Introduction
Urban planning is a discipline that explores aspects of the built and environment of communities and municipalities. It is also a discipline that deals with development on small scale i.e. landscape architecture and urban design. Urban planning is concerned with the designing and ranking of settlements from the world’s smallest to the largest cities.
History and chronology
Urban planning and redevelopment have existed for not more than a century. However, cities and settlements have displayed degrees of forethought and design in their functioning layout. With the growth of agriculture, nomadic existence was replaced. This resulted in the emergence of human settlements. Larger settlements began to appear and became centers for defense, trade, politics, and distributing agricultural produce.
The Harrapan civilizations, the Mesopotamia, Ur, and cities of the Indus valley in India are among the earliest cities where planning and management of cities begun. They portrayed some form of planning because they were often paved and laid out in a grid pattern. There was also a hierarchy of streets with small residential alleyways and commercial boulevards. The ancient cities from archaeological evidence had houses that were laid out to protect them from odors, noise, and thieves.
They also had their own drainage, wells, large granaries, and sanitation. In 407 BC Alexandria city was laid out by Hippodamus. It was the best example of an ideal form of urban planning in early times which has been used or improved on to this day. (Garvin, 2002)
Ancient Romans used urban planning schemes for civil convenience and military defense. The basic feature was a central plaza with all services centralized and it was surrounded by a rectilinear grid of streets that were built for defense purposes. The city was built near a river, to carry away sewage and provide water and transport for the residents. Two diagonal streets crossed the square grid from one corner to the other in order to reduce travel times. Roads were made of stones that were carefully fitted together. An ideal city emerged in Florence. In this city, a star-shaped plan was adopted. Radial streets extended outwards from a center of military, spiritual or communal powers, for example, the Vigevano city (1493-1495)
In the 20th century a movement begun for providing people especially factory workers with a healthier working environment. The garden cities concept and models were adopted, the first being in the UK where Welwyn and Letchworth garden cities were built. However, in the post-modern era planning has eliminated disorders and concentrated on diversity in the economy as well as society.
Key issues
Sustainable urban development
Sustainable urban development is defined as the development that improves the short and long-term ecological health and social health of cities.
Associated issues with sustainable urban development
Some of the associated issues are efficient land use directed to prevent any land wastage, less automobile use in the urban but with better access, efficient use of resources, less waste and pollution, good housing and conducive environment for living, a healthy ecology, community participation and involvement, sustainable economics and preservation of the local culture. The problem of urban planning and redevelopment poses a challenge to the planners especially the implementation of sustainability visions, programmer, and policies, and the need to modify institutions of planning to achieve these goals. (Garvin, 2002)
Aspects of planning
These are simply the things that must be kept in mind when planning is being done. Aesthetics
Successful urban planning is supposed to consider the character of local identity, respect for natural, historic and artistic heritage, an understanding of “townscape” or “urban grain” pedestrians, and other modes of traffic natural regards and utilities such as flood zones in the city. Planners apply tools like zoning to manage and use growth management in order to manage the pace at which development takes place. Many beautiful cities today are a result of dense, long-term systems of prohibitions and guidance about building uses, sizes, and features smart growth is a contemporary term being used in more repackaged conventional planning techniques. (Garvin, 2002)
Safety
This is another issue that arises under the aspects of planning. History holds that most cities were located on higher grounds for defense purposes and also near freshwater sources as escape routes. Security is one issue that is sought after by every individual and therefore urban planners spend most of their time ensuring that safety is incorporated in their planning techniques. In modern times cities have grown in coastal as well as flood areas making them more prone to storm and flood surges.
These emergencies are mitigated with secure emergency evacuation routes and emergency operations points. Urban planning has gone the extra mile into designing out crime and considering “traffic calming” and pedestrianization as better ways of making life in urban areas more pleasant. Criminality has been controlled through structures designed from different theories such as environmental determinism and social- architecture. (Garvin, 2002)
The theories assert that an urban environment can affect an individual’s level of obedience to social rules. Psychological pressure is said to develop in densely developed and unpardoned areas. The stress brings about crime and the use of illegal drugs. The remedy is more space for individuals and a better and more beautiful designed living environment.
The “eyes on the street” concept maintain that improving surveillance of land (which is shared and facilities of nearby residents), through increasing the number of persons who can see it will help residents easily detect undesirable behavior, hence helping curb criminal activities and make urban centers safer. The “broken windows theory” states that some small things which act as indicators of neglect can also promote crime, for example, broken windows and unkempt lawns. This is taken to mean a state of decay and people likewise fail to maintain their properties. The theory suggests that it is abandonment that causes crime and not vice-versa.
Slums
This is another issue associated with aspects of planning, a significant need for planning strategies and resources is required to address slum development.
Urban decay
This is a process where a city or part of it falls into a state where it can not be repaired, it is characterized by property abandonment, depopulation, fragmented families, crime, high unemployment, political disenfranchisement, and an unfriendly and desolate urban landscape. Urban decay is caused by poor urban planning decisions, suburbanization, development of freeways, redlining, racial discrimination, and immigration restrictions. (Hoch, 2000)
Transport
A good transportation network brings about development but any development beyond a certain density quickly overcrowds transportation. For many years transportation in urban areas has been a major problem characterized by long hours that are spent on roads due to traffic jams. Good planning policies positions higher densities of residents and jobs near places with high-volume transport network, for example, commerce and multi-story apartments are permitted in one block of train stations. Single-family homes and parks are placed further away. A common method used to measure densities is the floor area ratio. The floor area of buildings is computed and divided by the area of the land. Most city centers have a density of five and above while sky scrappers easily hold a density of more than thirty.
The impact of poor and good urban planning is always felt by all the people inside and outside the urban environment. Those inside are however the most affected because they spend more hours in the urban environment, effects of bad drainage systems on urban dwellers may be a bad odor, diseases, and traffic jams which cause a lot of time wastage. If the urban centers are well planned, the above-mentioned problems cease to exist and dwellers enjoy a more pleasant life. Those outside the urban cities are affected because most industries are located in these centers. A good or bad transport network in these centers determines the duration the manufactured goods and services take to reach them.
The urban planning problems in the past were addressed through limiting traveling which was aimed at reducing crowds in the cities, use of levees, and retaining walls that were used as shelter from floods. These measures bore fruits because there were reduced jams on the urban roads and lives were saved from the effect of floods and other emergencies. (Camillo, 1999)
Alternative solutions to urban problems do exist, urban planners must consider the threat brought about by floods by localizing the affected regions and convert them into greenbelts. This would add the benefit of open space. Urban areas in extreme weather or other emergencies can be surrounded by emergency evacuation routes and emergency operations centers.
Creative solutions like Nairobi’s “camp of fire” program should be adopted to reduce the problem of the slum in urban places. Slum-dwellers construct proper houses, community centers, and schools without the support of the government in return for the land they have illegally occupied for 30 years. This program has also been initiated in Asia and South America in order to deal with the slum problem.
Racial discrimination should also Hoch, C.(2000), be avoided. Races considered inferior are segregated and they retreat back into their own ways of life thus culminating in the growth of slums.
Areas that are densely built should have a high capacity of urban transit to make transportation easier. Single-family dwellings should be located further away from cities and average roads provided to them while multi-story apartments should be located near a high-volume transport network.
Commercial areas and industrial regions should also have high-capacity transit routes.
House numbering, streets labeling, and naming are also other major solutions to urban planning problems which minimize the time taken by pedestrians, motorists in the streets trying to locate places they have never been before the results being the increased movement of traffic and reduced jams along the roads. (Camillo, 1999)
Theories proved to have worked should also be adopted in urban planning and redevelopment, for example, “the roadway air dispersion model” that helps to predict the impact of air on urban highways should be employed. “Roadways noise model” should be used to predict the effects of noise pollution on urban highways. Environmental site assessment is also another important tool that can be used by urban planners in the early stages to identify toxic constraints in any parcels or geographical areas.
The cost to be incurred in implementing the above viable solutions is high with huge amounts from the government budget directed towards urban planning. In the initial stages implementing these solutions may call for patience from the public because of the delayed duration of time in reaching their destinations.
Conversely, the benefits are numerous, for example, de-congestion of cities, reduced crimes, comfortable and pleasant lives without much stress.
My recommendation is that the planning process should integrate public opinion through social workers and community organizers so as to ensure that planning is done in a manner acceptable to all. The public administration will therefore have an easy time due to public involvement in the planning process and therefore any failure cannot be directed to the administration.
References
Camillo, S. (1999), City planning according to artistic principle, New York, Prentice Hall, pg. 121-158.
Ebenezer, H. (1998), Tomorrow, a peaceful path to real reforms. London; penguin, pg. 55 -78.
Garvin, A. (2002), The American city, New York: McGraw-Hill, pg. 78- 145.
Hoch, C. (2000), The practice of local government planning, New York: McGraw-Hill, pg. 23 – 58.
Wheeler, S, (1998), Planning sustainable and livable cities, London: Cambridge University Press, pg. 134 – 215.