Urban planning concept,principles and elements By Teshager Mengesha

1. 1
COLLEGE OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
COURSE TITLE: ADVANCED PLANNING THEORY
Individual ASSIGNMENT
Q, Asses Urban planning Elements supported by sketch,
Urban planning principles &
Urban planning concepts
)
April, 2019
Addis Ababa

2. 2
1) Objectives
 to assess the elements of urban planning supported by sketch.
 to identify the basic urban planning principles.
 to describe the concepts of urban planning.
2) Introduction
Urban Planning is an art and science of ordering the use of land and siting of
buildings and communication routes so as to secure the maximum practicable degree
of economy, convenience, and beauty.
 An attempt to formulate the principles that should guide us in creating a civilized
physical background for human life whose main purpose is thus … foreseeing and
guiding change.
 An art of shaping and guiding the physical growth of the town creating buildings
and environments to meet the various needs such as social, cultural, economic and
recreational etc. and to provide healthy conditions for both rich and poor to live, to
work, and to play or relax, thus bringing about the social and economic wellbeing
for the majority of mankind
It is also a process of helping a community, identify its problems and its central
values, formulating goals and alternative approaches to achieving community
objectives, and avoiding undesired consequences of change. This process of
planning results in frameworks for coping with change. Some are concepts that
serve as guides to action, such as the goal of becoming a major distribution center or
of encouraging investment in the core of the city. Some are regulatory, reflecting the
desires of the community to encourage good development and discourage bad
development.

3. 3
3) Elements of urban planning
An urban planning must contain necessary elements that are sufficient to guide the
orderly development of a planning area. Hence the following elements are
earmarked as mandatory for each Plan of an urban area.
The aim of the urban planning elements are not only function properly but also in a
pleasing way. They should promote the sense of beauty and love of nature to
secure satisfaction.
3.1 COMMUNICATIONS
ROADWAYS WATERWAYS
RAILWAYS AIRWAYS
COMMUNICATION systems connect the parts of cities and help shape them,
and enable movement throughout the city. They include road, rail, bicycle, and
pedestrian networks, and together form the total movement system of a city.

4. 4
3.2 BUILT UP AREA
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
PUBLIC / SEMIPUBLIC BUILDINGS INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS
BUILT UP AREAS (Buildings) are the most pronounced elements in urban. They
shape and articulate space by forming the street walls of the city. Well-designed
buildings and groups of buildings work together to create a sense of place
3.3 OPEN AREAS
 RECREATIONAL :- PARKS, PLAYFIELDS , PUBLIC SPACES
 OPEN LANDS: - GRAVEYARDS, BARREN LANDS
Open Areas; the living room and the green part of a city that weaves
throughout. It is where people come together to enjoy the city and each other.
Open areas make high quality life in the city possible. The landscape helps define
the character and beauty of a city and creates soft, contrasting spaces and elements.

5. 5
3.4 PUBLIC UTILITY SERVICES
-WATER SUPPLY - TELEPHONE
-DRINAGE, ELECTRICITY - ELECTRIC CITY
This sector includes numerous social municipal services that are established at
different levels in different places of urban areas to provide residents and non-
residents with the necessary services.
3.5 PUBLIC AMENITIES
*EDUCATION *HEALTH * POST OFFICE
*FIRE BRIGADE * REFUSE DEPOSITS *POLICE STATION
Public amenities are services provided to the public such as ,education, health
playgrounds, public toilets ,community centers ,post office ,fire brigade and soon.

6. 6
4) Principles of urban planning
Principles are general assumptions, fundamental rules, paradigms that guide the
spirit of planning policies, proposals, standards and implementation measures.
Principles should be based on community values, generally accepted good
planning practices, technological level of a community, and planning objectives.
Urban planning Principles serve for the preparation of plans. Principles should
take contextual situations; but there are some basic ones that emanate from higher
policy frameworks such as the Constitution, general development plans, federal
urban development policy, etc.
The following the main principles of urban planning;
Green Belts
Housing
Transportation
Public Buildings
Zoning
Recreations
Roads System
4.1 GREEN BELTS:
Green belt is non-development zone on the periphery of the town. It prevents the
haphazard sprawl of the town restricting its size. In essence, a green belt is an
invisible line designating a border around a certain area, preventing development
of the area and allowing wildlife to return and be established. Greenways and green
wedges have a linear character and may run across the town and not around the town.

7. 7
4.2 HOUSING
a lot of care should be taken while providing housing accommodation to different
categories of people. It should be made sure that there is no developments of slums
and in future if occur it must be discouraged and removed by the authorities.
When a land use plan is made, zones for independent housing, midrise buildings,
high rise buildings are allocated.
4.3 TRANSPORTATION:
The town must be provided with suitable facilities at easy access so that there is
least time consumed from work place to residency. The essential format of
transportation planning process is based upon two fundamental assumptions.
Firstly, the various land use activities that are pursued at both origin and
destinations.
Secondly, that a relationship inevitably emerges from these movement demands
which not only be readily quantified but also remains constant in future.

8. 8
4.4 RECREATION:
As per size of town enough space must be given for the recreation centers for
general public.
Following are the factor which determines its demands:
Population growth, changing work pattern, Income, Education, Car ownership
these are the things which are necessary at the time of plotting the recreation in any
area. Keeping these aspects in mind a planner can easily provide such recreation
which is up-to date and also for the necessities of future.
4.5 ZONNING:
The town should be divided into suitable zones such as commercial zone,
industrial zone, residential zone, etc. and suitable rules and regulations should
be formed for the development of each zone.

9. 9
4.6 PUBLIC BUILDINGS:
It includes everything a community needs to support its residents, capital buildings,
libraries, museums, parks, parking structures, conference centers, courthouses, fire
station and police station, other administrative spaces and offices.
Planner is concerned with thousands of such projects worth in billions. These
projects or buildings are design by planner keeping in mind the assessments from
public, construction services, professional excellence thus he achieve his goal by
these skills and meet the requirements of public. Planner keep in mind that the
buildings should be sophisticated following success and community’s identity.
4.7 Road systems
Road network hierarchy is very important. The efficiency of any town is measured
by the layout of its roads. A nicely designed road system puts a great impression in
the minds of people, especially the visitors to the town. The provision of a faulty
road system in the initial stages of town formation proves to be too difficult and
costly to repair or to re-arrange in future.

10. 10
To sum up in principle an urban planning should be;
a. Comprehensive – all significant options and impacts are considered.
b. Efficient – the process should not waste time or money.
c. Inclusive – people affected by the plan have opportunities to be involved.
d. Informative – results are understood by stakeholders (people affected by a
decision).
e. Integrated – individual, short-term decisions should support strategic, long-term goals.
f. Logical – each step leads to the next.
g. Transparent – everybody involved understands how the process operates
5) Concepts of urban planning
Definition of urban planning concept;
The urban planning concept of a city is a system of continuously valid Principles,
phenomena and elements of spatial, functional and operational arrangement in
urban and landscape settings. It is usually based on the potential of the territory,
the role of a city in the system of population and the visions of its prospective size
and character.
The urban planning concept is a system of adopted principles and rules
guaranteeing a balanced development of the settlement structure, settlements and
landscape in the context of population development. To determine urban planning
concepts is one of the tasks of urban planning.
Some of the well-known examples of urban planning concepts are;
@, Garden cities @, City beautiful movement, @,Parks movements,@, Geddisian Traid
@, Neighborhood planning, @, Redburn theory, @, Broad Acre city, @, Satellite Town
@, Ribbon Development, @, Ekistics (Human settlement)
5.1 The Concept of the Garden City
The Garden City Concept developed at the threshold of the twentieth century as a
modernist solution to difficult social problems: overpopulation, devastating
hygienic conditions and in general dehumanizing living for most inhabitants in big
industrial cities.
London-born philanthropist and visionary Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928)
published a theoretical concept of the garden city as two editions of the book To-
Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898) and Garden Cities of To-Morrow
(1902).

11. 11
He proposed urban planning of self-contained settlements that would have the
advantages of both urban and rural lifestyles while reducing and eliminating their
disadvantages. The garden city was a social movement as well. Howard hoped that
a town built according to the Garden City Concept would be “the Third Magnet”
that would attract most of the unhappy inhabitants of congested industrial British
cities, and thus resolve one of the major national problems of the time.
Letchworth, Dwelling Quarters, as in 2007.
Typical Sketch of Garden city

12. 12
5.2 The Concept of City beautiful movement
emerged at a time in U.S. history when the country experienced rapid urbanization.
Most city dwellers perceived that cities were ugly, congested, dirty, and unsafe. As
cities grew, an increasingly rapid condition enhanced by an influx of immigrants at
the end of the 19th century- public space was being usurped leading to increased
congestion.
With the construction of the fair’s temporary city, the so-called White City where
visitors were treated to a harmony of Neoclassical and Baroque architecture from
the collaborative designs of architects from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The
landscape for the Exposition included lagoons and big green expanses and was
designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
Launched at World’s Columbian Exposition
Generally stated, the City Beautiful advocates sought to improve the city through
beautification, which would have a number of effects

13. 13
5.3 The Concept of Parks Movement
grew out of landscape archit. & garden design shifted from private to public
settings, naturalistic parks were created in the U.S. by Frederick Law
Olmstead,whose career started with Central Park, New York, 1857
goals:
 separate transportation modes  collect water
 support active and passive uses  promote moral pass-times
Olmsted’s parks were not natural but they were “naturalistic” or “organic” in form
this form was seen as uplifting urban dwellers and addressing the social and
psychological impacts of crowding environmental determinism
Olmsted’s Park Design Principles
1. SCENERY: design spaces in which movement creates constant opening up of
new views and “obscurity of detail further away”
2. SUITABILITY: respect the natural scenery and topography of the sit
3. STYLE:
 “Pastoral” = open greensward with small bodies of water and scattered trees
and groves create a soothing, restorative atmosphere
 “Picturesque = profuse planting, especially with shrubs, creepers and ground
cover, on steep and broken terrain create a sense of the richness and
bounteousness of nature, produce a sense of mystery with light and shade

14. 14
5.4 The concept of Radburn Superblock
Bandar Botanic in Klang-use this Planning Concept
Characteristics;
a) Encourage pedestrian accessibility - Low traffic volume in the neighborhood
b) Open space linked the residential areas
c) Houses built around cul-de-sac which are connected to open space
d) Houses are segregated for main roads
e) Pedestrian paths and walkways linked the houses to primary school and local center
-Population Size: 25,000 Into 3 neighborhoods of around 8,000 each
- Pedestrian –traffic segregation By means of: - foot paths -under passes -bridges
-residential superblocks around a backbone of parkland.

15. 15
6) REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION TO TOWN PLANNING DEPARTMENT OF CITY & REGIONAL
PLANNING, MEHRAN UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECNOLOGY JAMSHORO
Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia, (1918-1941)
Naděžda Rozmanová, “December 2016, Principles and Rules of Urban Planning Composition
in Examples.”
Town & Country PlanningLesson 2
CITIES Origin, Concepts of City Growth, and Spatial Theories
Bhushan Sharad Nimbalkar ,“Town Planning City Beautiful Moment Of America.”
Town Planning origin theory
A Short History of Urban Planning
P.S.Janani,”City beautiful movement.”