PLANNING THEORY

CITY FORM IN THE CONTEXT OF DEVELOPED AND developing COUNTRIES

Compiled by:
Jyoti
Ayush Chaudhary
Ayush Garg
Shweta Khatriker
Vijay Meena
Structure
 Introduction
 city
 city forms
 Types of city forms
 The Radio centric city
 The gridiron city
 The linear city
 City growth
 Ecological models of urban land use model
 Concentric Model
 Sector Model
 Multi nuclei Model
 Introduction-cities

 A city is a group of people and a number of permanent structures within a

limited geographical area, so organized as to facilitate the interchange of
goods and services among its residents and with the outside world.
 The settlements grew into villages, villages transformed into cities.
 Cities created when large number of people live together, in a specific
geographic location leading to the Creation of urban areas.
 Cities exist for many reasons, and the diversity of urban forms depends on the
complex functions that cities perform.
 What is Urban Form…?

 Urban Form refers to the-

• physical layout and design of the city
• spatial imprint of an urban transport system
• adjacent physical infrastructures.
Jointly, they confer a level of spatial arrangement to cities.

 Urban form or city form defined as-

‘ the spatial pattern of human activities at a certain point in time’.
 Factors Influencing city form

geography

Impact of
Period of
natural
development
environment

Social , political
Trade
and economic
practiced
forces
 The Radiocentric city
 Geographical possibilities of spreading in all directions.
 Radio centric - Radiate outward from a common centre.
 Inner Outer ring roads linked by radiating roads.
 Core has business area.
 Industrial area interspersed within the residential.
 Periphery has green belts.
 Example : Washington DC, Pre-industrial Baghdad in Iraq.

Advantages- Disadvantages-

• A direct line of travel for centrally • Central congestion ,

directed flows, • local flow problems ,
• economics of a single- centralised • difficult building sites
terminal or origin point.
CASE STUDY-RADIOCENTRIC
CITY
MOSCOW
The Radial city: Moscow

 Moscow, the world biggest

Megapolis (Russian Moskva) is the
capital of Russia.

 The city grew in a pattern of rings

and radials that marked Moscow's
growth from ancient time to modern
layout.

 The center of all rings is Moscow

Kremlin and famous Red Square.

Moscow, 1893
• Successive epochs of development
are traced by the
• The Boulevard Ring and
• The Garden Ring,
• The Moscow Little Ring Railway,
• And the Moscow Ring Road.

Moscow, At Present
 The Grid Iron city
 It is composed of straight streets crossing at right angles to create many regular city
blocks.
 This form is typical of cities built after the industrial revolution – because only then
did cities place such importance on economic activity.
 A city grid iron plan facilitates the movement of people and product throughout the
city.

Advantages
• High accessibility,
• minimum disruption of flow,
• expansion flexibility,
• excellent psychological orientation,
adaptability to level or moderately
rolling terrain.
Disadvantages
• Requires flow hierarchies,
• limited in its adaptability to the
terrain,
• potentially monotonous
 CASE STUDY
GRID IRON PATTERN
CHANDIGARH
 The primary module of city’s design is a Sector, a
neighbourhood unit of size 800 m X1200 m.
 It is a self-sufficient unit having shops, school,
health centres and places of recreations .
 The population of a sector varies between 3000-
20000 depending upon sizes of plots and
topography of the area.
 The shopping street of each sector is linked to the
adjoining sectors thus forming one long,
continuous ribbon .
 The central green of each Sector also stretches to
the green of the next sector
 The Grid Iron city: San Francisco
San Francisco was designed to accommodate
outrageous number of people that came to the city
during the Gold Rush.

It was laid out in a grid pattern imposed on a city of

hills built on the end of a peninsula.

Both grids and irregular forms can be seen in San

Francisco.

 Downtown San Francisco is extremely dense. The

planning commission split downtown into four
separate zones with different purposes.
 Office District
 Retail District
 General Commercial District
 Support District
 The Linear city
 Initially proposed by Soria Y Mata.
 Expand the city along the spine of transport
 The Linear City concept is a Conscious Form Of Urban Development with
Housing And Industry Growing Along The Highway Between existing cities
and contained by the continuous open space of the rural countryside.

Advantages Disadvantages

• High accessibility • Very sensitive to blockage

• adaptability to linear growth
• useful along the limited edge.
requires control of growth
• lacks focus,
• The choice of connection or of
direction of movement are much
less.
Navi Mumbai
Alternative to Mumbai

http://www.cidco.maharashtra.gov.in/img/Navi_Mumbai/Development_Plan_Ma
 The Linear City: Navi Mumbai

 The growth of Mumbai city is constrained by sea at

south, east and west. As a result total land area available
for development of Mumbai is limited.
 The cost of real estate and housing in Navi Mumbai is
much less than costs in Mumbai and sub-urban areas.
 Many government and corporate offices have been
shifted from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai .
 the Taloja and Thane Belapur Industrial Belt of Navi
Mumbai offer job opportunities of every conceivable kind
- from engineers to mechanics to clerks to peons. As a
result a large population of service class and middle class
population shifted to Navi Mumbai.

http://www.nmmconline.com/web/guest/history1
 City growth
 According to urbanist Hans Blumenfeld, cities can grow in any of three ways:
Outward (expanding horizontally)
Upward (expanding vertically)
Toward greater density (expanding interstitially)
 As long as intra city traffic moved only by foot or hoof, possibilities of horizontal and
vertical expansion were strictly limited.
 Growth was mainly interstitial, filling up every square yard of vacant land left between
buildings.
 With the advent of the elevator and the steel frame, the vertical growth of skyscrapers
began.
 Suburbs spread out horizontally along streetcar and bus lines and around suburban
railroad stations, surrounded by wide-open spaces.
Ecological urban land-use
. Model
 Concentric zone model
Developed in 1925 by Ernest w. Burgess.
 Cities grow radially outward away from a single centre.
 Different land uses are distributed like concentric rings around the city centre.
 They are: CBD, zone in transition, low-class residential zone, middle-class residential zone,
high-class residential zone.

 Criticisms about concentric zone theory

• Physical features - land may restrict growth of certain sectors
• Commuter villages defy the theory, being in the commuter zone but located far from the
city
• Decentralization of shops, manufacturing industry, and entertainment
• It assumes an isotropic plain - an even, unchanging landscape
Concentric zone model
 Sector Model
 Developed in 1939 by Homer Hoyt ,states that a city develops in sectors, not rings
 All land uses except the CBD form sectors around the city centre.
 The land use zones are influenced by radial transport routes.
 High-rental and low-rental areas repel one another.

 Criticisms about sector model

 Applies well to Chicago.
 Low cost housing is near industry and transportation proving Hoyt’s model
 Theory based on 20th century and does not take into account cars which make commerce easier
 With cars, people can live anywhere and further from the city and still travel to the CBD using
their car. Not only do high-class residents have cars, but also middle and lower class people may
have cars.
Sector Model
Sector Model: Gandhinagar

Gandhinagar is planned to function mainly as

administrative center for the state.
 The sectors are numbered from 1 to 30 and they are
formed by seven roads running in each direction and
cutting each other perpendicularly.
 They are planned on the neighborhood concept in two
phases:
First Phase - The basic amenities were constructed.
Second phase - constructions of capital complex, sports
complex, town halls, research institution, cinemas,
cultural centers, residential bungalows etc.
 Multiple nuclei model
 A model of urban land use in which a city grows from several independent points rather than
from one central business district.
 Apart from the CBD, there are several separated, secondary centres.
 Certain functions require specialised facilities or sites, e.g. a port district needs a suitable
waterfront.
 Similar functions may group together for agglomeration economies.
Criticisms about the Multiple nuclei model
 Negligence of height of buildings.
 Non-existence of abrupt divisions between zones.
 No consideration of influence of physical relief and government policy.
 The concepts may not be totally applicable to oriental cities with different cultural, economic and
political backgrounds.
Multiple nuclei model
 Multi-nuclei Model

Advantages Disadvantages

• Optional locations for focal • Depends on stability to key

activities and system points,
terminals , • potential accessibility
• good psychological problems
orientation • tendency to dilute focal
• adaptability to existing activities
conditions
 Delhi

Radial to multi-nuclei or polycentric city form Delhi

 References

 Cities and Urban Life – By John J. Macionis And Vincent N. Parrillo

 Good City Form – Kelvin Lynch
 www.urbanform.org
 www.cityform.mit.edu
 www.ocw.mit.edu › Courses › Architecture
 www.urbanmodel.com
 www.cs.toronto.edu/~mes/russia/moscow/description.html
 www.sf-planning.org
 jnnurm.nic.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/CDP_Delhi.pdf
 chandigarh.gov.in/knowchd_gen_plan.htm
 www.cidco.maharashtra.gov.in/NM_Developmentplan.aspx