PLANNING

Urban and Regional Planning



Urban and Regional Planning

Introduction

Think of the things one sees in a city or region that everyone wishes were otherwise. They might have been otherwise if there had been careful planning in the past. The periodic confrontations over the building of new shopping centers, high-rise apartments, airports, landfills, and highways; the demolition of historic buildings; or the failure to conserve open space are a measure of the regard with which planning is held. In these contentious situations, the subject under debate is not the need for planning but rather the need for better planning, not whether but how it should be done.

Planning is a systematic process of thought and action intended to contribute to effective decision making for the welfare and integrity of communities and the sustainability of the natural environment. It involves forethought and the judicious or systematic use of scarce resources to attain a desired goal. The primary objective of planning is to make an informed decision. This entry reviews the history of planning, its development in the areas of both urban and regional planning, and the characteristics of the planning process itself (Wright et.al, 1995, pp. 272-287).

Discussion

History

Planning has been going on throughout history, and it is tempting to explain it away by merely stating that humans have a natural urge to plan; it is part of humans' organizational makeup. Historians and anthropologists have uncovered evidence of planning from the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome to the nation-states and mercantile empires of the 19th century; in America, from the Iroquois confederation to the Inca and Aztec empires in Mexico; in Africa, from the tribal empires of the Ashanti and Mali in West Africa to the Zulu Empire and the kingdom of Zimbabwe in Southern Africa; and in the East, from the early cultures of Japan and China to the Persian Empire. The roots of planning extend to the first emergence of structured societies at the dawn of human history. Indeed, the planning of common activities, in the sense of deliberate anticipation, and the development of strategies for action are evident in all primitive human societies (Thomas, 1991, pp. 107-117).

Planned cities were at the core of all great pre-classical civilizations. Evidence lies in the layout of early Roman and Greek cities and in the civilizations that developed in the Indus River valley. Greek cities were based on a grid system layout, and they included standard elements such as a temple complex or Acropolis, a marketplace or Agora, and a recreational complex made up of an amphitheatre (for theatre and performances) and a hippodrome (for sports events and chariot races). Such was the plan for the city of Miletus, which was planned by Hippodamus, the father of town planning, in 480 BC. In North America, early urban settlements were generally preplanned in Europe before the settlers set off for the New World. For instance, Savannah, Georgia, planned in 1733 by James Oglethorpe, was inspired by the layout of London's residential ...