UNIT-3

CITY CONCEPTS:
1. GARDEN CITY (EBENEZER HOWARD)
● Method of urban planning in which self-contained communities are surrounded by greenbelts, containing
proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture.
● Aims to capture the primary benefits of countryside env. and city env. while avoiding the disadv. presented by both.
Principles of Garden City
● Co-operative holding of land to insure that the advantage of appreciation of land values goes to the community, not
the private individuals
● Economic and social advantages of large scale planning
● Establishment of cities of limited size, but at the same time possessing a balanced agricultural industrial economy
● Urban decentralization
● Use of a surrounding green belt to serve as an agricultural recreational area
Concept
● Garden city concept was an effective response for a better quality of life in overcrowded and dirty industrial towns
which had deteriorated the environment and posed a serious threat to health.
● “City” would be self -sufficient in terms of:
a) Employment b) Possessing its own industry c) Commerce d) Shops e) Agricultural production.

Concept of 3 magnets :
● The overall goal is to combine the traditional countryside with the traditional town.
● The 2 “magnets” of Town and Country that have in the past pulled people in either direction will, in the future, be
synthesized into one “Town –Country magnet”.
● All of the land is purchased upfront so that the inc in property values generated by the growth will be captured by
the community itself.
Features of Garden City
● An ideal garden city is a compact town of 6000 acres, 5000 of which is permanently reserved for agriculture.
● It accommodates a maximum population of 32,000.
● There are parks and private lawns everywhere.
● Also the roads are wide, ranging from 120 to 420 feet for the Grand Avenue, and are radial rather than linear.
● Commercial, industrial, residential, and public uses are clearly differentiated from each other spatially.
● Local community also participated in the decision making regarding development.
● After a city reaches its target population, new interconnected nodes can be developed.
Failure of Garden Cities
● The flaw is the proposal is Howard has little respect for limits.
● Criticism of his plans as being unrealistic in their adherence to geometric proportion, but he presented his design
of concentric circles of varying land use as a universal rather than as a particular mode.
● First Garden City was Letchworth in Hertfordshire .
● Letchworth slowly attracted more residents because it was able to attract manufacturers through low taxes, low
rents and more space.
● Despite Howard’s best efforts, the home prices in this garden city could not remain affordable for workers to live in.
● In frustration, Howard bought land at Welwyn to house the second garden city in 1919.
● Welwyn Garden City Corporation was formed but it did not become self-sustaining because it was only 20 miles
from London.
2. NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING (CA Perry)
● Functional, self-contained and desirable neighborhoods in the early 20th century in industrializing cities
● The concept of the neighborhood unit is an early diagrammatic planning model for residential development in
metropolitan areas.
IDEA OF PERRY’S NEIGHBORHOOD
The core principles of Perry’s Neighbourhood Unit were around these design ideals
● Centre the school - child’s walk to school only about one-quarter of a mile - no more than one half mile - without
crossing a major arterial street
● Size of neighborhood - sufficiently support a school, between 5,000 and 9,000 residents, approximately 160 acres
at density of ten units per acre
● Implement a wider use of the school facilities for neighborhood meetings and activities, constructing a large play
area around the building for use by the entire community.
● Place arterial streets along the perimeter - eliminate unwanted through-traffic from the neighborhood
● Design internal streets using a hierarchy that easily distinguishes local streets from arterial streets, using
curvilinear street design for both safety and aesthetic purposes, enhance safety of pedestrians
● Restrict local shopping areas to the perimeter or main entrance of neighborhood
● Dedicate at least 10 percent of the neighborhood land area to parks and open space, creating places for play and
community interaction
Principles
1. Size
2. Boundaries
3. Protective Strips
4. Internal Streets
5. Layout of buildings
6. ShoppingCentres
7. CommunityCentres
8. Facilities ELEMENTS

Failure of neighborhood planning

● Some planners and urbanists criticized it for being too restrictive in terms of land use.
● In fact, many countries have adopted policies that promote mixed-use developments, the concept is centralized
around the city’s urban areas and cannot be applied to the rural areas.
● Concept of neighborhood unit does not take into account the diversity of cultures and lifestyles across different
regions.
● Been criticized as a device of social segregation by many and has argued that the neighborhood unit is a tool to
segregate society into homogeneous groups.

3. CONSERVATIVE SURGERY THEORY (Patrick Geddes)

● Geddes showed how the government’s objectives could be achieved with far less time and money by careful
attention to detail
● He recommended replacing only two houses, and taking out four more of the smallest and most badly dilapidated
ones, turning the ground they covered into a little square to afford more light and air to the remaining residents of
this crowded street
Concept
GEDDISIAN TRIAD
● Geddes was concerned with the relationship between people and cities and how they affect one another
● He emphasized that people do not merely needed shelter, but also food and work, the recreation and social life
● This makes the house an inseparable part of the neighborhood, the city and the surrounding open country

1. In 1886 Geddes and his wife purchased a row of slum tenements in James court, Edinburgh, making it into a
single dwelling.
2. The tenements, which were unsanitary and overcrowded, focused Geddes' ideas about social reform firmly on the
practicalities of housing conditions.
3. They began a series of simple improvements to the buildings: cleaning, whitewashing, installing window boxes,
while at the same time encouraging closer co- operation between their neighbors to create a sense of community.
4. There are always problems in the cities which need immediate attention such as growing slums, increasing traffic,
urban renewal etc.
5. To deal with these relatively short term problems, Geddes developed a special technique described as
conservative surgery.
6. Conservative surgery is more or less a renewal process than a removal from places.
 7. He did not increase plans with a grid iron pattern which expelled a large population to relieve congestion, since it
indirectly creates congestion in other quarters.
8. Congestion is always high at the intersections.
9. He wanted to create more traffic flows by pulling down carefully selected houses which are old and Dilapidated.
10. Conservative method demands long and patient study on the spot plans etc.
11. He insisted that while preparing general design for the improvement of areas it should be either regular and formal
or individual and informal and the latter is to be encouraged specially for old towns which help citizens to think
more space for craftsmanship to continue as was practiced in old cities of India.
12. Housing has evolved in relation to the life of the neighborhood and should be preserved where possible by
relieving the congestion and breathing new life into the area.
13. The best of the houses were kept and restored.
14. Geddes believed that this approach was both more economical and more humane
15. Rural dev, urban planning and city design are not the same and adopting a common planning process is
disastrous.
16. The sequence of planning is to be
1. Regional survey
2. Rural dev
3. Town planning
4. City design.
VALLEY SECTION
● In his valley section he clearly showed the relationship of folk, place and work.
● He showed that all natural occupations have a place.
● Starting from the head of the valley section the hunter and miner, the woodman, the shepherd, the poor and rich
peasant and the fisherman have works which are closely related to their surroundings.
● The geographical space shapes the folk and the work and the people with their work shape the environment
● Thus there is a continuous struggle between environment and society.

4. HIGH RISE (Le Corbusier) :

● Clusters of high-rise residential buildings surrounded by green space and aimed to provide dense, low-cost
housing for urban workers while reducing congestion.
● Often used for public housing projects in American cities and, despite its short-lived popularity, the style has had a
lasting influence on urban housing design.
● To Le Corbusier, the issue of mass housing was the problem of the epoch
● As urban populations grew in the mid-20th century, the architect envisioned a strictly regimented Radiant City plan
featuring soaring towers that would decongest the city center while augmenting its density, improve accessibility
and mobility, and expand access to parks and green space.
Ville Radieuse – (CONTEMPORARY CITY)
● linear city based upon the abstract shape of the human body with head, spine, arms and legs
● Design maintained the idea of high-rise housing blocks, free circulation and abundant green spaces
● His cities were to be laid out in a strict symmetrical grid pattern, with neatly spaced rows of identical skyscrapers –
what he termed ‘Cities in the Sky’.
● Le Corbusier plans were for cities of steel and concrete dominated by wide highways and large skyscrapers
organized in regimented, park-like settings.
● It was a vision of underpasses, skyscrapers, free-flowing traffic, steel, concrete and glass.
● Basic strategy behind these various schemes was to create vertical architecture and leave plenty of shared open
space in between for people to use and enjoy.
● The resulting horizontal areas would serve as traffic corridors as well as public landscapes with lush greenery.
● Pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and public transportation users were given dedicated routes
● Everything in the Ville Radieuse would be symmetrical and standardized.
 ● At the center, a business district would be connected to separate residential and commercial zones
viaunderground transit.
● Prefabricated housing towers would serve as vertical villages with their own laundromats as well as
rooftopkindergartens and playgrounds.
● Apartments would have views out onto shared public spaces. Residents would enjoy peace and quiet,
separatedfrom industrial districts.
● In theory, he designed solutions for every kind of built env, from individual houses up to entire
cities.

FAILURE :
● The structure was initially built as a segregated residence for blacks and whites but when anti-
segregationlegislation passed, whites refused to move in. Thus, financial support collapsed
significantly.
● This led to major structural changes including: doubling of density, cancellation of landscaping,
maintenanceservices, and public spaces, no open galleries, no public transit, no sidewalk connection to
community, and haphazard construction.
● Green open space essentially became barren brownfields and served as “wastelands of concrete, a
demilitarizedzone surrounded by major streets”
● It experienced failures that generally parallel the socio-economic failures of projects in the U.S. They include:
lackof amenities due to financial constrictions, a lack of good transit links to the center, lack of maintenance,
and confused management and control issues.
● This led to the inhabitants’ indifference towards their residences and they would “dispose of garbage bags by
‘airmailing’ them over the balcony”
● It demonstrates the failure of a city not because of inherent design flaws but because its actualization
wascorrupted by economic and infrastructural failures not related to the plan itself.