Urban Land Use And Town Planning Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Town planning, or urban land use, is concerned with the design and development of human settlements. It is a human activity with origins tracing back to antiquity, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and on up to the Renaissance and the bTown planning, or urban land use, is concerned with the design and development of human settlements. It is a human activity with origins tracing back to antiquity, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and on up to the Renaissance and the baroque period in Europe. During these periods, major human settlements in these places were planned according to specific principles, using building standards that took into consideration wind direction, sun exposure, soil type, availability and quality of water, and other factors that affect life in urban areas.
Origins Of Contemporary Town Planning
The principles and practices of contemporary town planning or urban land use planning, however, began as a reaction to the effects of industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century in Europe and North America. As a profession and as a discipline, it has existed for little more than a century, first in Europe where a university degree in civic design was introduced at the University of Liverpool in 1908, and was sponsored by William Lever, the creator of Port Sunlight, and later in North America, with visionaries such as Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and all those associated with what later became known as the city beautiful movement.
Principles and social experiments carried out in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century were important for the constitution of this new discipline. Among these were the social utopian ideas and experiments, such as those proposed by Robert Owen in New Lanark at the end of the eighteenth century and New Harmony in the early nineteenth century; Charles Fourier at Falansterium in 1832 and the subsequent initiatives in the United States, such as the suburbs Llewellyn Park and Riverside; Jean-Baptiste Godin at Familistère de Guise in 1859; Étienne Cabet at Icarie in 1840, among many others. At the end of the nineteenth century, geographer and anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s ideas—including decentralized organization of production and social life, and the combination of industry and agriculture—influenced, among others, Ebenezer Howard. Howard later adopted the special model in his proposal of the garden city; this became the first urban model to be adopted worldwide in the rising profession of town planning during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
The first constitutive decades of town planning, as a profession and as a discipline, were the cities planned and built in the second half of the nineteenth century by philanthropist industrialists. This included Jean Menier (Noisiel-sur-Marne) in France, and Titus Salt (Saltaire), George Cadbury (Bourneville), and William Lever (Port Sunlight) in the United Kingdom. The works of authors such as Camillo Sitte were also influential in these early years.
Several urban models emerged during the first century of contemporary town planning. The Beaux-Arts movement— associated with the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris and teaching based on the imitation of order, dignity, and harmony—argued that urban renewal together with other policies would make it possible to control the problems associated with urban population growth: beauty would influence social behavior. The Beaux-Arts movement was the main inspiration for town planning at the end of nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century. Its importance also to its influence on architects and landscape architects on the other side of the Atlantic (e.g., Daniel H. Burnham, Charles Robinson, Harlan Kelsey, John Nolen, and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.) and on the planning movement known as city beautiful. Howard’s garden city—first applied by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker in Letchworth in 1903, and by Louis de Soissons in Welwyn in 1920—was the next influential planning model after the Beaux-Arts movement and was the one that had, for the first time, a real worldwide influence and expression.
The Ciam Movement And Responses
Nonetheless, beauty was about to be substituted by efficiency as the key driver in the town planning profession. A group of architects, including Le Corbusier, met in 1928 in Sarraz, Switzerland, marking the start of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, or CAIM movement, which envisioned that the city should be efficient as a machine. The principles for CAIM were laid down in the Charter of Athens, adopted in the fourth CIAM session, in 1933. The charter of principles became subsequently the reference for town planning in the twentieth century. Differences inside CIAM, which was never a monolithic bloc, between the old generation and the younger members, eventually led to its end in 1959. Criticism also emerged from outside the movement, from Jane Jacobs in her book The Rise and Death of American Cities, among other critics.
These reactions to the CIAM discourse on urbanism led to the development of alternative approaches. The new urbanism movement, in particular, emerged as a paradigm of urban planning that reveals more sensitivity to the environment, green corridors, and urban biodiversity. New urbanism gives priority to pedestrians and places greater importance on mixed-use neighborhoods, the quality of public spaces, and public participation in the planning process. Cultural activities, seen now as the driver of the urban economy, are also emphasized.
Conclusion
The history of contemporary urban land use planning contains a narrative of continuities as well as ruptures in the idea of what constitutes the good community and how to achieve it. Contemporary town planning started with proposals that were essentially a reaction against the nineteenth-century city. These proposals, claiming to move people to new planned areas with strong connections to the rural environment, were a vision later substituted by modernism. New approaches in turn replaced modernism, aiming to avoid or to mitigate urban sprawl and environmental degradation of natural areas.
Bibliography:
1. Cullingworth, J. Barry. The Political Culture of Planning: American Land Use Planning in Comparative Perspective. New York: Routledge, 1993.
2. Cullingworth, J. Barry, and Vincent Nadin. Town and Country Planning in Britain. London: Routledge, 1994.
3. Fishman, Robert. Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997.
4. Grant, Jill. Planning the Good Community: New Urbanism in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 2006.
5. Greed, Clara. Introducing Town Planning. London: Longman, 1996.
6. Hall, Peter. Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
7. Hall, Peter, and Colin Ward. Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard. London: Wiley, 1998.
8. Hayden, Dolores. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
9. Mumford, Eric. The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
10. Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects. London: Secker and Warburg, 1961.
11. ————————-História das Utopias Urbanas. Lisbon, Por.: Antígona, 2007.
12. Newman, Peter, and Andy Thornley, 2005. Planning World Cities: Globalization and Urban Politics. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan.
13. ———————–Urban Planning in Europe. London: Routledge, 1996.
14. Peterson, Jon A. The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840–1917. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
15. Silva, Carlos Nunes. “A Carta do Novo Urbanismo e a Nova Carta de Atenas: A Utopia Urbana do Século XXI?” Cadernos Municipais 26, no. 79 (2002): 35–47.
16. ——————————–Política Urbana em Lisboa: 1926–1974. Lisbon, Por.: Livros Horizonte, 1994.
17. Talen, Emily. New Urbanism and American Planning:The Conflict of Cultures. London: Routledge, 2005.aroque period in Europe. During these periods, major human settlements in these places were planned according to specific principles, using building standards that took into consideration wind direction, sun exposure, soil type, availability and quality of water, and other factors that affect life in urban areas.

Origins Of Contemporary Town Planning

The principles and practices of contemporary town planning or urban land use planning, however, began as a reaction to the effects of industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century in Europe and North America. As a profession and as a discipline, it has existed for little more than a century, first in Europe where a university degree in civic design was introduced at the University of Liverpool in 1908, and was sponsored by William Lever, the creator of Port Sunlight, and later in North America, with visionaries such as Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and all those associated with what later became known as the city beautiful movement.

Principles and social experiments carried out in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century were important for the constitution of this new discipline. Among these were the social utopian ideas and experiments, such as those proposed by Robert Owen in New Lanark at the end of the eighteenth century and New Harmony in the early nineteenth century; Charles Fourier at Falansterium in 1832 and the subsequent initiatives in the United States, such as the suburbs Llewellyn Park and Riverside; Jean-Baptiste Godin at Familistère de Guise in 1859; Étienne Cabet at Icarie in 1840, among many others. At the end of the nineteenth century, geographer and anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s ideas—including decentralized organization of production and social life, and the combination of industry and agriculture—influenced, among others, Ebenezer Howard. Howard later adopted the special model in his proposal of the garden city; this became the first urban model to be adopted worldwide in the rising profession of town planning during the first three decades of the twentieth century.

The first constitutive decades of town planning, as a profession and as a discipline, were the cities planned and built in the second half of the nineteenth century by philanthropist industrialists. This included Jean Menier (Noisiel-sur-Marne) in France, and Titus Salt (Saltaire), George Cadbury (Bourneville), and William Lever (Port Sunlight) in the United Kingdom. The works of authors such as Camillo Sitte were also influential in these early years.

Several urban models emerged during the first century of contemporary town planning. The Beaux-Arts movement— associated with the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris and teaching based on the imitation of order, dignity, and harmony—argued that urban renewal together with other policies would make it possible to control the problems associated with urban population growth: beauty would influence social behavior. The Beaux-Arts movement was the main inspiration for town planning at the end of nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century. Its importance also to its influence on architects and landscape architects on the other side of the Atlantic (e.g., Daniel H. Burnham, Charles Robinson, Harlan Kelsey, John Nolen, and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.) and on the planning movement known as city beautiful. Howard’s garden city—first applied by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker in Letchworth in 1903, and by Louis de Soissons in Welwyn in 1920—was the next influential planning model after the Beaux-Arts movement and was the one that had, for the first time, a real worldwide influence and expression.

The Ciam Movement And Responses

Nonetheless, beauty was about to be substituted by efficiency as the key driver in the town planning profession. A group of architects, including Le Corbusier, met in 1928 in Sarraz, Switzerland, marking the start of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, or CAIM movement, which envisioned that the city should be efficient as a machine. The principles for CAIM were laid down in the Charter of Athens, adopted in the fourth CIAM session, in 1933. The charter of principles became subsequently the reference for town planning in the twentieth century. Differences inside CIAM, which was never a monolithic bloc, between the old generation and the younger members, eventually led to its end in 1959. Criticism also emerged from outside the movement, from Jane Jacobs in her book The Rise and Death of American Cities, among other critics.

These reactions to the CIAM discourse on urbanism led to the development of alternative approaches. The new urbanism movement, in particular, emerged as a paradigm of urban planning that reveals more sensitivity to the environment, green corridors, and urban biodiversity. New urbanism gives priority to pedestrians and places greater importance on mixed-use neighborhoods, the quality of public spaces, and public participation in the planning process. Cultural activities, seen now as the driver of the urban economy, are also emphasized.

Conclusion

The history of contemporary urban land use planning contains a narrative of continuities as well as ruptures in the idea of what constitutes the good community and how to achieve it. Contemporary town planning started with proposals that were essentially a reaction against the nineteenth-century city. These proposals, claiming to move people to new planned areas with strong connections to the rural environment, were a vision later substituted by modernism. New approaches in turn replaced modernism, aiming to avoid or to mitigate urban sprawl and environmental degradation of natural areas.

Bibliography:

Cullingworth, J. Barry. The Political Culture of Planning: American Land Use Planning in Comparative Perspective. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Cullingworth, J. Barry, and Vincent Nadin. Town and Country Planning in Britain. London: Routledge, 1994.
Fishman, Robert. Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997.
Grant, Jill. Planning the Good Community: New Urbanism in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 2006.
Greed, Clara. Introducing Town Planning. London: Longman, 1996.
Hall, Peter. Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
Hall, Peter, and Colin Ward. Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard. London: Wiley, 1998.
Hayden, Dolores. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
Mumford, Eric. The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects. London: Secker and Warburg, 1961.
————————-História das Utopias Urbanas. Lisbon, Por.: Antígona, 2007.
Newman, Peter, and Andy Thornley, 2005. Planning World Cities: Globalization and Urban Politics. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan.
———————–Urban Planning in Europe. London: Routledge, 1996.
Peterson, Jon A. The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840–1917. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Silva, Carlos Nunes. “A Carta do Novo Urbanismo e a Nova Carta de Atenas: A Utopia Urbana do Século XXI?” Cadernos Municipais 26, no. 79 (2002): 35–47.
——————————–Política Urbana em Lisboa: 1926–1974. Lisbon, Por.: Livros Horizonte, 1994.
Talen, Emily. New Urbanism and American Planning:The Conflict of Cultures. London: Routledge, 2005.

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