Historic tenets of urban planning Essay

The Third World Cities have seen extra- ordinary growth in their urban expansion since 1950. The world 10 most populous cities are located in the third world countries. The urbanization has changed the way of life for the people living there. On one side these megacities have become economic giant for their countries, on other they have also created problems such as disease, congested traffic, pollution and sacristy of resources with a huge gap among haves and have not. As these cities are unplanned and this urbanization is a sudden experience, it is natural for the Third world countries to be surrounded by these surmounting troubles, unless they choose the way out. Historic tenets of urban planning The evidence of urban planning can be found the ancient cultures such as Roman and Greek cities and in ancient cities in India and Egypt as well. The Indus civilization in Pakistan is recognized as the first civilization to have a completely developed urban planning. In 2600 BC, before the arrival of Harapa and Mojodharo, the small towns grew into bigger towns and eventually became cities with thousands of people living in. These people did not have agricultural society as their cities depicts, showing a homogenous culture, however diapered suddenly from the course of history with their cities still intact. These cities are well planned and follow a consistent design, which clearly shows that they were built according to a conscious plan, and is considered the first developed urban plan. Similarly the Romans used to built their cities according to a proper city plan, with military and civil defense and many European cities still appear to follow that pattern. In their plan, the city has a central plaza or market, which is surrounded by streets and walls with short cuts to cut the time short for pedestrians and often the city, has river or stream in the center to provide water and carry sewage out of the city (Crouch, 2003) During the last two hundred years the Western world urban planning has gone through extensive changes in its planning and design. In the industrial age, the control of the city was held by the wealthy few, while the rest of the population lived in slums and sewage. In the 20th century a movement started to change this urban structure and to provide healthy environment to its people. Thus arose the concept of garden city, which were small in size but were basically model towns with few thousand people. In the early 1920s the concept of modern city emerges, such as Paris but they were destroyed during World Wars (Gaffikin, 1999). It was only after WWII that the new cities started to take shape place, however it was not until 1970s, that cheap block construction created an easy and efficient way of creating new buildings. The main objective of the concept of modern planning is to regulate the building activities and set the limits on building and neighborhoods. According to Hopkins (2001) the postmodern planning is composed of the following essential elements: Aesthetics Planning In postmodern urban plans, the most essential element is taking aesthetics more seriously, which meant to add beauty to homes and building. The important aspect of a city planning is zoning, maximizing and managing the use of land and pace of urban development. Safety The houses in modern urban plans are designed to incorporate well with existing municipal services. The cities extreme zones are planned in a way that such dangers can be defused and houses in such areas are equipped with emergency operation and secure evacuation centers. Transport Planning A good urban plan has well developed transport system which cater to the needs of it commuters. Good transport system avoids traffic congestions and effectively carries commuters into different parts of the city without hassle. And automobiles in a city are well suited it meets its requirement, such as spacious roads and parking lanes, which can handle traffic in rush hours. Effective Sub-urban Planning A successful urban plan brings benefit to larger city area by making the towns and urban environment spacious. Planning and the environment In advanced urban or village planning models, taking care of ecology is inevitable. The modern urban planning includes pastures and gardens to keep natural environment consistent with the city.