CHAPTER 4

DEFINITION OF URBAN
PLANNING

CHAPTER 5
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND
INFLUENCES OF URBAN PLANNING
CHAPTER
4
DEFINITION OF URBAN
PLANNING
 URBAN PLANNING
• Ancient kings and builders were clearly involved in “urban
planning,” and their cities were “planned” settlements,
following common sense notions of planning. Yet most
ancient cities are classified as “unplanned” in the literature
on historical urbanism.
• All scholars adopt a simplistic scheme in which cities with
an orthogonal layout are classified as planned, whereas those
that lack the grid principle are considered to be unplanned.
 FIVE (5) COORDINATED
THREE (3)
BUILDING ARRANGEMENTS IN
URBAN PLANNING ARCHITECTURAL
• SIMPLE COORDINATION
INVENTORIES

• FORMALITY AND • SPATIAL

MONUMENTALITY PATTERNS
• ORTHOGONAL LAYOUTS • ORIENTATION
• GEOMETRIC ORDER • METROLOGY
• ACCESS AND VISIBILITY (VIEW-
Archaeologists must, by necessity, approach the study of
ancient urban planning very differently from the way scholars
study modern planning. Studies of ancient cities have proposed
the ff;
THREE (3) DEFINITIONS OF PLANNING:
• Emphasized on deliberate actions of builders, and focus
on the formal layouts that result from those actions.
• The second definition of ancient planning focuses on
standardization of City plans.
 URBAN PLANNING
• A branch of architecture that focuses on organizing metropolitan
areas. 
• It is the art of creating and shaping cities and towns.
URBAN DESIGN
• Involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces,
transport systems, services, and amenities. Process of giving form,
shape, and character to groups of buildings, to whole neighborhood,
and the city.
•  It is a framework that orders the elements into a network of streets,
 HISTORY OF URBAN
PLANNING
A technical and political process concerned with
the use of land and design of the urban
environment, including air, water, and the
infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas
such as transportation and distribution networks.
 PRE-CLASSICAL
The streets of many of these early cities were paved and laid
out at right angles in a grid pattern, with a hierarchy of streets
from major boulevards to residential alleys. 
Archaeological evidence suggests that many Harrapan houses
were laid out;
• To protect from noise and to enhance residential privacy;
• Many also had their own water wells, probably both for
sanitary and for ritual purposes.
• These ancient cities were unique in that they often had
drainage systems, seemingly tied to a well-developed ideal
of urban sanitation.
 ANCIENT CITIES
NINE (9) FACTORS OF A CITY
• Population of the settlement
• Height of buildings
• Density of buildings/population
• Presence of some kind of sewer system
• Level of administrative government
• Presence of walls and/or fortifications
• Geographical area of the settlement
• Or whether a `settlement' was called a `city' in antiquity and
fits at least one of the above qualifications.
 THE FIRST CITY  
• The first cities developed in the region known
as Mesopotamia between 4500 and 3100 BCE.
• The city of Uruk, today considered the oldest in the world, was
first settled in c. 4500 BCE and walled cities, for defence, were
common by 2900 BCE throughout the region.
• The city of Eridu, close to Uruk, was considered the first city in
the world by the Sumerians while other cities which lay claim
to the title of `first city' are Byblos, Jericho, Damascus,
 THE BENEFITS & COST OF
THE CITY
• The separation of human beings from their natural environment
produced an artificial world in which people no longer had to concern
themselves with the cycles of nature in order to survive.
• Many elements supplied by nature, necessary for both health and
mental balance, were lacking in the city. However, the city, and the
urbanization process, had no long-term benefits. Even so, the artificial
nature of the urban environment is the reason why so many ancient
cities, not destroyed in conquest, were destroyed by their inhabitants or
abandoned.
 IMPORTANCE OF URBAN
PLANNING
URBAN PLANNING is a framework that helps leaders
by using space as a key resource for development and
engaging stakeholders along the way. It is a valuable
lever for city leaders to reconcile a collective vision with
a rational organization of resources to achieve it.
 THREE (3) IMPORTANT
FUNCTION OF URBAN PLANNING

• transform vision into implementation

• achieve sustainable development
• formulate medium and long-term objectives
  
10 REASONS CITIES NEED
URBAN PLANNING
1) A framework for growth
  Relationships
6) Cities to Build Lasting
2) A planned city is a well
7) Cities attain Economies
prepared city
of Scale
3) Planning improves impact 8) Continuity Generates
Credibility
4) An appropriate urban
9) Cost Effective in
form is very important Reacting to Problems
5) Impacts on urban 10) Consistency to Messages
 COMPARISON PERSPECTIVE
BETWEEN ANCIENT & MODERN
CITIES:
• All cities essentially follow the same rules of development as a
function of "general network effects typical of human social
networks embedded in space.
• As urban populations increase in size and density, per
capita productivity and efficiency also increases. With increases
in settlement size, public monuments get bigger and more
voluminous, as do residential dwellings.
 CHAPTER 5
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND
INFLUENCES OF URBAN PLANNING
• City planning aims to provide a safe, organized,
and enjoyable home and work life for residents
of both new and established towns. Today, some
of the largest concerns of urban planning are
building locations, zoning, transportation, and
how a town or city looks.
 INFLUENCES OF URBAN DESIGN
PLANNING
• It is the art of creating and shaping cities and towns.  It is a
framework that orders the elements into a network of streets,
squares, and blocks.
• Urban design involves the arrangement and design of
buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and
amenities. Urban design is the process of giving form, shape,
and character to groups of buildings, to whole neighborhood,
and the city.
• It is about making connections between people
and places, movement and urban form, nature
and the built fabric.
• Because cities are using a sectoral approach to
planning.
• Because specialized professionals know their
area of specialization very well.
 URBAN PLANNING ISSUES

• Accommodating population growth: expand or

contain urban development
• Planning and funding priorities
• Increasing densities in existing urban
neighborhoods
 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW - ANCIENT CITIES
SUMMERIANS
• The Sumerians were the first society to construct the city itself as a built
form. The growth of the city was partly planned and partly organic.
Planning is evident in the walls, high temple district, main canal w/ harbor,
&main street.
• The typical city divided space into residential, mixed use, commercial, and
civic spaces.
• The city always included a belt of irrigated agricultural land including small
hamlets. The transportation network was organized in three tiers: wide
processional streets public through streets, and private blind alleys.
• The current estimate is 10% of the city area was streets and 90% buildings.
 EGYPT
• Many ancient Egyptian cities have been continuously inhabited
since their original forms, little is actually understood about the
general designs of Egyptian towns for any given period.
• The Egyptians referred to most cities as either nwt or dmi. 
• Nwt usually refers to unplanned cities that grew naturally, such
as Memphis and Thebes, while dmi can be translated as
"settlement" and usually refers to towns that were laid out along
a plan. The archaeological evidence of such cities is best
preserved, and has been most thoroughly excavated.
• Akhenaten of the 19th dynasty built Akhenaten as the new capital
city of Egypt. For the location, he chose Amarna, a fresh site on
the eastern bank of the Nile, about 275 kilometers northwest of the
old capital city of Thebes. After his death, the city was virtually
abandoned.
• The degree of planning involved in the construction of Amarna
involved for the most part the administrative and religious
buildings of the central city. Even the planned part of the city was
somewhat hastily designed and assembled. Most of the city was
built along the “royal road,” which connected the central city with
the north city, an outlying satellite and the probable residence of
• An administrative building
containing an enormous warehouse
formed the northern limit of the
north city. At the southern end of
the royal road lay the central city, a
group of temples, palaces, and
administrative buildings forming
the executive hub of the city.
• Akhenaten describes the main
buildings he will construct in his
new capital.
 GREECE
• In mainland Greece, Thebes, Argos and Corinth all make good
candidates. Corinth was the wealthiest city in mainland  Greece.  All
three cities feature prominently in myths, particularly the Oedipus
cycle and the tales of the Trojan war, reflecting their prominence in
pre-classical times. If you count the rest of the Greek
world, Alexandria- fabulously wealthy and the home of the famous
library, as well as alexander's tomb and other magnificent sights is a
clear winner.  Likewise  Syracuse was wealthy,  powerful and
cultured. Preserving its independence and power when the mainland
was under the Macedonian thumb.
 THE GRID PATTERN
• The city planning in the later Greek city-states was yet
another impressive aspect of Greek engineering that was
mimicked across the globe.  The organized streets and
intersections were dramatic improvements from the twisting
and tangled roads that were commonly  found at the time.
 This organized system was attained through a combination of
wide avenues and narrow cross streets which created the
block pattern.  The new system proved to be efficient and
 • Hippodamos was  a Greek architect from the
HIPPODAMOS ancient city-state of Miletus. In the system he
OF MILETUS created, the city and people were divided into
artisans, soldiers, and farmers.  Next he divided
the city into 3 parts- one was for worshipping the
gods, for the military, and a property in which the
common people lived.  His more major impact on
city planning was his block pattern.  He proposed
that the more important buildings in cities such as
temples would take up more than one block and
the whole city would be surrounded by a wall to
protect it from invaders.
 GREEK CITY PLANNING AND DESIGN
PLANNING AND DESIGN PRINCIPLES
The ancient greek civilization had established principles for
planning and designing cities. City form were of two types:
• OLD CITIES such as Athens had irregular street plans
reflecting their gradual organic development.
• NEW CITIES had a grid-iron street plan
Certain things were common among cities: the division of spaces
in 3 parts: Acropolis, Agora and the town, the fortification,
 ROME
• Roman city is basically composed by a number of identic
components, disposed in -parallel and equal-distant- separated by
streets. The whole forms a unit of rectangular design surrounded by
a perimetral wall with watchtowers.
• All the streets are equal except for two: the north-south one -kardo
maximus- and the east-west one -decumanus-. Both are wider and
end at the four doors of the exterior wall. At the cross of both streets
is the city's forum and the market. These components were
necessary for the Design of public buildings. These urban rules were
developed during nearly 10 centuries in order to create the different
• In these cities, kinds of housing could be divided
into house, domus, insula and villa. There also
were casae or housings for slaves and low classes.
• Because of their weak systems of building they have
all disappeared in our days. Indeed, there were also
great communitary buildings as basilicae, termae and
the very important social and cultural systems
called forums.
ROMAN CITY PLAN MODEL
 CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL EUROPE
• Hippodamus, a Greek philosopher who is regarded as
the first town planner and ‘inventor’ of the orthogonal
urban layout.
• Aristotle called him “the father of city planning”. After
the city of Miletus was destroyed by the Persians in
494 bce, it was rebuilt in a regular form that, according
to tradition, was determined by the ideas of
Hippodamus of Miletus.
• Following in the tradition of Hippodamus about a
century later, Alexander commissioned Democrats
the architect to lay out his new city of Alexandria, 
the grandest example of idealized urban planning of
the ancient Hellenistic world, where the city's
regularity was facilitated by its level site near a
mouth of the Nile.
• The ancient romans, also employed regular orthogonal
structures on which they molded their colonies. They
probably were inspired by Greek and Hellenic examples, as
well as by regularly planned cities that were built by the
Etruscans in Italy.
• Urban development in the early middle ages,
characteristically focused on a fortress, a fortified abbey.
• The deep depression around the middle of the 14th century
marked the end of the period of great urban expansion.
 RENAISSANCE EUROPE
• Florence, was an early model of the new urban planning,
which took on a star-shaped layout adapted from the new
star fort, designed to resist cannon fire.
• Filarete's ideal city, building on Leone Battista albert's de re
Aedificatoria, was named "sforzinda" in compliment to his
patron; its twelve-pointed shape, circumscribable by a
"perfect" pythagorean figure, the circle, took no heed of its
undulating terrain in filarete's manuscript.
 ENLIGHTENMENT EUROPE
• During this period, rulers often embarked on ambitious
attempts at redesigning their capital cities as a showpiece for
the grandeur of the nation. Disasters were often a major
catalyst for planned reconstruction.
• Great fire of 1666, improvements were made in hygiene and
fire safety with wider streets, stone construction and access to
the river.
• 1755 Lisbon earthquake - the architect Manuel da Maia
boldly proposed razing entire sections of the city and "laying
out new streets without restraint".
• In 1852, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann was
commissioned to remodel the medieval street plan of the
city by demolishing swathes of the old quarters and laying
out wide boulevards, extending outwards beyond the old
city limits.
• Spanish civil engineer, Ildefonso Cerda, invented the
term 'urbanization‘ in 1860-61. His theory was the first in
modern times to focus methodically on the city as a
construction, its evolution and the workings and interaction
of its constituent parts.
 URBAN
PLANNING
INFLUENCES
 MODERNISM
• In the 1920s, the ideas of modernism began to surface in
urban planning. Modernist architect Le Corbusier presented
his scheme for a  "contemporary city" for 3 million
inhabitants in 1922. In 1925, he exhibited his "plan voisin“. In
the 1930s, Le Corbusier expanded and reformulated his ideas
on urbanism.
NEW TOWNS
• Ebenezer Howard's urban planning concepts were only
adopted on a large scale after World War II. The New Towns
Act 1946 resulted many new towns being constructed in
 URBAN PLANNING IN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES
• Urban planning was popular in the soviet union and other countries in 1929-1989.
NEIGHBORING ASIAN COUNTRIES
• Asian cities have realized explosive growth in the post-war decades. Asian cities
historically place land use patterns of urban and rural character next to each other.
Farm and wooded landscapes provide key ecological functions, visual amenities
and cultural services that help justify the continued relationship of rural and urban
land use mixes.
• A planning concept that respects the vernacular landscape of the past can help
provide new stability to the Asian urban environment of the 21st century. Cities all
across the Asia pacific region are experimenting with bringing nature into the city
-- from the small and experimental to the radical and top-down.
 NATURE IN TODAY’S CITIES
SINGAPORE
• known worldwide for its dramatic urban transformation.
Billing itself today as “city in a garden”. Singapore upended
the smaller, traditional urbanization patterns and replaced
them with a vision of a clean, well-oiled city with
appropriately placed green spaces – a completely different
take on modernism than has been seen in the west.
• Today, Singapore's national parks board promotes impressive
regional projects like the “park connectors network”, which
maintains extensive recreational paths linking green areas.
 MALAYSIA
• Putrajaya was designed to consolidate the government ministries in one location.
The decision to move out of Kuala Lumpur was taken in order to relieve traffic
congestion. As the new capital, Putrajaya was designed to be the nation’s pride, an
‘intelligent garden city’ that is well-planned, aesthetically pleasing,
environmentally friendly, and with many green, open areas and to nurture a sense
of Malaysian and Islamic heritage and identity.
• Putrajaya is connected to Kuala Lumper and other parts of the country by
highway, (erl) rail and the international airport, located just south of the city.
• 37% of Putrajaya is dedicated to park and open spaces and there are 200 hectares
of man-made wetland and a 400 hectare man-made lake, allowing for the creation
of 38 kilometers of waterfront.
 INDONESIA
• (Jakarta city) Although the Dutch were the first to attempt to plan the
city, the city layout is probably more British than Dutch in character.
• The oriental style, or “indische” style, as the Dutch call it, is apparent
not only in the city’s way of life but also in the types of houses, the
wide, tree-lined streets, and the original spacious gardens and house
lots.
• In kebayoran, a satellite town built since World War II on the
southwestern side of the city, and in other modern developments, the
houses and garden lots are much smaller than in the older colonial
• Jakarta has long been a city of new settlers who assimilated local
ways and became Jakartan's themselves. Some traditional
neighborhoods can, however, be identified.
• The Kota (“city”; also called Kota Tua [“old city”] or old Batavia)
area, sometimes called the downtown section, is the historical city
centre, and it houses a significant part of the chinese population.
• The contemporary city’s business and financial hub lies somewhat
to the south of kota, primarily along jenderal sudirman and
mohammad husni thamrin roads, in central jakarta.
• The area of kemayoran (“progress”) and senen, originally on the
 CHINA
• Modern china is home to some of the largest top-down city
planning experiments. Chengdu is being vaunted as a new garden
city, with plans to protect a greenbelt and develop regional
“satellite cities” with connecting corridors.
• Chengdu exemplifies how western city planning concepts are
being dramatically contextually altered – in chengdu, the goal is to
grow a world-class megacity, and the success is largely
determined by gdp, not by increased social capital or livability.
• Decisions are made by the government and investors, without
input from a wide variety of interest groups and the
citizenry. 
• The founding of the people's republic of china in 1949 marks
the beginning of three recent historical stages of urban
planning philosophies and practice that represent a
divergence from traditional Chinese urban planning
morphologies are broadly categorized as the ff.:
• TRADITIONAL CITY
• SOCIALIST CITY (1950–1980)
• HYBRID CITY - (1860–PRESENT)
 JAPAN
• Japanese architecture and urban design started off with major
influences from its more civilized neighboring country: china,
from the 220BC in the tang dynasty. Japan imitated those ideas of
china in many aspects including planning capital cities and
strengthening power of central government.
• it developed many western ideas later on to enable more advanced
planning systems, which included the transit orientated
development and the garden cities of Ebenezer Howard, as well as
advancing architecture and design techniques to address the
recurring natural disasters due to it being a more geographically
prone area, particularly to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic
activities.
• Therefore, Japan have established the urban
planning act 1968 and the new building
standard law 1970 as its main manuals to
manage its land use in order to tackle these
problems, amongst the tension of urbanization
in limited areas of land with great population. 
• With Asian cities leading the globe in number
of urban residents and urban population
density, making space for nature is critical.
• Pacific cities must soul-search to discover how
they can create a modern “garden city” that
retains a unique identity, heritage, and culture that
can attract and retain top talent and industry.
• Tomorrow’s garden cities will be about living in
harmony with nature and conserving scarce
natural resources as the globe’s population
increasingly moves further away from the farms
and forests of their past.
 NEW URBANISM
• Various current movements in urban design seek to create
sustainable urban environments with long-lasting structures,
buildings and a great livability for its inhabitants.
• The most clearly defined form of walkable urbanism is known as
the charter of new urbanism.
• It is an approach for successfully reducing environmental impacts
by altering the built environment to create and preserve smart
cities that support sustainable transport. Urban design can
influence the economic success and socio-economic composition
Urban design determines the physical scale, space
and ambience of a place and establishes the built
and natural forms within which individual
buildings and infrastructure are sited. Urban
design can influence health and the social and
cultural impacts of a locality.