Town and City Planning

TOWN AND CITY PLANNING. The terms to plan ning and city planning are used to designate the modern move ment to plan the growth of cities, towns and villages, particularly in respect to the development of land for building purposes and systems of circulation. When, for purposes of planning, it is nec essary or desirable to deal with an area that embraces a number of adjacent communities that have separate local governments the movement is described as regional planning.

Purposes.

A city grows as the result of artificial processes which need to be controlled, truly proportioned and harmonized. The main purpose of planning is to mould and co-ordinate these processes in harmony with natural conditions. The city, as the most dominant factor in modern civilization, calls upon the archi tect to recognize its fundamental relationships as a complete being and not as an aggregation of disparate building units. No conception of civic design is adequate that does not envisage the city, in its ideal form, as a work of art.

Thus the general object of planning of urban areas is to in fluence the orderly, healthy and efficient development of com munities. In particular the aim of the plan should be to secure (a) a wholesome and reasonably spacious lay-out of the sites and surroundings of dwellings; (b) a well-balanced distribution of all buildings and open spaces, and of building bulks and uses of buildings in relation to street areas ; (c) the orderly development and architectural treatment of private and public buildings; (d) adequate systems of streets and highways to permit free circula tion of traffic, and of efficient transit and transportation services and terminal arrangements; (e) ample areas for all purposes of recreation and; (1) suitable land and water approaches. The plan should deal with these and other physical improvements com prehensively, in relation to the city as a unified whole.

Types.—Much of what is called town or city planning is really re-planning of towns or parts of existing towns, or the planning of portions of the undeveloped land in the environs of such towns. The most prominent example of the former is Haussman's plan of Paris, and of the latter the town-planning schemes being pre pared for the open areas adjacent to English towns. For an effec tive plan for an existing city, replanning or reconstruction of defective areas should be combined with the planning of un developed areas. On rare occasions, opportunities arise for plan

ning and building new cities and towns from the beginning. Some times the plans of areas forming extensions of existing cities are so elaborate and comprehensive as to be equivalent in importance to the planning of a complete town. Frequent opportunities of planning ab initio occur for planning villages or large estates.

References to many examples of planning town settlements and some comparatively large cities exist in histories of Egypt, Meso potamia, Greece, Rome and China. Kahun (2500 B.c.) and Babylon have been cited as the earliest planned cities, although Aegean and Egyptian discoveries now point to a considerably more ancient date. The early Italian settlements (Terremare) present traces of system in planning as far back as the Bronze age (moo to 1800 B.c.). In many of the cities of the Near East, Egypt and Greece there were the same dominant character istics pictured by Demosthenes as the combination of splendid public edifices and noble works of art with a simple and severe private life.

Later examples include Selinus and Cyrene, probably founded in the 7th century B.C., as well as the Italian city of Pompeii.

Hippodamus of Miletus (48o B.c.), is referred to by Aristotle as the first architect to combine his street system with the grouping of dwellings and the treatment of the town as a harmonious whole.

Aristotle, however, points out that the method of Hippodamus, although advantageous aesthetically and giving the benefits of air and sun to each dwelling, was disadvantageous in time of war, when the old Greek system of closely and irregularly packed houses with winding alleys and passages would be most valuable for defence. He is said to have planned Peiraeus (the port of Athens), Thurii and Rhodes. Although ancient Athens was not built from a preconceived plan, the splendour of its public build ings and the accidental or deliberate axial arrangement of its few principal streets, the grouping of its buildings in relation to its streets and the comparative meanness of its residential quarters combine to express the Greek conception of civic art. In the Macedonian age (330-13o B.c.) there was much systematic plan ning of town settlements and military colonies. Alexandria was a prominent example of Hellenistic city planning.