URBAN PLANNING

ASSIGNMNET 1.4

1) Define the term “Urban Form” and explain in detail about the various classifications.
 Urban form refers to
 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 of cities.
 Urban form or city form defined as-
“The spatial pattern of human activities at a certain point in time”
 Urban form refers to the size, shape, and configuration of an urban area or its parts.
 The scales at which urban form can be considered or measured include the individual
building, street, urban block, neighborhood and city.
 These levels of spatial disaggregation influence how urban form is measured, analyzed
and ultimately understood.
 The concept of urban form encompasses also nonphysical aspects such as density.

Classification of urban form

1) RADIOCENTRIC CITY 2) GRID IRON CITY 3) LINEAR CITY

I. RADIOCENTRIC CITY
 Geographical possibilities of spreading in all directions.
 Radio centric- Radiates outward from a common centre.
 Inner outer ring roads linked by radiating roads.
 Core has business area.
 Industrial area interspread within the residential.
 Periphery has green belts.
 EXAMPLES: Paris, Washington DC, Moscow.
 RADIOCENTRIC PLAN OF MOSCOW

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
 A direct line of travel for centrally  Central congestion.
directed flows.  Difficult building sites.
 Economics of a single-centralised  Local flow problems
terminal or origin point.

II. GRID IRON CITY

 Composed of straight streets crossing at right angles to create many regular city blocks.
 This form is typical of cities built after the industrial revolution- because only then did cities
place such importance on economic activity.
 A city grid iron plan facilitates the movement of people and product throughout the city.
 EXAMPLE: san Francisco, Chandigarh.

GRID IRON PLAN OF CHANDIGARH

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
 High accessibility.  Requires flow hierarchies.
 Minimum disruption of flow.  Limited in its adaptability to terrain.
 Expansion flexibility.  Potentially monotonous.
 Excellent psychological orientation.
III. LINEAR CITY
 Initially proposed by Soria y Mata.
 The linear city was an urban plan for an elongated urban formation.
 City is extended along the spine of transport.
 The linear city concept is a conscious form of urban development.
 Housing and industry grows along the highway between existing cities and contained by the
continuous open space of the rural countryside.
 EXAMPLES: Navi Mumbai, Gold coast of Australia.

GOLD COAST OF AUSTRALIA PLAN OF NAVI MUMBAI

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
 High accessibility.  Very sensitive to blockage.
 Adaptability to linear growth.  Requires control of growth.
 Useful along the limited edge.  Lacks focus.
 The choice of connection or of
direction of movement are much less.
 2) How would you classify towns on the basis of functions?
 The urban geographers have applied a number of techniques to classify the urban places in India
on the basis of their functions.
 Under these circumstances classifications and categorization of urban places in India differ from
state to state and from author to author.
 The most common functional classification of the Indian cities are

1) ADMINISTRATIVE 2) CULTURAL 3) INDUSTRIAL 4) TRADE AND 5) DEFENSE

TOWNS TOWNS TOWNS TRANSPORT TOWNS
TOWNS
6) COMMERCIAL 7) MINNING 8) EDUCATION 9) RESORT 10) PILGRIMAGE
TOWNS TOWNS CENTER TOWNS TOWNS

1) Administrative Towns: National capitals (Washington, D.C., Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing) and
headquarters of the administrative departments of central governments are located in these
towns.

2) Cultural Towns: Cultural towns are either religious, educational, or recreational towns. Towns
such as Jerusalem and Mecca have religious importance and are called religious towns. Some
places are known for educational institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford. Recreational towns
are, for example, Las Vegas in the USA, Pattaya in Thailand, and Darjeeling in India. Cities that
are famous for their cultural heritage, such as Rome and Florence, also belong to this group.

3) Industrial Towns: These are towns which have developed due to setting up of industries such as
Birmingham, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, etc.

4) Trade and Transport Towns: Many old towns were famous as trade centers such as Venice and
Genoa in Italy, Dusseldorf in Germany, Winnipeg in Canada, Baghdad in Iraq, and Agra in India.
For the development of transport towns, two modes of transport were important, water (port
cities such as Hamburg and Rotterdam) and rail transport.

5) Defense Town: Centers of military activities are known as defense towns. They are of three
types: fort towns, garrison towns, and naval bases.
6) Commercial towns: Towns and cities specializing in trade and commerce are kept in this class.
Kolkata, Saharanpur, satna, etc are some examples.
7) Mining towns: These towns have developed in mineral rich areas such as Raniganj, Jharia,
digboi, Ankaleshwar, Singrauli, etc.
8) Education centres: Starting as centres of education, some of the towns have grown into major
campus towns such as Roorkee, Varanasi, etc.
9) Resort towns: Also known as recreational towns catering to recreation needs of people like
Dehradun, Shimla etc.
10) Pilgrimage towns: Vatican city, Varanasi, Mathura, Amritsar, Ajmer, Pushkar, Tirupati came to
prominence due to their religious/cultural significance.

CITIES WITH DIVERSIFIED FUNCTIONS:

The capital cities are also the commercial, manufacturing, cultural and recreational centres. The
seaports are engaged in trade and commerce, besides cultural activities. Cities like Mumbai,
Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Vishakhapatnam, Jaipur, Allahabad, and Varanasi are performing highly
assorted functions.

-KRITIKA MANU PRASAD

R17AR015