Introduction
The General Plan of the city is an important evidence and driver of the joint work of the government, officials, social services, and the population to improve the city environment. It reflects a number of aspects to enhance such as environment, transportation, water planning, housing, and other crucial parts of the life of the city and its citizens (“The Town of Gilbert’s General Plan” 3). The city of Gilbert is located in Arizona, and it occupies almost 122 sq.km and gives the home to almost 208000 people. The aim of this paper is to assess and analyze the General Plan of the town, in particular, its community design.
Evaluation and Analysis
According to the plan, the citizens have been satisfied with the development of the city in terms of community design. In general, it is considered well planned, functional, and attractive. Moreover, as per residents’ survey, the community design responds to their aesthetic expectations (“Community Design” 1). However, the town setting needs to be considered regarding the commercial growth and the increasing number of residents since they impose higher requirements to the town administration regarding the area planning. That is to say that the current neighborhoods need to be managed in the ways they offer public facilities and areas. Overall, the plan has been developed for the coming 20 years, and it stresses out a variety of issues to work through (“The Town of Gilbert’s General Plan” 1). It reviews such aspects as architecture, sustainability of territories and facilities, the town lightning, and so on (“Community Design” 4). According to the plan, many different policies have been developed and are being gradually introduced. For instance, new policies have been established to promote minimization of commercial impacts or restoring of town facilities.
The existing and perspective challenges for the city of Gilbert, which it is expected to overcome during the next twenty years, are indeed large-scale. In particular, it has been decided to eliminate inefficient street design to make it more complex. The new community design will promote feasible but efficient lighting, convenient and safe pedestrian walks, and attractive landscaping. It is essential to reconsider signage as well as all the commercial interfaces. The plan promotes open areas for the residents in commercial elaborations (“Community Design” 4). Nevertheless, the most important aspect is the town architecture; it is planned to put much thought in this issue of planning despite the fact that the majority of city dwellers think of the city as quite attractive.
Further on, it is planned to integrate the parking lots and make them more presentable and harmonious so that they do not interfere with the general appearance of the city (“Community Design” 4). It should be stressed out that due to the town geography; one of the essential points in the plan should be drainage and storm water management. Based on the previous experience, the retention and detention of basins are, in fact, essential. In general, the aim of the development plan is to preserve the city heritage and eliminate the existing barriers to harmonious community design. Importantly, a crucial aspect that has been introduced by the new plan is vertical development, which has not been applied earlier. It can be stated that all of the mentioned above does promote greater sustainability, though, it requires much time and particular attention to resource allocation.
Details
It is important to note that the design of the community environment requires conscientious work of social and economic structures of the town (“Community Design” 1). They should be aimed at improving the current situation based on the efforts that have already been done. Accordingly, neither the industry nor the production is critical for this aspect of urban planning. In the previous decades, the institutions of the city of Gilbert that were responsible for the development of community design have almost never been associated with project activities in the field of urban planning, which has led to the fact that, at present, the city administration should consider all the planned measures taking into account the established limits. However, it should be emphasized that, at the moment, the community design plan is based on the current and contemporary understanding of the city environment; moreover, it takes into account the existing urban platform.
It is worth noting that the city administration aims to create a design that will be inclusive of all segments of the population and will nonviolently make changes to the existing design. For instance, in order to protect town facilities from vandalism, it was decided to apply the principle of minimizing the flat surfaces. It will allow keeping a harmonious appearance of the area, and it has a practical character as well. Moreover, the architecture of the city is planned so that the works of art organically complement the town setting and at the same time do not serve as sights solely (“Community Design” 4). This approach is an important part of the ideology-free environment.
Furthermore, advertisements will be used so as to protect the town equipment from vandalism reducing the cost of its maintenance. Meanwhile, a variety of mandatory information boards (for example, tables showing the flow of movement mounted in the pavement) will not litter the visual environment. An important aspect is also the green planning (“Community Design” 4). Thus, instead of conventional lawns, it is planned to place oases of trees and flowers to create the most natural and harmonious environment. It was also decided to make more rational use of leisure areas such as recreation spots to make them more complex. In general, the city plan is aimed at comprehensive development of the community ecosystem.
Conclusion
In general, the Plan regarding community design of the city of Gilbert is comprehensive and holistic since it covers all of the essential parts. It takes into consideration the cultural heritage of the town and accounts for the requirements of the residents bringing the simultaneous multifaceted development of the city structures and ecosystems. Importantly, it bears responsibility for maintaining high ethical standards in terms of commercialization and the balance of art (Freestone, 2012, 44). In addition, it should be stressed out that the General Plan covers the essential topics such as architecture, lightning, utility areas, parking lots and so on; consequently, it evidences that the planned measures are essential to promote better functioning of the city and to contribute to the wellbeing of the residents (Freestone, 2012, 57). Apart from that, bearing in mind Gilbert’s geography, it is of high importance to implement the proposed measures regarding water management, irrigation, and drainage. Nonetheless, as discussed above, the timeframe for the General Plan is 20 years, and evidently, the town administration should be knowledgeable about the feasibility of such measures, but despite the fact that many issues need to be improved, the proposed measures seem reasonable, practical, and realistic.
Works Cited
“Community Design.” Gilbertaz. 2016. Web.
Freestone, Robert. Urban Planning in a Changing World. Routledge, 2012.
“The Town of Gilbert’s General Plan.” Gilbertaz, 2016. Web.