Urbanism is a term that originates from the more general word urban which is used to describe an area that is characterized by high population settlements and numerous manmade features such as buildings that are closely packed together. Urban area is therefore a term that is used to describe towns and cities that have sizable population settlements and building structures that are close together regardless of their sizes, indeed there is no single definition of an urban area (Salama 4). Urbanization is also a closely related term that is used to describe the process of rapid growth of urban centers due to heightened rural-urban migration of peoples as a result of globalization (Salama 5). In this paper our focus would be on urbanism as used in architectural context, the features of an urban centre and discussion of urban cities in general.
More specifically urbanism is used to mean the architectural development of an urban town as well as its unique architectural characteristics that incorporates building designs, landscaping, scenery and all other architectural features of an urban centre (Salama 12). In general urbanism is a very wide concept that is used to describe an urban centre architectural system in its totality beyond the mere building structures and includes a city’s infrastructure system, economy, geography, social-cultural norms and politics. The ideology behind urbanism in the broad sense involves description of three important functions of any city which includes diversity, environmental protection and preservation of culture (Salama 14).
Ideally urban planning according to urbanism involves use of zoning system to segregate the three key areas of an urban centre; commercial, industrial and residential areas (Love 7).
Currently new trends in urbanism include two recently developed concepts; New urbanism and landscaping urbanism. New urbanism is a concept that has been advanced in early 1970s to replace the shortcomings of urbanism that has led to highly concentrated commercial centers and automobile dependence due to segregation of residential areas (Love 9). New urbanism in its most simplistic definition refers to satellite urban centers that are self sustainable since they have all the elements of an urban centre within half a mile. Landscaping urbanism on the other hand is still an emerging concept that is being advanced by some of the leading architectural institutions in North America due to it environmental sustainability and green infrastructure systems (Love 10).
The term urban area and its definition is synonymous with urban city which tends to vary in every country, however urban area is more of a general term that is also used to describe towns that have high populations densities but which are not expressly regarded as cities. Perhaps, the unique characteristics of an urban city that differentiate it from a town are the permanent building settlements that usually have legal, administrative or historical status of the particular country (Love 14). Similar to urbanism, the definition of a city also varies with countries; in Europe for instance a city was defined as a town with a cathedral regardless of the population density of the town, in most other countries a town must be gazetted before it is made a city (Glaeser 143). In Brazil for example, a city is any town that functions as the headquarter of a municipality regardless of it population size, while some cities are referred as global cities due to their crucial roles in banking or trade industry such as New York (Glaeser 150).
As discussed earlier a city must have three important elements besides having a historical and administrative relevance; commercial centre, residential settlement and industrial area. Other features of a city include high population density, permanent build structures, advanced social amenities, sanitation facilities and complex infrastructure system (Salama 66).
The emergence of urbanism concept has now enabled researchers and scholars to undertake urban studies of cities from various perspectives most notably; internalist perspective, externalist perspective and interstitial perspectives (Salama 67).
Internalist perspective study focus is on city social order which can be enhanced by urbanists through architectural designs in such a way that promotes and consolidates social and cultural coexistence. Externalist perspective study can also promote and facilitate cities ability to function economically by determining their strategic locations.
Urbanism has therefore become a widely applied tool of managing environmental issues that have now become a more pressing concern and which have led to green housing and emergence of green cities. As such urbanism is helping us meet challenging difficulties at present while at the same time enabling us to conceptualize innovative ideas to tackle future challenges.
Works Cited
Glaeser, E. “Are Cities Dying?”. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 2.2 (1998): 139– 160. Web.
Love, T. Paper Architecture, Emerging Urbanism, 2010. Web.
Salama, A. Architecture-Urbanism, 2010. Web.
“Multiple Voices in Architectural and Urbanism.” International Journal of Architectural Research 2.2 (2008): 62-79. Web.