ITA01 Foundations of City Studies

Review Essay

Urban Designing: Challenges for Urban Livable Environment

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Professor Name

11/27/2021
 1. Introduction:

This essay aims to achieve a deeper understanding of the important debates in the field of City

Studies. For this, the reading “Towards an Urban Design Manifesto” from City Reader has been

chosen to form an essay. It then will select three more articles that will help to analyze the debate

on this chosen topic. The reading from the city reader i.e., Towards an Urban Design Manifesto,

was written by Allan Jacob and Donald Appleyard. Under this study, they have identified that

how Urban cities are designed for the livable urban environment and have further identified the

problems and issues with modern Urban designs. To strengthen the arguments made by Allan

and Donald, another study “Role and Challenges of Urban Design” has been selected which

determines that the development of urban cities has created new challenges for urban designs in

this contemporary time. The study “Urban Design and Urban Planning: A critical analysis to the

theoretical relationship gap” was also selected to support the previous research as this study

helps to analyze the critical role of stakeholders for the planning for Urban design and resolve

the issues of urban designing identified in the above two studies. Lastly, the study “Urban

Planning and Quality of Life: A review of pathways linking the built environment to subjective

well-being” is selected for this research as it supports the previously chosen articles by

identifying the urban planning strategies for improving the well-being of cities and helping the

cities to mitigate with the issue and challenges proposed by previous chosen studies.

2. Development and Challenges of Urban City Designs:

The study by Jacob & Appleyard (1987) have provided several observations and critique to set

significant goals for urban life and identified that urban designs are not effective for today’s

metropolitan cities as the plans are not environment friendly and result in more noise and

pollution. The authors identified vast projects for clearance, highways and high-rise buildings are
surrounded by open space that has resulted from CIAM’s designs ideology. Although the authors

have acknowledged the Garden Cities as having provided pleasant communities, they claim that

it is a suburb than the actual city. They believe that the urban design manifesto is grounded in the

practical experience of urban design by claiming that urban development at densities is high

enough to qualify as urban. By formulating a manifesto, it has identified that automobile cities of

California and the current Southwest are entirely different issues from those of European cities in

the 19th century because the housing developments around the globe are growing faster,

especially in the Third World countries that ultimately rise the issues of poor living environment.

The housing conditions in advanced states like USA have improved with regards to air, light,

space and the surroundings of houses are frequently dangerous, noisy, polluted while due to such

developments of housing in urban designs are making travel more stressful and fatiguing

[ CITATION Jac87 \l 1033 ].

The study by Madanipour (2006) also illustrates various challenges for urban development due

to the urban design impacting people’s livable conditions. The author analyzed that the urban

strategies impact the societies as these designs, such as more industrialization, cutting of forest

and trees etc., are promoting social segregation instead of integration which is exemplified by

gentrification and having a walled neighborhood. It is also analyzed that cities like the USA are

more privatized and emphasize private and individual control. Crime in streets become more

common than ever before which has resulted in the creation of new cities i.e., closed, defendant

and windowless that are surrounded by parking areas and heavy traffic. The environment of

urban cities has become an empty desert where people only work for their sole survival.

Moreover, cities are becoming a symbol of inequality and injustice due to a discrepancy between

rich and poor. In various states, the environment for the rich is more dominant while for the poor
is worse. This kind of discrepancy is less visible in modern low-density modern conditions

[ CITATION Mad06 \l 1033 ].

Research conducted by Asaad (2021) analyzed the role of stakeholders in urban designing and

urban development and their significance for reducing the rising issues in metropolitan cities.

The author identifies that the urban design stakeholders are divided into three groups i.e., users,

producers, and regulators. The urban design process is in the responsibility of regulators that

include the authorities of planning, governmental bodies and economic regulators who affect the

evaluation of the success of urban designs and results in failure not because of the physical

aspect but for the environment at large. The impact of regulators results in the rise of the need for

motivation and the organizational framework that affects the urban development and design.

According to the policies, the stakeholders need to balance the different needs of people’s

housing, traffic, or environment etc., according to the policies. The author identified that the

development of urban policy and planning is the main anchor that affects the process. Still, it is

not enough to identify the stakeholders as a contributor to the process. There is a high need for

identification of strong relations between developments and urban designs with regards to policy

and planning which is a good practice as by having balance and strong relations, the designs will

be made that not only meets the demand of people but also helps to have a sustainable

environment [ CITATION Asa21 \l 1033 ].

The author Mouratidis (2021) has provided different strategies for urban planning for designs

and development that will help the stakeholders improve the well-being of cities currently facing

serious issues like the poor living environment, noise, pollution etc., as identified in the above

articles. The author examines that stakeholder needs to adopt a systematic approach and view

cities as the collection of social and economic components that could segregate to achieve the
activities and performance with each component. He identified that stakeholders of city design

planers need to focus on vehicle traffic and reducing the externalities that emerged from

incompatible city designs that are negatively harming the environment and are imperfect for

urban livability. The city planners need to focus on ecosystem, sustainability, and biodiversity as

they define the implications for human life on earth. In broader phenomenon, city planners or

regulators need to adopt the balance of nature because environmentalist believes that explosive

growth of population and developments are violating the environmental regulations and

advancement in cities are resulting in massive exploitation of natural resources to satisfy the

demands.

3. Conclusion:

The paper concludes that in the process of urban designing, the cities are developing and having

improved lives by having more advanced homes, industrialization etc., Still, all these factors and

urban design is seriously harmful to the environment because such developments have neglected

the stance of environmental sustainability which is a severe need of this contemporary time.

Human development has degraded the quality of the environment and its surroundings and has

disrupted ecological harmony which is considered more significant to human’s well-being. It has

been analyzed above that stakeholder i.e., governmental bodies and authorities, need to adopt a

balanced approach for designing the urban development and adopt such policies that could meet

the needs of humans and the environment collaboratively.

APA References:

Asaad, M. (2021). Urban design & urban planning: A critical analysis to the theoretical

relationship gap. Ain Shams Engineering Journal, Volume 12, Issue 1, Pages 1163-1173.

Jacobs, A., & Appleyard, D. (1987). Towards an Urban Design Manifesto. Journal of American

Planning Association.

Madanipour, A. (2006). Roles and Challenges of Urban Design. Journal of Urban Design,

11(2):173-193.

Mouratidis, K. (2021). Urban planning and quality of life: A review of pathways linking the built

environment to subjective well-being. Cities, Volume 115, 103229.