved
are not simple cause and effect but rather statistical in nature.

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

MULTIPLE NUCLEI THEORY
The multiple nuclei model is an
economical model created by
Chauncy Harris and Edward
Ullman in the 1945 article
"The Nature of Cities".
The theory is based upon the
notion that cities have an
essential cellular structure, in
which distinctive types of land
use have developed around
certain growing points or
‘nuclei’ within urban areas.
The model describes the layout
of a city, based on Chicago.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
MULTIPLE NUCLEI THEORY

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MULTIPLE NUCLEI THEORY
Their aim was to produce a more realistic, if more complicated, model. Their
main goals in this were to:
1. Move away from the concentric zone model
2. Better reflect the complex nature of urban areas, especially those of
larger size

The model assumes that:

3. Land is not flat in all areas
4. There is an even distribution of Resources
5. There is an even distribution of people in Residential areas
6. There is an even Transportation Costs

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

PATRICK GEDDES
Sir Patrick Geddes was a Scottish
biologist, sociologist, geographer,
philanthropist and pioneering town
planner. He is known for his
innovative thinking in the fields of
urban planning and sociology.
Patrick Geddes wrote his ‘Cities In
Evolution’ in 1915
He introduced the concept of
"region" to architecture and planning
and coined the term "conurbation".

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

PATRICK GEDDES
To town planning, he brought the
methods of ‘diagnostic survey’ and
‘conservative surgery’, concepts taken
from medical science, which formed the
basis for the entire exercise of planning.
The former implied an extensive,
preferably walking tour of the city,
meeting and talking to people in order to
acquaint oneself with how the city had
grown and what problems it faced at
present.
Geddes’ ‘diagnosis before treatment’
may seem too obvious to warrant
attention today, but the idea was new in
town planning at that time.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
PATRICK GEDDES
To town planning, he brought the Geddes believed that urban
methods of ‘diagnostic survey’ and planning should be focused on
‘conservative surgery’, concepts taken understanding the complex social
from medical science, which formed the
and ecological systems that
basis for the entire exercise of planning.
underpin cities, rather than simply
The former implied an extensive, on the construction of buildings
preferably walking tour of the city, and infrastructure.
meeting and talking to people in order to
acquaint oneself with how the city had
grown and what problems it faced at Geddes' approach to urban
present. planning emphasized the
importance of understanding the
Geddes’ ‘diagnosis before treatment’ social and ecological systems that
may seem too obvious to warrant
underpin cities, and of engaging
attention today, but the idea was new in
town planning at that time. with local communities and
stakeholders to ensure that urban
September 1, 2025
interventions are sensitive to their
SHRUTI SIDHU
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
writer.
He was influenced by the work of Scottish
theorist Sir Patrick Geddes. He visualized a town
not so much as a physical entity but as a social
phenomenon.

His 1961 book, The City in History,

received the National Book Award.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
LEWIS MUMFORD
Lewis Mumford, proposed six stages of town
development, which he outlined in his book "The
City in History." These stages are:

Eopolis: The stage of the small, self-sufficient

village, where the primary social unit is the Eopolis
family. This stage is characterized by low levels
of specialization, and most of the basic
necessities of life are produced and consumed Paleopolis
within the community.

Paleopolis: The stage of the ancient city, Necropolis

characterized by a significant increase in
population, specialization, and the emergence
of social classes. Paleopolis cities were often
fortified and had a central marketplace, where
trade and commerce flourished.

Necropolis: The stage of the city of the dead,

characterized by a focus on death and the
afterlife. Necropolises were often built on the
outskirts of cities and were used to bury the
dead.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
LEWIS MUMFORD
Lewis Mumford, proposed six stages of town
development, which he outlined in his book "The
City in History." These stages are:

Acropolis: The stage of the citadel or fortress city,

characterized by the emergence of centralized power Eopolis
structures and the construction of monumental
architecture. Acropolises were often built on hills or
other elevated areas and were used as defensive
structures. Paleopolis
Megalopolis: The stage of the industrial city,
characterized by explosive population growth and the
emergence of mass production and consumption.
Necropolis
Megalopolises were often marked by pollution, social
and economic inequality, and a high degree of urban
sprawl. Acropolis
Ecumenopolis: The stage of the global city,
characterized by a planet-wide network of
interconnected cities and the increasing dominance of
Megalopolis
urban culture and values. Ecumenopolises are marked
by a high degree of interdependence and
interconnectivity, with cities acting as nodes in a Ecumenopolis
global network of trade, communication, and
exchange.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
LINEAR CITY
Soria y Malta in 1882 propounded the theory of the linear city – La
Ciudad Linear.
He sought to expand the city along the spine of communication – the
highway.
Thebordered
Stretching along the roadway, housing and industry only a realized
continuous artery linking the existing cities. project, La Ciudad Lineal
in Madrid, had lost
momentum by the
1930s, but the idea was
actively promoted by
Arturo Soria y Mata and
his associates during
the first half the 1900s
September 1, 2025
and other SHRUTIplanners
SIDHU
LINEAR CITY
Soria y Malta in 1882 propounded the theory of the linear city – La
Ciudad Linear.
He sought to expand the city along the spine of communication – the
highway.
Thebordered
Stretching along the roadway, housing and industry only a realized
continuous artery linking the existing cities. project, La Ciudad Lineal
in Madrid, had lost
momentum by the
1930s, but the idea was
actively promoted by
Arturo Soria y Mata and
his associates during
the first half the 1900s
September 1, 2025
and other SHRUTIplanners
SIDHU
LINEAR CITY
Later, in the 1940s, Le After the Second World War corridor
Corbusier and his companions development became a popular
presented “La cité linéaire version of linear planning:
industrielle“, a scheme close
to Arturo Soria y Mata’s 1. Copenhagen developed the “5-
philosophy of linear cities Finger Plan”
stretching over continents 2. Stockholm developed suburbs
along rail corridors
In these schemes the planning is
not linear at the local level, only on
a regional level.

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

INDUSTRIAL CITY
The garden city and satellite town rely
on their relatively small size to maintain
a balance between urban development
and surrounding open space. The linear
city emplys the countryside to contain
urbanization along the highway.
Integrating these elements, Tony
Garnier presented his ideas in 1917 for
La Cite Industrielle.
These inspiring plans for a modern
industrial city separated the civic
center and residential sections from the
factory district by a “greenbelt” and the
highway and railroad traversed this
broad buffer space.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
CIAM
The International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) was
founded in June 1928, at the Chateau de la Sarraz in Switzerland,
by a group of 28 European architects organized by Le Corbusier,
Hélène de Mandrot (owner of the castle), and Sigfried Giedion, (the
first secretary-general). CIAM was one of many 20th-century
manifestos meant to advance the cause of architecture as a social
art.

saw architecture as an economic and political tool that could be

used to improve the world through the design of buildings and
through urban planning

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

LA VILLE CONTEMPORAINE THE
CONTEMPORARY CITY
LE CORBUSIER (1920S)

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.

Source: The Urban Pattern by Arthur B. Gallion and Simon Eisner

September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU

LA VILLE CONTEMPORAINE THE
CONTEMPORARY CITY
LE CORBUSIER (1920S)
The centerpiece of this plan was a
group of sixty-story cruciform
skyscrapers built on steel frames
and encased in curtain walls of
glass.
The skyscrapers housed both
offices and the flats of the most
wealthy inhabitants.
These skyscrapers were set within
large, rectangular park-like
green spaces.

At the center of the planned city

Source: The Urban Pattern by Arthur B. Gallion and Simon Eisner
was a transportation hub that
housed depots for buses and trains
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
as well as highway intersections
LA VILLE CONTEMPORAINE
LE CORBUSIER (1920S)

Le Corbusier
segregated the
pedestrian circulation
paths from the
roadways and glorified
the use of the
automobile as a means
of transportation.

As one moved out from

the central skyscrapers,
smaller multi-story
zigzag blocks set in
green space and set far Source:
back1,from
September 2025 the street SHRUTI SIDHU
Fondation Le Corbusier - - Ville contemporaine de trois millions d'habitants
 PLAN VOISIN
LE CORBUSIER (1925)

planned redevelopment of Paris designed by

French Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1925

The redevelopment was planned to replace a large

area of central Paris. Le Corbusier's motivation to
develop the Plan Voisin was founded in
frustrations with the urban design of Paris.
The Plan Voisin consisted of 18 identical
skyscrapers, which were spread out evenly over
an open plain of roads and parks.
The development could accommodate 78,000
residents over an area of 260 hectares. In stark
contrast to the dense urban area that the plan
intended to replace, only 12% of the area of Plan
Voisin was to be built-up. Of the built-up area,
49%September
was partitioned
1, 2025 for residential use, while the SHRUTI SIDHU
RADIANT CITY
LE CORBUSIER (1930S)

linear and ordered metropolis of

the future

The conception of La Ville

Radieuse, envisioning a zoned
city with
superblocks and streamlined
road systems is widely cited as
the theoretical model of the
modern high-rise apartment
project and thus subject to
urbanistic and sociological
criticism based on the practical
results.

September 1, 2025 Source: The Urban Pattern by Arthur B. Gallion and

SHRUTI Simon Eisner
SIDHU
RADIANT CITY
LE CORBUSIER (1930S)
In the center of a completely
asymmetrical masterplan were 24
cruciform skyscrapers standing 200
meters tall, intended to house
businesses and hotels. Around it were
residential districts for the skyscraper
workers, made up of apartment
buildings following his concept of unité
d'habitation located in Marseille or
Berlin. Each block would house 2,700
residents and would follow a mixed-use
style of architecture, with a laundry,
restaurant and daycare center on the
ground floor and a swimming pool on the
rooftop terrace.
Finally, an area was planned on the
south side divided into three parts to be
September 1, 2025 Source: Ville Radieuse: Why did Le Corbusier’s
SHRUTI Radiant
SIDHU City fail?
used for manufacturing, storage and
BROADACRE CITY
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Broadacre city is an urban development
planning concept put forward by famous
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It first
appeared in his book “The Disappearing City’”
in 1932.

Broadway City was also called “Usonian” or

“ideal city”.

Context
Broadacre city stemmed from Wright’s
frustration with the industrial city, especially
New York city during the Great Depression.
He once wrote ‘ To look at the plan of a great
city is to look at something like the cross-
section of a fibrous tumor.
For him the central issue was that cities lacked
essential
Source: elements
September 1, 2025
such by
The Urban Pattern asArthur
space, air, light,
B. Gallion and Eisner
and Simon
SHRUTI SIDHU
BROADACRE CITY
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Some factors Wright wanted to have integrated
into his design for the broadacre city were:
• Individuality, being that Wright believed in every
man’s wright to be his own capitalist. He proposed that
each U.S family of 2 be allocated an acre where they
can have their gardens, farms and can provide for
themselves.
• Decentralization, Wright embraced decentralization
by focusing on architectural forms that made not much
sense in urban scale but fit in with his idealized and
undeveloped surroundings.
• Automobiles were becoming affordable for the middle
class due to the mass production of Ford cars, and the
automobile fascinated Wright and he believed it to be
the key to close the gap in distance which eventually
would lead to people not having to live in centralized
cities. he was also fascinated with planes and can be
Source: x Urban Cities- Broadacre City – IAAC B
seen in the visuals produced for Broadacre city.
September 1, 2025 SHRUTI SIDHU
BROADACRE CITY
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Broadacre city model

Wright developed a 12 by 12-foot scale
model to represent a hypothetical 4
square-mile community. In 1935 he
presented it at an Industrial Arts Exposition
in the Forum at the Rockefeller Center. He
called the model, “New Homes for the Old”

Grid
The broadacre city follows a strict Grid
distributing acres of 40x50 meters across 4
sq. miles equaling a total of 2560 acres.

Source:
Revisiting Frank Lloyd
September 1, 2025 Wright's Vision for "Br SHRUTI SIDHU
oadacre City"
THANK YOU!