GRID / HIPPODAMIAN MODEL

Hippodamus of Miletus 

Ancient Greek architect, urban planner

The namesake of the "Hippodamian Plan" (grid plan) of city layout

Hippodamus was born in Miletus and lived during the 5th century BC

According to Aristotle, Hippodamus was the first author who

wrote upon the theory of government without ever participating
in politics and without practical knowledge about it

His plans of Greek cities were characterised by order and regularity

in contrast to the intricacy and confusion common to cities of that
period

According to him, town plan might formally embody and clarify a

rational social order.
• He studied the functional problems of cities and linked them to the state administration system.

• He divided the citizens into three classes (soldiers, artisans and 'husbandmen'), with the land also
divided into three parts (sacred, public and private) : the first was set apart to maintain the customary
worship of the Gods, the second was to support the warriors, the third was the property of the
husbandmen

• According to Aristotle, he was the first urban planner to focus attention to proper arrangements of cities

• He laid out the Piraeus (the port of Athens), with wide streets radiating from the central Agora, which
was generally called the Hippodameia in his honour

• The grid plans attributed to him consisted of series of broad, straight streets, cutting one another at right
angles.

• In Miletus we can find the prototype plan of Hippodamus.

• Most impressive in his plan is a wide central area, which was kept unsettled according to his macro-scale
urban prediction/estimation and in time evolved to the "Agora", the centre of both the city and the
society

• Hippodamus proposed that society should reward those individuals who create things useful for society.
Aristotle criticized the practical utilitarian approach of Hippodamus
City of Priene
• The Urban Planning Study for Piraeus (451 BC), which is considered to be a work of
Hippodamus, formed the planning standards of that era and was used in many cities
of the classical epoch.

• According to this study, neighbourhoods of around 2,400 m2 blocks were constructed

where small groups of 2-floor houses were built. The houses were lined up with walls
separating them while the main facets were towards the south.

• Rational town planning, with straight streets intersecting to form quadrilateral city
blocks, had just been popularized in Greece by Hippodamus.

• Aristotle objected that at least part of every city should preserve the haphazard
arrangement of earlier times to make it more difficult for invaders to fight their way
in

• Miletus, which is a fine example of the grid plan, comprises houses on blocks created
by streets and side streets crossing at right angles, with public buildings in the city
centre,
City of Miletus
 Sector Model
• The sector model, also known as the Hoyt model, is a model of urban land
use proposed in 1939 by land economist Homer Hoyt.  

• It is a modification of the concentric zone model of city development.

• Hoyt argued that instead of concentric sets of neighborhoods, cities are primarily laid
out in pie or wedge-shaped zones and corridors developed from the core of the city to
the outskirts

• In the Hoyt Sector Model, the CBD is still in the center but it allows for an outward
progression of growth

• Hoyt, while formulating this model, observed that it was common for low-income
households to be near railroad lines, and commercial foundations to be along
business areas. Noticing that the various transportation routes into an urban area,
including sea ports, tram lines and railroads represented greater access, Hoyt
propounded that cities tended to develop in wedge-like patterns or “sectors” radiating
from the central business district and centred on major transportation routes
 The CBD is still in the center, but expanding outward away from it along
transportation lines are zones used for industry and residential developments

Land use within each sector would remain the same because like attracts like.

The high-class sector would stay high-class because it would be the most sought
after area to live, so only the rich could afford to live there.

The industrial sector would remain industrial as the area would have a common
advantage of a railway line or river.

It is monocentric development approach

Cities will have sectors which are wedge shaped

Here disctance from CBD is not important factor but the direction
• Advantages of the Sector Model:
• It looks at the effect of transport and communication links.
• Numerous cities do seem to have followed this model. If turned 90 degrees anti-
clockwise, the Hoyt model fits the city of Newcastle reasonably accurately.
• Pie shaped wedges made by Hoyt compensated for the drawbacks of the Ring
model.
• Though not perfect it takes into account the lines of growth.
• It allows for an outward progression of growth.
•  Limitations:
• There is no reference to out of town development.
• There is no reference to the physical environment.
• The theory is based on nineteenth century transport and does not make allowances
for private cars which allow commuting from outside city boundaries where land is
much cheaper. This occurred in Calgary in the 1930s when many near-slums were
put up in the outskirts of the city but close to the terminal of the street car lines.
These are now applied into the boundary of the city but are pockets of low cost
housing in medium cost areas.
• The growth of a sector can be stopped with land use radiating out of the inner city.
• It does not consider the new concepts of edge cities, which came up in the 1980s,
after the creation of the model. Since its creation, the traditional CBD has diminished
in importance as numerous office and retail buildings have moved into the suburbs.
• Like all models of urban form its validity is limited.
 Multiple Nuclei Model
• The multiple nuclei model is an economical
model created by Chauncy Harris and Edward
Ullman in the 1945 article "The Nature of
Cities"
Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman’s Multiple Nuclei Model
• This is one of the widely adopted models which was applicable to modern cities
unlike older models

• Multi Nuclei model is based on the structure of Chicago just like the Burgess model
or Concentric zone model of 1925
• .
• However it is contrary to the monocentric model of Burgess.

• Harris model can be considered as an attempt to explain the structure of the city
taking into account the complexity and growth over time, influence of central area &
the city centre.

• Harris and Ullman argued that a city might start with a single central business district
(CBD), but over the time the activities scatter and gets modified.

• The scattered activities attract people from surrounding areas and act as smaller
nuclei in itself.

• These small nuclei gain importance and grow in size and start influencing land
value and the growth of activities around them.
• The need for this model was to provide a more realistic explanation
of the cities.
• The influence of cars on personal travel and greater movement of
goods offered opportunity in different places instead of
concentrating all economic activities in one place.
• People started optimizing their business for maximum profit by
locating at a different place and bringing down their rent with a
slight increase in transportation cost.
• Whereas some activities like industrial areas create pollution and
are thus preferred to be located away from residential areas.
• This model is considered to be more suitable for cities which are
large and expanding.
• This model was found to be applicable to multiple cities 
Assumptions for Multiple Nuclei Model
The land is not flat 
Even distribution of resources
Even distribution of people in Residential areas
Even transportation cost
Profit maximization
 Some disadvantages

• Each zone displays a significant degree of internal

heterogeneity and not homogeneity.
• Complex
• No consideration of the influence of physical
relief and government policy.
• Non-existence of abrupt divisions between zones
• The concepts may not apply to Asian cities with
different cultural, economic and political
backgrounds.
• height of buildings were neglected in model.
Comparision of 3 Models
 RADBURN – Super Block
• When Clarence Stein was commissioned in 1929 to design a Masterplan for the Radburn estate in New Jersey
he set out to build a ‘garden city for the motor age’.
•
• The housing layout used at Radburn was the first to create a pedestrian circulation system that allowed people
to walk to the local centre, park and the school without the need to cross a road.
•
• It does this by the simple expedient of super blocks 300m by 600m with a series of cul-de-sacs pointing into the
centre of each block.

• These cul-de-sacs provide car access to the front of each home while a separate pedestrian network links to
the back gardens via which residents can walk through a central area of open space to local facilities.

• The design is typified by the backyards of homes facing the street and the fronts of homes facing one another,
over common yards

• Remaining Land as Park areas

• Walkways were designed so that people dont have to cross motorways to reach social places
• A town for Motor age

• Created in 1929 for 25000 people spread in 149 acres having430 single houses, 90 row houses,54 semi
detached houses, and 93 apartment units
Petrick Geddes theory of Conservative
Surgery and Geddian Trio
• Sir Patrick Geddes  (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a British
biologist, sociologist, geographer, planner
• To Geddes, it made no sense to wreck an entire community while
pretending to improve it.
• Here, he recommended replacing only two houses, and taking out
four more of the smallest and most badly dilapidated ones, turning
the ground they covered into a little square to afford more light and
air to the remaining residents of this crowded street.
• Conservative Surgery : Take into account the existing physical,
social , symbolic landscape of a place in order to allow its most
favourable future development
• Town Planner should conserve the evolutionary process of a city to
enable civic evolution
Geddian Triad
• Welter explains:
• “For Geddes, conflicts arise not between classes but
between occupational groups and the environment. As
the aim is to adjust the whole city to the environment,
cooperation among citizens becomes not only a viable
option but a necessity.
• Geddes famously pronounced that ʻIt takes a whole
region to make a city”
• He introduced the concept of “Region” to planning and
coined term “conurbation”.
• Explained Urban Conurbation- NCR
Valley Section : Enlightenment theory of social evolution that describes mankind’s
development through the four stages of hunting, pastoral, and agriculture toward
commercial societies.
 BroadAcre City - FLW
• Presented the idea in his book The Disappearing City in 1932.
• Broadacre City was the antithesis of a city and the glorification of the newly brn suburbs

• It was both a planning statement and a socio-political scheme, inspired by Henry George, by which
each U.S. family would be given a one acre (0.40 hectares) plot of land from the federal lands
reserves, and a Wright-conceived community would be built anew from this.

• In a sense it was the exact opposite of transit-oriented development.

• There is a train station and a few office and apartment buildings in Broadacre City, but the
apartment dwellers are expected to be a small minority.

• All important transport is done by automobile and the pedestrian can exist safely only within the
confines of the one acre (0.40 hectares) plots where most of the population dwells

• UTOPIAN concept
Broadacre city model
• Wright developed a 12 by 12 foot scale model to
represent a hypothetical 4 square mile community.
• In 1935 he presented it in an Industrial Arts
Exposition in the Forum at the Rockefeller Center.
He called the model, “New Homes for the Old”
Grid
• Broadacre city follows a strict Grid distributing
acres of 40x50meters across 4 sqmile equalling to a
total of 2560 acres.
Courtesy : IAAC
Courtesy : IAAC
Courtesy : IAAC
Courtesy : IAAC
Courtesy : IAAC
Courtesy : IAAC