Patrick Geddes

• Father of modern
town planning
• First to link
sociological concepts
into town planning
• “Survey before plan”
i.e. diagnosis before
treatment
Important dates…

1854 ‐ 1932 PATRICK GEDDES

1886 Settled in EDINBERGH
1892 Outlook tower ‐ World’s first Sociological
observatory
1911 Exhibition on Cities and Town planning
1915 Published Cities in Evolution

1920 ‐ 23 Visited INDIA

-Professor of Civics and Sociology in
University of Bombay
1924 Settled in Montpellier, France
GEDDISIAN TRIAD

Organic relationship between

SOCIAL , PHYSICAL &
ECONOMICAL environment
Patrick Geddes – Planning concepts

• Rural development, Urban Planning and City Design

are not the same and adopting a common planning
process is disasturous
• The sequence of planning is to be:
• Regional survey
• Rural development
• Town planning
• City design
• These are to be kept constantly up to‐date He gave his
expert advice for the improvement of about 18 major
towns in India.
 Geddes and The Valley Section
• Geddes first published his idea of the valley section in 1909 to
illustrate his idea of the 'region-city'.
• The region is expressed in the city and the city spreads influence of
the highest level into the region.
• To put it another way, Geddes said that "it takes a whole region to
make the city”.
• The valley section illustrated the application of Geddes's trilogy of
'folk/work/place' to analysis of the region.
• The valley section is a complex model, which combines physical
condition- geology and geomorphology and their biological
associations - with so-called natural or basic occupations such as
miner, hunter, shepherd or fisher, and with the human settlements
that arise from them.
• Geddes illustrated the section using the locally
available landscapes of Edinburgh and its hinterland
 Tel-Aviv (Israel)
The Geddes Plan for Tel Aviv was the first
master city plan for Tel Aviv.
It was designed in 1925-1929 by
the Scottish city planner Sir Patrick
Geddes.
This program designed the centre of Tel
Aviv and the area now known as "Old
North".
In 1925 Patrick Geddes was commissioned
to design a master plan for the city of Tel
Aviv.
The plan he produced was accepted in
1929.
Tel Aviv turned out to be the only example
of one of Geddes’ plans being built largely
as he envisaged and is a good example of
an early planned city.
• The area of Tel Aviv originally planned by Geddes makes up
approximately 7.5% of the current day municipality of Tel Aviv
and is now known as Tel Aviv’s “Old North”.
• It was designed to be an extension of the much older
neighbouring Arabic port town Jaffa to the south and a home for
the increasing population of Jews emigrating from other parts of
the world (predominantly Eastern Europe).
• The principles he employed for the city were - an emphasis was
placed on pedestrians as opposed to motor car traffic, a sense of
community and civic life was encouraged through the use of town
squares and abundant planting of greenery provided significant
focus on a minimal environmental footprint.
• Private automobile traffic was minimised and the city was
envisaged on a pedestrian-scale. This neighbourhood identity has
been crucial in the success of Tel Aviv as a city.
 Conurbations Theory
• The term "conurbation" was coined in 1915 by Patrick
Geddes in his book Cities In Evolution.
• Internationally, the term "urban agglomeration" is often
used to convey a similar meaning to "conurbation".
• A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities,
large towns, and other urban areas that, through population
growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one
continuous urban and industrially developed area.
• In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urban
agglomeration, in which transportation has developed to
link areas to create a single urban labour market or travel
to work area.
• The term is used in North America, a metropolitan area can
be defined by the Census Bureau or it may consist of
a central city and its suburbs, while a conurbation consists
of adjacent metropolitan areas that are connected with one
another by urbanization.