MODULE II

Planning Theories

URBAN PLANNING
 1. EBENEZER HOWARD – GARDEN CITY

• Sir Ebenezer Howard was born as the son of a

shopkeeper in the City of London, on 29th of January
1850.
• Concept of “Garden City” was introduced by
,Ebenezer Howard (London,1898) in his small
remarkable book “To-morrow”(later re-published as
“Garden cities of To-morrow”).
• He wanted to design an alternative for overcrowded
and polluted industrial cities of that century.
• His solution centered in developing smaller “garden
cities” ,linked by canal and transit and covered by a
permanent green belt.
• He founded the Garden City Association (later known
as the Town and Country Planning Association or
TCPA), which created First Garden City, Ltd. In 1899
to create the garden city of Letchworth

URBAN PLANNING
 “THREE MAGNETS”
• Howard pushed the idea of garden city by a diagram
“ The Three Magnets”
1.advantages and disadvantages of town life
2.advantages and disadvantages of country life
3.town-country life, incorporating advantages of town and
country life
TOWN COUNTRY
Advantages Disadvantages Advantages Disadvantages

1.Opportunities 1. Distance from 1. Natural beauty 1. Dullness

for work work
2. Choices of 2. Closely out of 2. Meadows 2. Lack of society
employment nature ,forests, wood
3. High wages 3. Isolation from 3. Low rents 3. Lack of drainage
crowds
4. Social 4. High rents 4. Bright sunshine 4. Low wages
opportunities
5. Amusements 5. Dirty air 5. Abundant water 5. Lack of
amusements
6. Well-lit streets 6. Slums 6. Fresh air 6. General decay
and healthfulness

URBAN PLANNING
TOWN COUNTRY MAGNET
• Beauty of nature- peace all-over the places.
• Social opportunity- cumulative growth.
• Fields and parks of easy access- equal chances.
• Low rents- high wages.
• Low rates- plenty to do.
• Low prices- no sweating.
• Field for enterprise- flow of capital.
• Pure air and water- good drainage.
• Bright homes & gardens- no smoke, no slums.
• Freedom- Co-operation.

Combination of advantage of town and country planning in the town & country magnet
He proposed a town in a country “garden city”

URBAN PLANNING
 GARDEN CITY the Term means ‘a city in a garden ‘ or city of gardens’.

By Garden cities and Town Planning

Association ,1919
“A garden city is a town designed for healthy
living and industry; of a size that makes
possible a full measure of social life; but not
larger ;surrounded by a rural belt; the whole
of the land being in public ownership or held
in trust for community”

URBAN PLANNING
FEATURES OF GARDEN CITY OF HOWARD

• Accommodate 32,000 people

• 6,000 acres (2,400 ha),
• planned on a concentric pattern with open spaces,
public parks and Six radial boulevards, 120 ft. (37
m) wide, extending from the centre.
• The garden city would be self-sufficient and when it
reached full population, another garden city would
be developed nearby.
• Howard envisaged a cluster of several garden cities
as satellites of a central city of 12000acres for
50,000 people, linked by road and rail
• Garden cities were intended to be planned,
self-contained communities surrounded by
“greenbelts”.
• Contains open spaces and gardens around all the
dwelling houses and factories
• Its is an independent entity having its own civic life
and affording all daily needs with adequate spaces
for schools and other functional purposes.

URBAN PLANNING
CONCEPTUAL LAYOUT OF A GARDEN CITY
• Circular city growing in a radial manner or pattern.
• Divided into six equal wards, by six main Boulevards
that radiated from the central park/garden.
• Civic institutions (Town Hall, Library, Hospital, Theatre,
Museum etc. ) are placed around the central garden.
• The central park enclosed by a crystal palace acts as an
arcade for indoor shops and winter gardens.
• The streets for houses are formed by a series of
concentric ringed tree lined avenues.
• Distance between each ring vary between 3-5km .
• A 420 feet wide , 3 mile long, Grand avenue which run
in the center of concentric rings , houses the schools and
churches and acts as a continuous public park.
• All the industries, factories and warehouses were placed
at the peripheral ring of the city.
• The municipal railway was placed in another ring closer
to the industrial ring , so that the pressure of excess
transport on the city streets are reduced and the city is
connected to the rest of the nation.

URBAN PLANNING
2. 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.

RADBURN, NEW JERSEY

• Also called as ‘town for motor age’.
• Radburn was planned by architects Clarence Stein
and Henry Wright in 1928.
• It is America’s first garden community, serving
as a world wide example of the harmonious
blending of private space and open area.
• Radburn provided a prototype for the new towns to
meet the requirements for contemporary good
living.
• Although Radburn is smaller than planned, it still
plays a very important role in the history of urban
planning.

URBAN PLANNING
 • Radburn was designed to occupy one square mile of
land and house some 25,000 residents.
• However, the Great Depression limited the
development to only 149 acres.
• Radburn created a unique alternative to the
conventional suburban development through the use
of cul-de-sacs, interior parklands, and cluster
housing.
It consists of
1. Residential areas
2. 149 acres of interior parks,
3. Walkways.
4. 2 swimming pools,
5. 4 tennis courts,
Plaza building the shopping
6. 2 playgrounds, center
7. Archery plaza and a school,
8. 2 outdoor basketball courts
9. A community center, which houses administrative
10. offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom and service
and maintenance areas.

URBAN PLANNING
ELEMENTS OF THE RADBURN CITY
• Park as backbone of the neighborhood.
• Specialized Highway system, Complete separation of vehicular
and pedestrian traffic with 21% of road areas.
• The Radburn planners achieved the separation of vehicular and
pedestrian traffic through the use of the superblocks, cul-de-sacs,
Parks and greenbelt and pedestrian-only pathways.
• Through the use of the superblock, houses in Radburn were
uniquely designed to have two fronts.
• The ‘back side’ of the house, what we would normally consider
the front side, faced the culs-de-sac and parking.
• The kitchen was normally placed in the back to provide visitors a
place to enter the house.
• The ‘front side’ of the house faced towards the green spaces or
parks encouraging pedestrian traffic.
• Since automobiles were given limited access to the ‘backs’ of the
houses, the ‘fronts’ of the house were relatively quiet, therefore,
the bedrooms were always placed on this side of the house.
• The 2900 residents of Radburn share 23 acres of interior
parks, which yield 345 square feet / person.

URBAN PLANNING
 3.SIR PATRICK GEDDES
• Sir Patrick Geddes (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was
a Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer,
philanthropist and pioneering town planner.
• He introduced the concept of "region" to architecture
and planning and coined the term "conurbation".
• Patrick Geddes explained an organism's relationship to its
environment as follows:

“The environment acts, through function, upon the organism

and conversely the organism acts, through function, upon the
environment.“ (Cities in Evolution, 1915)

• In human terms this can be understood as a place acting

through climatic and geographic processes upon people
He said “survey before plan”
and thus shaping them.
like diagnosis before
• At the same time people act, through economic processes
treatment
such as farming and construction, on a place and thus
shape it. Thus both place and folk are linked and through
work are in constant transition.

URBAN PLANNING
 GEDDIAN TRIO REPRESENTATION
• He said rural development urban planning
and city design are not the same and adopting
a common planning process is disastrous.
• “ Conurbation” – waves of population inflow
to large cities followed by overcrowding and
slum formation and then the wave of
backflow – the whole process resulting in
amorphous sprawl, waste and unnecessary
obsolescence Organic relationship between
social, physical and economical
environment
• According to Geddes
the sequence of planning
should be :
❖ Regional survey
❖ Rural development
❖ Town planning
❖ City design
• These are to be constantly up to date

URBAN PLANNING
THE “CIVIC SURVEY”

• Geddes advocated the civic survey as indispensable to urban planning: his motto was
"diagnosis before treatment". Such a survey should include, at a minimum, the geology,
the geography, the climate, the economic life, and the social institutions of the city and
region.

• His early work surveying the city of Edinburgh became a model for later surveys.

• He was particularly critical of that form of planning which relied overmuch on design and
effect, neglecting to consider "the surrounding quarter and constructed without
reference to local needs or potentialities".

• Geddes encouraged instead exploration and consideration of the "whole set of existing
conditions", studying the "place as it stands, seeking out how it has grown to be what it
is, and recognizing alike its advantages, its difficulties and its defects":

• In this sense he can be viewed as prefiguring the work of seminal urban thinkers such
as Jane Jacobs, and region-specific planning movements such as New Urbanism,
encouraging the planner to consider the situation, inherent virtue and potential in a given
site, rather than "an abstract ideal that could be imposed by authority or force from
the outside"

URBAN PLANNING
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: ( 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.

URBAN PLANNING
GEDDES AND THE VALLEY SECTION
• Geddes first published his idea of the valley section in 1909 to illustrate his idea of the
'region-city'.
• The region is expressed in the city and the city spreads influence of the highest level into
the region.
• To put it another way, Geddes said that "it takes a whole region to make the city”.
• The valley section illustrated the application of Geddes's trilogy of 'folk/work/place' to
analysis of the region.
• The valley section is a complex model, which combines physical condition- geology and
geomorphology and their biological associations - with so-called natural or basic
occupations such as miner, hunter, shepherd or fisher, and with the human settlements
that arise from them.

Geddes illustrated the section using the locally available landscapes of Edinburgh and its
hinterland

URBAN PLANNING
CONURBATIONS THEORY

• The term "conurbation" was coined in 1915 by Patrick Geddes in his book Cities In
Evolution.
• Internationally, the term "urban agglomeration" is often used to convey a similar
meaning to "conurbation".
• He drew attention to the ability of the (then) new technology of electric power and
motorized transport to allow cities to spread and agglomerate together, and gave as
examples "Midland ton" in England, the Ruhr in Germany, Ramstad in the Netherlands
• A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other
urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged
to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area.
• In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urban agglomeration, in which
transportation has developed to link areas to create a single urban labour market or
travel to work area.
• The term is used in North America, a metropolitan area can be defined by the Census
Bureau or it may consist of a central city and its suburbs, while a conurbation consists
of adjacent metropolitan areas that are connected with one another by
urbanization.

URBAN PLANNING
 4. ARTURO SORIA Y MATA - LINEAR
CITY
• He (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 for application to Madrid
WHAT IS AN URBAN FORM?
Urban Form refers to the-
• physical layout and design of the city
• Spatial imprint of an urban transport system
• Adjacent physical infrastructures. Jointly, they
confer a level of spatial arrangement to cities.
• Urban form or city form defined as‘ The spatial
pattern of human activities at a certain point in time’.

URBAN PLANNING
ABOUT THE CONCEPT
• The Linear City concept is a Conscious Form Of Urban Development with Housing
• And Industry Growing Along The Highway Between existing cities and contained by the
continuous open space of the rural countryside.
• As the city expanded, additional sectors would be added to the end of each band, so that
the city would become ever longer, without growing wider.
• The linear city design was first developed by Arturo Soria y Mata in Madrid, Spain
during the 19th century.

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.

URBAN PLANNING
WHAT IS LINEAR CITY?

• The linear city was an urban plan for an elongated

urban formation.
• The city would consist of a series of functionally
specialized parallel sectors.
• Generally, the city would run parallel to a river and
be built so that the dominant wind would blow from
the residential areas to the industrial strip.

The sectors of a linear city would be:

▪ A purely segregated zone for railway lines

▪ A zone of production and communal enterprises, with
related scientific, technical
▪ And educational institutions,
▪ A green belt or buffer zone with major highway,
▪ A residential zone, including a band of social
institutions,
▪ A band of residential buildings and a "children's band"

URBAN PLANNING
There were two different theories to solve the problems
caused by the industrial revolution:

• Naturistic theories: Arturo Soria wanted to

integrate nature into the city.
Thus, he decided to plant several rows of trees along the
street. The houses

• Hygienist theories: Their objective was to improve

the sanitary conditions of the city.

The proposals to achieve this were:

- to plant trees near the houses
- to build wider streets
- to build detached or semidetached houses so that the
different families didn´t live so close to each other.
• The most important objective was to combine nature
and city.
• The final project was a linear city surrounded by
nature, and with a central area for services.

URBAN PLANNING
 5. LE CORBUSIER- LA VILLE CONTEMPORAINE
• Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 1887 – 27
August 1965), known as Le Corbusier was
a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban
planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is
now called modern architecture.

CIAM 1928(Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture

Moderne ).
• In 1928, a meeting was organized of leading Modern
architects including Berlage , Le Corbusier , El
Lissitzky , Rietveld , and Stam
• The organization was hugely influential. It was not
only engaged in formalizing the architectural principles
of the Modern Movement, but also 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.

URBAN PLANNING
LE CORBUSIER- FIVE POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE

1. Pilotis – Replacement of supporting walls by a grid of reinforced concrete columns that

bears the structural load is the basis of the new
aesthetic
2. The free designing of the ground plan—the absence of supporting walls—means the
house is unrestrained in its internal use
3. The free design of the façade—separating the exterior of the building from its structural
function—sets the façade free from structural
constraints.
4. The horizontal window, which cuts the façade along its entire length, lights rooms equally.
5. Roof gardens on a flat roof can serve a domestic purpose while providing essential
protection to the concrete roof.
• Most succinctly summed up the five points of architecture – VILLA SAVOYE

URBAN PLANNING
 • Le Corbusier’s ideas were an outcome of CIAM
• He considered that there are four functions of any settlement
✔ dwelling
✔ work
✔ recreation
✔ transportation, which connects the first three with one another.

Background of ville contemporaine : 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”

URBAN PLANNING
LA VILLE CONTEMPORAINE (CONCENTRIC CITY) 1922
City for 3 million people was proposed by Le corbusier in 1922, which was based on four
principles :
Decongestion of the centre of the cities
Augmentation of the density
Enlargement of the means of circulation
Increase in the number of parks and open spaces

URBAN PLANNING
THREE ZONES
• CENTRAL CITY
• PROTECTED GREEN BELT
• FACTORIES & SATELLITE TOWNS
CENTRAL CITY
• 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 storeyed 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
• The buildings in the central area were raised on
stilts (pilotis) so as to leave panoramas of unbroken greenery
at ground level
• The general impression was more of a city in a park than of a parkland in the city
• The city espoused space, speed, mass production and efficient organization, but also offered
combination of natural and urban environments

URBAN PLANNING
6. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT – BROAD ACRE CITY

• Frank lloyd wright(born frank lincoln

wright, june 8, 1867 – april 9, 1959) was an
american architect, interior designer, writer,
planner and educator, who designed more
than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were
completed.
• Wright believed in designing structures that
were in harmony with humanity and its
environment, a philosophy he called organic
architecture.
• His philosophy was best exemplified by falling
water (1935), which has been called "the best
all-time work of American architecture".
• Apart from his enormous architectural works,
he was into community planning also.

URBAN PLANNING
• Broadacre City was an urban or suburban development concept proposed by Frank
Lloyd Wright throughout most of his lifetime.
• Broadacre City was the antithesis of a city and the apotheosis of the newly born
suburbia, shaped through Wright's particular vision.
• It was both a planning statement and a socio-political scheme by which each U.S.
family would be given a one acre (4,046.86 m²) plot of land from the federal lands
reserves, and a Wright-conceived community would be built anew from this.
• Each family would be given one acre (4,000 sq.m. from the federal land reserves
• Land would be taken into public ownership; then granted to families for as long as they
used it productively.

URBAN PLANNING
• The theory was based on horizontal spread and
suburbanization of American towns and cities
H D E
• He proposed that each household (of 5ppl
average) should be given an acre of land for both C X A
living and agrarian purpose
• This is a form of agrarian urbanism.
• The one acre residential plots are in the centre G B F
and all activities are surrounding it , i.e.
residential zone in the centre of all the activities. X – One Acre Plots
• All the land is under public ownership and the A – Recreation
acre plots are then distributed to deserving residents B – Commerce And Farming
• City is based on automobile for its existence Housing
• The model failed because of “low density and low C – Orchids
rise structures” which was not feasible in land D – Housing And Higher
scarce regions Education
• Economic generation is limited as the residential E – Non Farming Housing
plots are in the centre rather than the CBD F - recreation and administration
G & H – industries and
manufacturing

URBAN PLANNING
7. C.A.DOXIADIS - THEORIES ON EKISTICS

Born in 1913, comes from a family that played an

important role in the settlement of Greek war
refugees in between the two World Wars

Theory

• In the application of his theories on Ekistics,

C.A. Doxiadis studied, programmed, planned
and designed, in collaboration with his
colleagues, a great number of human settlements “Ekistics (the ancient Greek word for
and other development projects. a house or dwelling) is the science of
• These projects cover several fields, like rural human settlements. It co-ordinates
settlements, agriculture and irrigation, economics, social sciences, political
industrial settlements, manufacturing, power and administrative sciences,
and public works, commerce and tourism, technology and aesthetics into a
transportation and communications, housing, coherent whole and leads to the
urban renewal and development of new creation of a new type of human
cities,etc. habitat.”

URBAN PLANNING
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF EKISTICS

• Maximization of human potentials : in a certain area , man will select the location which
permits a maximum of potential contact.
• Minimization of efforts : a minimum of effort , terms of energy , time and cost man
selects the most convenient routes
• Optimization of man’s protective space
• Optimization of man’s relationship with his nature

EKISTICS FRAMEWORK
His two Classificatory Dimensions

1. First Dimension- relative to Scale:

Lower End- the individual, the room, and the dwelling; and
increases in size all the way into the,

Other Extreme- the city, the urban continent, and the

"world-wide city"-- which he called an Ecumenopolis

URBAN PLANNING
 2. Second Dimension- man's five Environmental Elements:
1. Nature
2. Society
3. Shells
4. Networks
5. Culture

• The first principle is maximization of man's potential contacts with the elements of nature (such
as water and trees), with other people, and with the works of man (such as buildings and roads).
• The second principle is minimization of the effort required for the achievement of man's actual and
potential contacts.
• The third principle is optimization of man's protective space, which means the selection of such a
distance from other persons, animals, or objects that he can keep his Contacts with them (first
principle) without any kind of Sensory Or Psychological discomfort.
• The fourth principle is optimization of the quality of man's relationship with his environment,
which consists of nature, society, shells (buildings and houses of all sorts)and networks (ranging
from roads to telecommunications). This is the principle that leads to order, physiological and
aesthetic, and that influences architecture and, in many respects, art.
• Finally, and this is the fifth principle, man organizes his settlements in an attempt to achieve an
optimum synthesis of the other four principles, and this optimization is dependent on time and
space, on actual conditions, and on man's ability to create a synthesis

URBAN PLANNING
ANALYSIS

• According to Doxiadis, the greatest problem

facing cities worldwide was the problem of
managing growth.
• He proposed several solutions to leave room for
expansion of the city core.
Central mall in a recently built shopping centre outside
Los Angeles where pedestrians are able to move free of
automobile traffic.
SOME OF HIS PROPOSALS INCLUDED:
• Limiting all buildings to three • Doxiadis limited the number
levels or less, with permission to of roads on campus.
build higher • All the educational
• Separating automobile and buildings are interconnected
pedestrian traffic completely. to permit people to walk
• Constructing cities as a “beehive” from one to the other.
of cells each no bigger than 2 by 2 • Courtyards provide a place
kilometers, the maximum for meetings between
comfortable distance for people.
pedestrians.

URBAN PLANNING
 8. LUDWIG HILBERSEIMER- THE DECENTRALIZED CITY

• Ludwig Hilberseimer, (born Sept. 14,

1885, Karlsruhe, Germany—died May 6,
1967, Chicago).
• German-born U.S. city planner who
founded in 1928 the Department of City
Planning at the Bauhaus
• The main subjects that interested him were
the construction of settlements and
urban centers, as well as new
constructions in reinforced concrete,
always claiming a purified expression of
stylistic features.

URBAN PLANNING
 PROPOSAL OF A RESIDENTIAL CITY, 1923 -
25
• In 1925 he published his design of a Wohnstadt (Residential City) which he started in
1923

• Similarly in the scheme of the metropolis, Hilberseimer was interested in the residential
building as the most common way of living in German cities.

• The residential city is a model for a satellite city of 125,000 inhabitants, linked to a
metropolitan transport network and with residence as the main theme.

• The city consisted of 72 blocks with approximately 1750 people per block. Each block
has an approximate size of 40 x 330 meters.

• The shorter sides of each block include shops and offices, with the apartments on the
longer sides of the 5-story buildings.

• 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.

URBAN PLANNING
 HIGH RISE CITY, 1924

• In 1924 Hilberseimer designed the High Rise City where raised his principles on
architecture and city planning.

• Here he studied that in spite of solving the problem of housing in the surrounding area,
the traffic problem continues to exist.

• The High Rise City was a model based on practical aspects, designed in terms of the
existing technology, as well as the economy and the social context.

• The idea of ​Hilberseimer for the city was based on a scheme of organization of relations
between parts.

• The housing block replaces the individual housing, so that the importance of the
collective exceeds the individual.

• His proposal was conceived for a system with a strong central power, the city being the
center of said power.
• The city should be the base of the organization and the states should be organized into
larger units. High Rise City was a socialist city.
• The city is based on a unit that contains a community.

URBAN PLANNING
 THE DECENTRALIZED CITY, 1944

Finally he came to a solution saying "A perfect solution is only possible by renouncing the
current population density of the metropolis and by an extensive decentralization of the city
area."

• 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
• The second phase was focused on decentralization
and diversification of production, both
agriculture and industry, and a closer
relationship between city and countryside.
• 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.

URBAN PLANNING
The traffic arteries
• It 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.

Settlement buildings
• 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.

The nature
• 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.
Radical Urbanism

URBAN PLANNING
 9. CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY - NEIGHBOURHOOD UNIT

• Clarence Arthur Perry (1872 – Sept 6, 1944)

was an American planner, sociologist, author,
and
• He was born in Truxton, New York.
• He worked in the New York City planning where
he became a strong advocate of the
Neighborhood unit.
• He was an early promoter of neighborhood and
recreation centres.

URBAN PLANNING
 WHAT IS NEIGHBOURHOOD UNIT?

• Neighbourhood “the area within which residents

may all share the common services, social
activities and facilities required in the vicinity of
dwellings”
• The concept of the neighbourhood unit, crystallized
from the prevailing social and intellectual attitudes
of the early 1900s by Clarence Perry, is an early
diagrammatic planning model for residential
development in metropolitan areas.
• It was designed by Perry to act as a framework for
urban planners attempting to design functional

IDEA OF PERRY’S NEIGHBOURHOOD

The neighbourhood unit was conceived of as a comprehensive physical planning tool, to be
utilized for designing self contained residential neighbourhoods which promoted a
community centric lifestyle, away from the "noise of the trains, and out of sight of the
smoke and ugliness of industrial plants" emblematic of an industrializing New York City
in the early 1900s.

URBAN PLANNING
The core principles of Perry's Neighbourhood
Unit were around these design ideals :

• Centre the school in the neighbourhood.

• Place arterial streets along the perimeter so
that they define and distinguish the the
"place" of the neighbourhood.
• Design internal streets using a hierarchy that
easily distinguishes local streets from arterial
streets.
• Restrict local shopping areas to the perimeter.
• Dedicate at least 10 percent of the
neighbourhood land area to parks and open
space.
• Perry described the neighbourhood unit as area
which require an elementary school with 1,000
and 1,200 pupils.
Diagram of Clarence Perry's neighbourhood unit,
• This would mean a population of between 5,000 illustrating the spatiality of the core principles of
and 6,000 people. the concept.

URBAN PLANNING
• Developed with population density of 10 families per
acre, it would occupy about 160 acres.
• Any child have to walk a distance of around half
mile to school.
• About 10 percent of the area would be allocated to
recreation, and through traffic
• Arteries would be confined to the surrounding
streets, internal streets being limited to service
access for residents of the neighbourhood.
• The unit would be served by shopping facilities,
churches, library, and a community centre.

PURPOSE OF NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING

• To make the people socialize with one and another.

• To enable the inhabitants to share the public amenities and recreational facilities.
• To support a safe and healthy environment within the neighbourhood.
• To provide safety and efficiency to road users and pedestrians.
• To maintain, enhance, and improve area for recreational activities.
• To determine community’s prospects for the future.

URBAN PLANNING
ELEMENTS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING

1. SIZE
• The town is divided into self-contained units or sectors of population.
• This is further divided into smaller units called neighbourhood with 2,000 to 5,000 based
on the requirement of one primary
• The size of the unit is therefore limited to about 1 to 1. 5 sq miles within walk able
distance of 10 to 15 minutes.

2. BOUNDARIES
• The unit should be bounded on all its sides by main road, enough for traffic.

3.PROTECTIVE STRIPS
• These are necessary to protect the neighbourhood from traffic and to provide suitable
facilities for developing parks, playgrounds, and road widening scheme in future. These
are called Minor Green Belts.

4. INTERNAL STREETS
• The internal streets are designed to ensure safety to the people school going children in
particular,
• The internal streets should circulate throughout the unit with easy shops and community
centres.

URBAN PLANNING
5. LAYOUT OF BUILDINGS
• To encourage neighbourhood relation and secure social stability and balance.
• The houses to suit the different income group should be provided single family
houses, double family houses, cottages , flats, etc.

6. SHOPPING CENTRES
• Each shop should be located on the circumference of the unit, preferably at traffic
junctions and adjacent to the neighbourhood units.

7. COMMUNITY CENTRES
• Each community will have its centre with social, cultural and recreational amenities.

8. FACILITIES
• All public facilities required for the family for their comfort and convenience should
be within easy reach.
• These include the primary school, temple, club, retail shop, sport
• These should be located within 1km in the central place so as to nucleus to develop
social life of the unit.

URBAN PLANNING
CONCLUSION

• Neighbourhood planning quickly became a high priority for the city

planning departments, and even human service providers
• Neighbourhood planning is effective and provide those creative strategies that
can increase the capacity of residents in charting out their shared future.

• It was a vision of a better future.

URBAN PLANNING
THANK YOU

URBAN PLANNING