URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING HISTORY

AND PRINCIPLES
1. Hippodamus of Miletus (498-408 BC)
 Inventor / father of formal city planning
 Made the Hippodamian Plan or the grid city to maximise winds in
the summer and minimise them in winter. This shows his
geometric, arranged style in design
 Also worked on the Piraeus Port and Alexandria
2. Plato (428-347 BC)
Plato established one of the oldest environmental law principles and
an economic idea: The Polluter Pays Principle. It shall be the responsibility of
the polluter to contain, remove, and clean-up water pollution incidents at his own
expense.

3. Aristotle (384-322 BC) provided the foundation for the concept of

intergenerational equity. “Human well-being is realised only partly
by satisfying whatever people’s preferences happen to be at a
particular time; it is also necessary for successive generations to
leave behind sufficient resources so that future generations are not
constrained in their preferences.” This is what is referred to as ‘for
our children’s children, and their children.

4. Leone Battista Alberti (1404-1472) wrote the De Re

Aedificatoria, which contained ten books of planning and design
principles.

5. Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809-1891)’s work on the renovation

of Paris is a distinguishable accomplishment in planning. In his plan,
the Arc de Triomphe became the center of twelve avenues, radiating
outward, connecting to the city

6. Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912)

o Father of American City Planning
o He designed the World’s Columbian Exposition, together with Frederick
Law Olmstedand John Wellborn Root. The plan for the expo was the
first comprehensive planning document in the US.
He gave the famous quote: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to
stir men`s blood and probably themselves will not be realized.

7. Sir Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928)

 Wrote the book Garden Cities of Tomorrow. The book was first
printed as “Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Reform” in 1898, and
was reprinted as Garden Cities of Tomorrow in 1902.
 Howard’s umbrella concept was to create a 5,000-acre central city
of 58,000 people with 1,000-acre garden cities of 30,000 people
(each) surrounding it so that anthropogenic activities and growth
would be controlled.

8. Charles Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

o Created the Radiant City, where he designed very heavily with cubist
aesthetics. With the objective to decongest an entire city, he sought to
house 3 million people in 60-storey buildings, box-type houses, and
orderly and rational city blocks.

9. Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

o Champion and proponent of urban decentralisation, and involved
communities in his plans
o Designed the Broadacre City, a 1,000-hectare city complete with socio-
economic amenities.

10. Henry Wright (1878-1936) and Clarence Stein (1882-1975)

o These two go together because of their plan of Radburn, a garden city in
New Jersey. Radburn was designed to separate vehicles from
pedestrians. It also used the concept of a superblock and exhibited cul-
de-sacs (meaning dead ends).

11. Clarence Perry (1872-1944)

o Perry made the concept of the neighbourhood unit.

12. Sir Patrick Geddes (1954-1932)

o Introduced the notion of region and became the Father of Regional
Planning. This came up from his being a biologist, sociologist, and
geographer
o Also introduced the term conurbation, which means “an aggregation of
continuous network of urban communities.” Or simply, “A large area
consisting of cities that have grown so that there is very little room
between them.” He came up with the Valley Section (the ridge-to-reef
transect). Wrote the book Cities in Evolution

13. Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie (1879-1957)

 Created the post-war plans for London, and combatted sprawling
by resettlement
 Made the London Country Plan (1944) and the Greater London
Plan (1943)
14. Lewis Mumford (1895-1990)
o A historian-sociologist who studied cities and architecture
o From his 23 books, the most prominent in city planning is The City in
History, which pointed out how technology and nature could be
harmonious. This also gave the concept of an organic city and
rationalized how planning has various disciplines.

15. Benton McKaye (1879-1975)

o Originator of the 3,500 km Appalachian Trail in the eastern US
o Was a forester and conservationist, and co-founded the Wilderness
Society. He championed regional conservationism

16. Edward Bassett (1863-1948)

o Urban planner and lawyer who was the Father of American Zoning. He
was the first to use zoning as a means of implementing land use in New
York. He wrote books about zoning.
o Also coined the term freeway and parkway

17. Don Arturo Soria y Mata (1844-1920)

o Made the concept of the Linear City, which has many parallel and
specialized functions.

18. Tony Garnier (1869-1948)

o Followed Soria y Mata’s linear city and created the concept of a
linear- industrial city.

19. Thomas Adams (1871-1940)

o As an architect, he worked primarily on low-density residences or
garden suburbs
o Founded the British Town Planning Institute, became the Town Planning
Advisor to the Local Government Board, then moved to Canada and yet
again became an adviser to the Commission of Conservation
o Wrote the book Rural Planning and Development
o Pushed for planning legislation by mandate, local plans, zoning,
building regulations, and recognized the responsibility of a licensed or
professional planner. (This stems all the way to our present laws.)

20. Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis (1914-1975)

o Jumping some millennia after ancient Greece, another Greek planner-
architect, best known as Konstantinos, studied the science of human
settlements, known to us today as ekistics.
o Following the Greek grid and the principles of ekistics, this was how
Konstantinos designed Islamabad.
21. Francis Stuart Chapin (1888-1974)
o As a sociologist and educator, he stressed the importance of
quantifying social activities in an evolving city through statistics.
o He was the first to write the textbooks on urban and regional planning]

22. Ira Lowry

 Published a Model of Metropolis, which is a computer model for
spatial organization of anthropogenic activities in a metropolitan
area. The model generates an assessment that can be the basis for
urban policy decisions.
  Lowry worked with Robert Garin on a model. This model came up
after a series of research on land use and transportation. Population
densities, transport zones, and land use forecast techniques were
already being done.

23. William Levitt (1907-1994)

o Father of American Suburbia, The King of Suburbia, The Inventor of the
Suburb
o Mass produced houses that were affordable

24. Catherine Bauer Wurster (1905-1964)

o An advocate of social and public housing. She authored the American
Housing Act of 1937 and was an adviser to five presidents.
o Wrote the book Modern Housing

25. Robert Moses (1888-1981)

o Known as the Master Builder of New York, because of his plans that had
parkways, expressways, and housing development all over the city

26. Paul Davidoff (1930-1984)

o Father of Advocacy Planning. He paved the way to stand against the
destructive effects of urban renewal
o Wrote the famous article Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning

27. Saul David Alinsky (1909-1972)

o Founder of modern community organizing
o Wrote the book Rules for Radicals

28. Sherry Arnstein (d. 1997)

o Published an article on the ladder of citizen participation, which gave not
only a voice but power to the citizens. This addressed how citizens were
being victimized, and led the way to participatory planning.

29. Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)

 “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because,
and only when, they are created by everybody.”
 An urban activist who was strong and vocal against urban renewal;
she fought for new urbanism. Wrote the powerful book The Death
and Life of Great American Cities, which was an open attack on urban
renewal

30. Rachel Louise Carson (1907-1964)

o A marine biologist
o Wrote the powerful book Silent Spring, a haunting compilation and
narrative of research about the detrimental and even lethal effects of
pesticides and fertilizers on the living environment. This book launched
a global environmental movement.

31. Ian McHarg (1920-2001)

o Was called an “architect who valued a site’s natural features” (New
York Times)
o Transformed efforts of traditional planning into environmental
planning by using the technique of sieve mapping or overlay, which
took into account the varied features of the environment.
o Wrote the book Design with Nature, which triggered responsible
planning of landscapes, respecting natural features
o Laid the foundation for Geographic Information Systems (GIS).