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URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Urban, city, and town planning is the integration of the disciplines of land use planning and
transport planning, to explore a very wide range of aspects of the built and social environments of
urbanized municipalities and communities. Regional planning deals with a still larger environment, at a
less detailed level.

Based upon the origins of urban planning from the Roman (pre-dark ages) era, the current
discipline revisits the synergy of the disciplines of urban planning, architecture and landscape
architecture, varying upon from the intercultural strategic positioning from university to university.

Another key role of urban planning is urban renewal and re-generation of inner cities by
adapting urban planning methods to existing cities suffering from long-term infrastructural decay.

What is urban planning?

Planners and urban designers have played key roles in ensuring that Vieux-Montréal remains a vibrant
part of the city without becoming a tourist trap.

Modern urban planning emerged as a profession in the early decades of the 20th century,
largely as a response to the appalling sanitary, social, and economic conditions of rapidly-growing
industrial cities. Initially the disciplines of architecture and civil engineering provided the nucleus of
concerned professionals. They were joined by public health specialists, economists, sociologists, lawyers,
and geographers, as the complexities of managing cities came to be more fully understood.
Contemporary urban and regional planning techniques for survey, analysis, design, and implementation
developed from an interdisciplinary synthesis of these fields.

Today, urban planning can be described as a technical and political process concerned with the
welfare of people, control of the use of land, design of the urban environment including transportation
and communication networks, and protection and enhancement of the natural environment.

Significance of local planning for national development.

We would all like to have good local roads, well functioning public health system, and public utility
services such as children’s parks, pre-schools and libraries, that cater to all sections of the public to
improve our living standard and quality of life.

Local planning and its benefits

As a unit of government, that too, as elected bodies of the democratic system, each Local Authority is to
undertake planning and budgeting for the area under its jurisdiction.

Proper planning and budgeting are the important prerequisites of effective service delivery, socio-
economic development as well as the general well being of the citizenry, as planning sets out the goals
and objectives and the path ahead to reach the milestones within the specified time frame.

In the formation of the local development plans, the Local Authorities are responsible to involve citizens
in the planning process. Following the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on Local Government Reforms
in 1999, it is accepted that a Local Authority is the planning authority at the local level.

Thus it makes all the more important for the Local Authorities to be competent to undertake
participatory planning as an active process, which in the long run will reap many benefits. The catch
phrase here is the word ‘participatory.’ The process of participatory planning involves citizens and all
other stakeholders so that the spirit of working towards common objectives is upheld.

The medium-term participatory planning process generally undertaken for a period of three to five years
follows a sequential process of gathering data, stakeholder analysis, need assessments, setting goals and
objectives, prioritizing, budgeting, building commitment, implementation and monitoring and
evaluation. Each of these steps is extremely vital to the overall result-oriented planning process.

Why plan?

The benefits of the process of planning are many and varied; far reaching as well. Among the many
benefits, the local development planning process brings in new opportunities to clearly understand the
untapped resources within a locality, which are massive in some cases.

Once these untapped resources are identified, the Local Authorities can look at different means of
mobilizing these resources to the maximum. In many cases, the Local Authorities are not able to
undertake projects with their own income and hence need external support.

This support could be from the provincial government, national government, NGOs, international
development agencies and the private sector. In order to harness this support, the Local Authorities
have to become competitive enough to bid for projects which may include capacity building, community
and infrastructure development or any other development priorities identified in the planning process.

Thus, an indirect result of the local planning process is that it encourages the Local Authorities to hone
their ability to develop strong proposals and receive external support for the development of their
localities.

Tapping the untapped resources in many ways would mean increased revenue for the Local Authorities.
There had been successes in the past where localities were able to increase their revenue for the
activities identified through effective resource mobilization. Kalmunai Municipal Council, Urban Councils
of Hikkaduwa, Weligama, Hambantota, and the Pradeshiya Sabhas of Kalpitiya, Karathivu, Sorriyawewa
are a few examples that can be cited.

Joint effort

The culture of working together has the potential of changing the attitudes of people, which is essential
in any progressive initiative. The participatory planning process gives an opportunity to create this
culture, where the Local Authorities and the citizens get to work together, where both sides understand
each others challenges and constraints.
Thus the process is one that of learning and sharing for achieving the goals and objectives to improve
the socio-economic status of the constituency as well as the standards of living of the people.

Service delivery is one area where the Local Authorities come under the most amount of public scrutiny.
When a garbage pile on the roadside or near one’s home fails to get collected and disposed, it becomes
a social problem and the Local Authorities come under criticism. For a moment, let us think what is the
citizen’s role in helping the Local Authorities deliver their services? How accountable are the citizens?
The participatory planning process helps understand the two sides of the coin, the expectations of the
service recipients and the challenges of the service providers - the dichotomy of giving and receiving.

The local governments of Sri Lanka, as we know, face several challenges and constraints in terms of
human resources, finance and infrastructure. Given the fact that the local governments are mandated to
undertake noteworthy functions at the local level, they need to be further strengthened and supported
with resources and capacity, which will enable them to carry out these functions in an effective manner.

One of the many mechanisms that will help strengthen local governments is participatory planning,
which has reaped many benefits in the past. In this light, participatory planning and implementation
ought to be promoted and supported as an effective, sustainable tool that can strengthen Local
Authorities to address many issues positively at the local level and help them act as catalysts for local,
regional and ultimately, national development.

History

Urban planning as an organized profession has existed for less than a century. However, most
settlements and cities reflect various degrees of forethought and conscious design in their layout and
functioning.

The development of technology, particularly the discovery of agriculture, before the beginning
of recorded history facilitated larger populations than the very small communities of the Paleolithic, and
may have compelled the development of stronger, more coercive governments at the same time. The
pre-Classical and Classical ages saw a number of cities laid out according to fixed plans, though many
tended to develop organically.

Designed cities were characteristic of the totalitarian Mesopotamian, Harrapan, and Egyptian
civilizations of the third millennium BCE.

Distinct characteristics of urban planning from remains of the cities of Harappa, Lothal and
Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley Civilization (in modern-day northwestern India and Pakistan) lead
archeologists to conclude that they are the earliest examples of deliberately planned and managed
cities. The streets of these early cities were often paved and laid out at right angles in a grid pattern,
with a hierarchy of streets from major boulevards to residential alleys. Archaeological evidence suggests
that many Harappa houses were laid out to protect from noise and enhance residential privacy; also,
they often had their own water wells for probably both sanitary and ritual purposes. These ancient cities
were unique in that they often had drainage systems, seemingly tied to a well-developed ideal of urban
sanitation.

Located near the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in modern day Iraq also had urban planning in later
periods. The Greek Hippodamus (c. 407 BC) is widely considered the father of city planning in the West,
for his design of Miletus; Alexander commissioned him to lay out his new city of Alexandria, the
grandest example of idealized urban planning of the Mediterranean world, where regularity was aided
in large part by its level site near a mouth of the Nile.

The ancient Romans used a consolidated scheme for city planning, developed for military
defense and civil convenience. The basic plan is a central forum with city services, surrounded by a
compact rectilinear grid of streets and wrapped in a wall for defense. To reduce travel times, two
diagonal streets cross the square grid corner-to-corner, passing through the central square. A river
usually flowed through the city, to provide water, transport, and sewage disposal. Many European
towns, such as Turin, still preserve the essence of these schemes. The Romans had a very logical way of
designing their cities. They laid out the streets at right angles, in the form of a square grid. All the roads
were equal in width and length, except for two. These two roads formed the center of the grid and
intersected in the middle. One went East/West, the other North/South. They were slightly wider than
the others. All roads were made of carefully fitted stones and smaller hard packed stones. Bridges were
also constructed where needed. Each square marked by four roads was called an insula, which was the
Roman equivalent of modern city blocks. Each insula was 80 yards (73 m) square, with the land within
each insula being divided up. As the city developed, each insula would eventually be filled with buildings
of various shapes and sizes and would be crisscrossed with back roads and alleys. Most insulae were
given to the first settlers of a budding new Roman city, but each person had to pay for the construction
of their own house. The city was surrounded by a wall to protect the city from invaders and other
enemies, and to mark the city limits. Areas outside of the city limits were left open as farmland. At the
end of each main road, there would be a large gateway with watchtowers. A portcullis covered the
opening when the city was under siege, and additional watchtowers were constructed around the rest
of the city’s wall. A water aqueduct was built outside of the city's walls.

The collapse of Roman civilization saw the end of their urban planning, among many other arts.
Urban development in the Middle Ages, characteristically focused on a fortress, a fortified abbey, or a
(sometimes abandoned) Roman nucleus, occurred "like the annular rings of a tree" [6] whether in an
extended village or the center of a larger city. Since the new center was often on high, defensible
ground, the city plan took on an organic character, following the irregularities of elevation contours like
the shapes that result from agricultural terracing.

The ideal centrally-planned urban space: Sposalizio by Raphael Sanzio, 1504

The ideal of wide streets and orderly cities was not lost, however. A few medieval cities were
admired for their wide thoroughfares and other orderly arrangements, but the juridical chaos of
medieval cities (where the administration of streets was sometimes hereditary with various noble
families), and the characteristic tenacity of medieval Europeans in legal matters, prevented frequent or
large-scale urban planning until the Renaissance and the enormous strengthening of all central
governments, from city-states to the kings of France, characteristic of that epoch. Florence was an early
model of the new urban planning, which rearranged itself into a star-shaped layout adapted from the
new star fort, designed to resist cannon fire. This model was widely imitated, reflecting the enormous
cultural power of Florence in this age; "the Renaissance was hypnotized by one city type which for a
century and a half— from Filarete to Scamozzi— was impressed upon utopian schemes: this is the star-
shaped city". Radial streets extend outward from a defined center of military, communal or spiritual
power. Only in ideal cities did a centrally-planned structure stand at the heart, as in Raphael's Sposalizio
of 1504 (illustration); as built, the unique example of a rationally-planned quattrocento new city center,
that of Vigevano, 1493-95, resembles a closed space instead, surrounded by arcading. Filarete's ideal
city, building on hints in Leone Battista Alberti's De re aedificatoria, was named "Sforzinda" in
compliment to his patron; its twelve-pointed shape, circumscribable by a "perfect" Pythagorean figure,
the circle, takes no heed of its undulating terrain in Filarete's manuscript. And, all this occurred in the
cities, but ordinarily not in the industrial suburbs characteristic of this era (see Braudel, The Structures of
Everyday Life), which remained disorderly and characterized by crowded conditions and organic growth.
In the 1990s, the University of Kentucky voted the Italian town of Todi as ideal city and "most livable
town in the world", the place where man and nature, history and tradition come together to create a
site of excellence. In Italy, other examples of ideal cities planned according to scientific methods, are:
Urbino, Pienza, Ferrara, San Giovanni Valdarno, San Lorenzo Nuovo.

Many cities in Central American civilizations also engineered urban planning in their cities
including sewage systems and running water. In Mexico, Tenochtitlan, was the capital of the Aztec
empire, built on an island in Lake Texcoco in what is now the Federal District in central Mexico. At its
height, Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities in the world, with close to 250,000 inhabitants.

Shibam in Yemen features over 500 tower houses,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning

- cite_note-UNESCO-8 each one rising 5 to 11 storeys high, with each floor being an apartment occupied
by a single family. The city has some of the tallest mudbrick houses in the world, with some of them
being over 100 feet high (over 30 meters).

In developed countries (Western Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia), planning and
architecture can be said to have gone through various stages of general consensus in the last 200 years.
Firstly, there was the industrialized city of the 19th century, where control of building was largely held
by businesses and the wealthy elite. Around 1900, there began to be a movement for providing citizens,
especially factory workers, with healthier environments. The concept of garden cities arose and several
model towns were built, such as Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City, the world's first garden cities, in
Hertfordshire, UK. However, these were principally small scale in size, typically dealing with only a few
thousand residents.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning - cite_note-11

It wasn't until the 1920s that modernism began to surface. Based on the ideas of Le Corbusier
and utilizing new skyscraper building techniques, the modernist city stood for the elimination of
disorder, congestion and the small scale, replacing them instead with preplanned and widely spaced
freeways and tower blocks set within gardens. There were plans for large scale rebuilding of cities, such
as the Plan Voisin (based on Le Corbusier's Ville Contemporaine), which proposed clearing and
rebuilding most of central Paris. No large-scale plans were implemented until after World War II
however. Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, housing shortages caused by war destruction led many
cities around the world to build substantial amounts of government-subsidized housing blocks. Planners
at the time used the opportunity to implement the modernist ideal of towers surrounded by gardens.
The most prominent example of an entire modernist city is Brasilia, constructed between 1956 and 1960
in Brazil.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, many planners were coming to realize that the imposition of
modernist clean lines and a lack of human scale also tended to sap vitality from the community. This was
expressed in high crime and social problems within many of these planned neighbourhoods.
Modernism can be said to have ended in the 1970s when the construction of the cheap, uniform tower
blocks ended in many countries, such as Britain and France. Since then many have been demolished and
in their way more conventional housing has been built. Rather than attempting to eliminate all disorder,
planning now concentrates on individualism and diversity in society and the economy. This is the post-
modernist era.

Minimally-planned cities still exist. Houston is an example of a large city (with a metropolitan
population of 5.5 million) in a developed country, without a comprehensive zoning ordinance. Houston
does, however, have many of the land use restrictions covered by traditional zoning regulations, such as
restrictions on development density and parking requirements, even though specific land uses are not
regulated. Moreover, private-sector developers in Houston have used subdivision covenants and deed
restrictions effectively to create the same kinds of land use restrictions found in most municipal zoning
laws. Houston voters have rejected proposals for a comprehensive zoning ordinance three times since
1948. Even without zoning in its traditional sense, metropolitan Houston displays similar land use
patterns at the macro scale to regions comparable in age and population that do have zoning, such as
Dallas. This suggests that factors outside the regulatory environment, such as the provision of urban
infrastructure and methods of financing development, may play as big of a role in urban development as
municipal zoning.
Sustainable development and sustainability

Sustainable development and sustainability have become important concepts in today's urban
planning field, with the recognition that current consumption and living habits may be leading to
problems such as the overuse of natural resources, ecosystem destruction, urban heat islands, pollution,
growing social inequality and large-scale climate change. Many urban planners have, as a result, begun
to advocate for the development of sustainable cities. However, the notion of sustainable development
is a fairly recent concept and somewhat controversial. Wheeler, in his 1998 article, suggests a definition
for sustainable urban development to be as "development that improves the long-term social and
ecological health of cities and towns." He goes on to suggest a framework that might help all to better
understand what a 'sustainable' city might look like. These include compact, efficient land use; less
automobile use yet with better access; efficient resource use, less pollution and waste; the restoration
of natural systems; good housing and living environments; a healthy social ecology; sustainable
economics; community participation and involvement; and preservation of local culture and wisdom.
The challenge facing today's urban planners lies in the implementation of targeted policies and
programs, and the need to modify existing urban and regional institutions to achieve the goals of
sustainability.

Aspects of planning

Urban Aesthetics

Towns and cities have been planned with aesthetics in mind; 18th-century private sector
development was designed to appear attractive.

In developed countries, there has been a backlash against excessive human-made clutter in the
visual environment, such as signposts, signs, and hoardings. Other issues that generate strong debate
amongst urban designers are tensions between peripheral growth, increased housing density and
planned new settlements. There are also unending debates about the benefits of mixing tenures and
land uses, versus the benefits of distinguishing geographic zones where different uses predominate.
Regardless, all successful urban planning considers urban character, local identity, respect for heritage,
pedestrians, traffic, utilities and natural hazards.

Planners are important in managing the growth of cities, applying tools like zoning to manage
the uses of land, and growth management to manage the pace of development. When examined
historically, many of the cities now thought to be most beautiful are the result of dense, long lasting
systems of prohibitions and guidance about building sizes, uses and features.. These allowed substantial
freedoms, yet enforce styles, safety, and often materials in practical ways. Many conventional planning
techniques are being repackaged using the contemporary term smart growth.

There are some cities that have been planned from conception, and while the results often don't
turn out quite as planned, evidence of the initial plan often remains.

Safety
The medieval walled city of Carcassonne in France is built upon high ground to provide maximum
protection from attackers.

Historically within the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the Old World, settlements were
located on higher ground (for defense) and close to fresh water sources. Cities have often grown onto
coastal and flood plains at risk of floods and storm surges. Urban planners must consider these threats.
If the dangers can be localised then the affected regions can be made into parkland or greenbelt, often
with the added benefit of open space provision.

Extreme weather, flood, or other emergencies can often be greatly mitigated with secure
emergency evacuation routes and emergency operations centres. These are relatively inexpensive and
unintrusive, and many consider them a reasonable precaution for any urban space. Many cities will also
have planned, built safety features, such as levees, retaining walls, and shelters.

In recent years, practitioners have also been expected to maximize the accessibility of an area to
people with different abilities, practicing the notion of "inclusive design," to anticipate criminal
behaviour and consequently to "design-out crime" and to consider "traffic calming" or
"pedestrianisation" as ways of making urban life more pleasant.

Some city planners try to control criminality with structures designed from theories such as
socio-architecture or environmental determinism. Refer to Foucault and the Encyclopedia of the Prison
System for more details. These theories say that an urban environment can influence individuals'
obedience to social rules and level of power. The theories often say that psychological pressure develops
in more densely developed, unadorned areas. This stress causes some crimes and some use of illegal
drugs. The antidote is usually more individual space and better, more beautiful design in place of
functionalism.

Oscar Newman’s defensible space theory cites the modernist housing projects of the 1960s as
an example of environmental determinism, where large blocks of flats are surrounded by shared and
disassociated public areas, which are hard for residents to identify with. As those on lower incomes
cannot hire others to maintain public space such as security guards or grounds keepers, and because no
individual feels personally responsible, there was a general deterioration of public space leading to a
sense of alienation and social disorder.

Jane Jacobs is another notable environmental determinist and is associated with the "eyes on
the street" concept. By improving ‘natural surveillance’ of shared land and facilities of nearby residents
by literally increasing the number of people who can see it, and increasing the familiarity of residents, as
a collective, residents can more easily detect undesirable or criminal behavior. However, this is not a
new concept. This was prevalent throughout the middle eastern world during the time of Mohamad. It
was not only reflected in the general structure of the outside of the home but also the inside. (refer to
various religous texts and archaeological sites)
 The "broken-windows" theory argues that small indicators of neglect, such as broken windows
and unkempt lawns, promote a feeling that an area is in a state of decay. Anticipating decay, people
likewise fail to maintain their own properties. The theory suggests that abandonment causes crime,
rather than crime causing abandonment.

Some planning methods might help an elite group to control ordinary citizens. Haussmann's
renovation of Paris created a system of wide boulevards which prevented the construction of barricades
in the streets and eased the movement of military troops. In Rome, the Fascists in the 1930s created ex
novo many new suburbs in order to concentrate criminals and poorer classes away from the elegant
town.

Other social theories point out that in Britain and most countries since the 18th century, the
transformation of societies from rural agriculture to industry caused a difficult adaptation to urban
living. These theories emphasize that many planning policies ignore personal tensions, forcing
individuals to live in a condition of perpetual extraneity to their cities. Many people therefore lack the
comfort of feeling "at home" when at home. Often these theorists seek a reconsideration of commonly
used "standards" that rationalize the outcomes of a free (relatively unregulated) market.

Slums

The rapid urbanization of the last century has resulted in a significant amount of slum habitation
in the major cities of the world, particularly in developing countries. There is significant demand for
planning resources and strategies to address the issues that arise from slum development. Many
planning theorists and practitioners are calling for increased attention and resources in this area,
particularly the Commonwealth Association of Planners. When urban planners give their attention to
slums, one also has to pay attention to the racial make-up of that area to ensure that racial steering
does not occur.

The issue of slum habitation has often been resolved via a simple policy of clearance. However,
more creative solutions are beginning to emerge such as Nairobi's "Camp of Fire" program, where
established slum-dwellers have promised to build proper houses, schools, and community centers
without any government money, in return for land they have been illegally squatting on for 30 years.
The "Camp of Fire" program is one of many similar projects initiated by Slum Dwellers International,
which has programs in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Urban decay

Urban decay is a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of disrepair and
neglect. It is characterized by depopulation, economic restructuring, property abandonment, high
unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and desolate urban
landscapes.

During the 1970s and 1980s, urban decay was often associated with central areas of cities in
North America and parts of Europe. During this time period, major changes in global economies,
demographics, transportation, and government policies created conditions that fostered urban decay.
Many planners spoke of "white flight" during this time. This pattern was different than the pattern of
"outlying slums" and "suburban ghettos" found in many cities outside of North America and Western
Europe, where central urban areas actually had higher real estate values. Starting in the 1990s, many of
the central urban areas in North America have been experiencing a reversal of the urban decay of
previous decades, with rising real estate values, smarter development, demolition of obsolete social
housing areas and a wider variety of housing choices.

Reconstruction and renewal

The overall area plan for the reconstruction of Kabul's Old City area, the proposed Kabul - City of Light
Development.

Areas devastated by war or invasion represent a unique challenge to urban planners. Buildings,
roads, services and basic infrastructure like power, water and sewerage are often severely compromised
and need to be evaluated to determine what can be salvaged for re-incorporation. There is also the
problem of the existing population, and what needs they may have. Historic, religious or social centers
also need to be preserved and re-integrated into the new city plan. A prime example of this is the capital
city of Kabul, Afghanistan, which, after decades of civil war and occupation, has regions that have
literally been reduced to rubble and desolation. Despite this, the indigenous population continues to live
in the area, constructing makeshift homes and shops out of whatever can be salvaged. Any
reconstruction plan proposed, such as Hisham Ashkouri's City of Light Development, needs to be
sensitive to the needs of this community and its existing culture, businesses and needs.

Urban Reconstruction Development plans must also work with government agencies as well as private
interests to develop workable designs.

Transport

Very densely built-up areas require high capacity urban transit, and urban planners must consider these
factors in long term plans (Canary Wharf tube station).
Although an important factor, there is a complex relationship between urban densities and car use.

Transport within urbanized areas presents unique problems. The density of an urban
environment can create significant levels of road traffic, which can impact businesses and increase
pollution. Parking space is another concern, requiring the construction of large parking garages in high
density areas which could be better used for other development.

Good planning uses transit oriented development, which attempts to place higher densities of
jobs or residents near high-volume transportation. For example, some cities permit commerce and
multi-story apartment buildings only within one block of train stations and multilane boulevards, and
accept single-family dwellings and parks farther away.

Floor area ratio is often used to measure density. This is the floor area of buildings divided by
the land area. Ratios below 1.5 could be considered low density, and plot ratios above five very high
density. Most exurbs are below two, while most city centres are well above five. Walk-up apartments
with basement garages can easily achieve a density of three. Skyscrapers easily achieve densities of
thirty or more.

City authorities may try to encourage lower densities to reduce infrastructure costs, though
some observers note that low densities may not accommodate enough population to provide adequate
demand or funding for that infrastructure. In recent years have seen a concerted effort to increase the
density of residential development in order to better achieve sustainable development. Increasing
development density has the advantage of making mass transport systems, district heating and other
community facilities (schools, health centres, etc) more viable. However critics of this approach dub the
densification of development as 'town cramming' and claim that it lowers quality of life and restricts
market-led choice.

Problems can often occur at residential densities between about two and five. These densities
can cause traffic jams for automobiles, yet are too low to be commercially served by trains or light rail
systems. The conventional solution is to use buses, but these and light rail systems may fail where
automobiles and excess road network capacity are both available, achieving less than 1% ridership.

The Lewis-Mogridge Position claims that increasing road space is not an effective way of
relieving traffic jams as latent or induced demand invariably emerges to restore a socially-tolerable level
of congestion.
Suburbanization

Low (auto-oriented) density suburban development near Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States

In some countries, declining satisfaction with the urban environment is held to blame for
continuing migration to smaller towns and rural areas (so-called urban exodus). Successful urban
planning supported Regional planning can bring benefits to a much larger hinterland or city region and
help to reduce both congestion along transport routes and the wastage of energy implied by excessive
commuting.

Environmental factors

Environmental protection and conservation are of utmost importance to many planning systems
across the world. Not only are the specific effects of development to be mitigated, but attempts are
made to minimize the overall effect of development on the local and global environment. This is
commonly done through the assessment of Sustainable urban infrastructure. In Europe this process is
known as Sustainability Appraisal.

In most advanced urban or village planning models, local context is critical. In many, gardening
and other outdoor activities assumes a central role in the daily life of citizens. Environmental planners
are focusing on smaller and larger systems of resource extraction and consumption, energy production,
and waste disposal. There is even a practice known as Arcology, which seeks to unify the fields of
ecology and architecture, using principles of landscape architecture to achieve a harmonious
environment for all living things. On a small scale, the eco-village theory has become popular, as it
emphasizes a traditional 100-140 person scale for communities.

An urban planner is likely to use a number of quantitative tools to forecast impacts of

development on the environmental, including roadway air dispersion models to predict air quality
impacts of urban highways and roadway noise models to predict noise pollution effects of urban
highways. As early as the 1960s, noise pollution was addressed in the design of urban highways as well
as noise barriers. The Phase I Environmental Site Assessment can be an important tool to the urban
planner by identifying early in the planning process any geographic areas or parcels which have toxic
constraints.

Light and Sound

The urban canyon effect is a colloquial, non-scientific term referring to street space bordered by
very high buildings. This type of environment may shade the sidewalk level from direct sunlight during
most daylight hours. While an oft-decried phenomenon, it is rare except in very dense, hyper-tall urban
environments, such as those found in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, Chicago's Loop and Kowloon in
Hong Kong.
 In urban planning, sound is usually measured as a source of pollution. Another perspective on
urban sounds is developed in Soundscape studies emphasising that sound aesthetics involves more than
noise abatement and decibel measurements. Hedfors [24] coined 'Sonotope' as a useful concept in urban
planning to relate typical sounds to a specific place.

Light pollution has become a problem in urban residential areas, not only as it relates to its
effects on the night sky, but as some lighting is so intrusive as to cause conflict in the residential areas
and paradoxically intense improperly installed security lighting may pose a danger to the public,
producing excessive glare. The development of the full cutoff fixture, properly installed, has reduced this
problem considerably.

Process

Blight may sometimes cause communities to consider redeveloping and urban planning.

The traditional planning process focused on top-down processes where the urban planner
created the plans. The planner is usually skilled in either surveying, engineering or architecture, bringing
to the town planning process ideals based around these disciplines. They typically worked for national or
local governments.

Changes to the planning process over past decades have witnessed the metamorphosis of the
role of the urban planner in the planning process. More citizens calling for democratic planning &
development processes have played a huge role in allowing the public to make important decisions as
part of the planning process. Community organizers and social workers are now very involved in
planning from the grassroots level. The term advocacy planning was coined by Paul Davidoff in his
influential 1965 paper, "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning" which acknowledged the political nature of
planning and urged planners to acknowledge that their actions are not value-neutral and encouraged
minority and under represented voices to be part of planning
decisions.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning - cite_note-25

Developers too have played huge roles in influencing the way development occurs, particularly
through project-based planning. Many recent developments were results of large and small-scale
developers who purchased land, designed the district and constructed the development from scratch.
The Melbourne Docklands, for example, was largely an initiative pushed by private developers who
sought to redevelop the waterfront into a high-end residential and commercial district.

Recent theories of urban planning, espoused, for example by Salingaros see the city as a
adaptive system that grows according to process similar to those of plants. They say that urban planning
should thus take its cues from such natural processes.

RELATED DEFINITIONS IN URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

An abutter is a person (or entity) whose property is adjacent to the property of another.
In land use regulations, concerns of an abutter may be given special attention, being the one most likely
to suffer specific harm from a hasty, uninformed decision. For example, a developer requesting a
subdivision may be required to notify (or pay to notify) all abutters of the proposal and invite them to a
public hearing. Regulations may also provide an abutter with the right to be heard at the hearing, unlike
others who must request permission to be heard, at the discretion of the board.

In the spirit of land use politics, even the unified voices of the concerned abutters may sound only faintly
against the machinery of "progress" or well-funded special interests. However, the courts will
objectively consider a proper case brought by an abutter whose rights have been arguably under-
appreciated. Generally, the more abutters interested in a project, the more likely someone will object to
it.

Some regulations otherwise expand or limit the participation of local owners, as where notice may be
required for "anyone whose property is within 200 feet of any point of the parcel under consideration."
Another expansive definition would include those whose properties are across a public way or flowing
waterway, where the parcels do not actually touch. Contrarily, regulations may define "abutter" to
include only those people who hold record title to an adjacent parcel, thus undermining the rights of
tenants, associations and partial owners (e.g., mineral rights and easement owners) to be notified, let
alone heard on a proposal. This would also eliminate participation of owners of unrecorded title, such as
adverse possession or those who have simply failed to record a deed or settle an estate involving the
adjacent property.

An aerotropolis (pl. aerotropolises or aerotropoli) is a new type of urban form comprising aviation-
intensive businesses and related enterprises extending up to 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) outward from
major airports.

It is similar in form and function to a traditional metropolis, which contains a central city core and its
commuter-linked suburbs. An aerotropolis has an airport city at its core and is surrounded by clusters of
aviation-related enterprises.

Airports have evolved as drivers of business location and urban development in the 21st century in the
same way as did highways in the 20th century, railroads in the 19th century and seaports in the 18th
century, according to Dr. John D. Kasarda, the American academic who defined the aerotropolis concept
in 2000.

Aerotropolises are powerful engines of local economic development, attracting air-commerce-linked

businesses to the land surrounding major airports, analogous to the function of central business districts
in the downtown areas of major cities.

Aerotropolises typically attract industries related to time-sensitive manufacturing, e-commerce

fulfillment, telecommunications and logistics; hotels, retail outlets, entertainment complexes and
exhibition centers; and offices for business people who travel frequently by air or engage in global
commerce. Clusters of business parks, logistics parks, industrial parks, distribution centers, information
technology complexes and wholesale merchandise marts locate around the airport and along the
transportation corridors radiating from them.

In the study of human settlements, an agglomeration is an extended city or town area comprising the
built-up area of a central place (usually a municipality) and any suburbs linked by continuous urban area.
In France, INSEE the French Statistical Institute, translate it as "Unité urbaine" which means continuous
urbanized area. However, because of differences in definitions of what does and does not constitute an
"agglomeration", as well as variations and limitations in statistical or geographical methodology, it can
be problematic to compare different agglomerations around the world. It may not be clear, for instance,
whether an area should be considered to be a satellite and part of an agglomeration, or a distinct entity
in itself.

The term "agglomeration" can also be linked to "Conurbation," which is a more specific term for large
urban clusters where the built-up zones of influence of distinct cities or towns are connected by
continuous built-up development (Essen - Dortmund and others in the Rhine-Ruhr district), even in
different regions, states or countries, Lille - Kortrijk in France and Belgium). Each city or town in a
conurbation may nevertheless continue to act as an independent focus for a substantial part of the area.

BANANA is an acronym for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything (or Anyone). The term is
most often used to criticize the ongoing opposition of certain interest groups to land development.

The apparent opposition of some activists to every instance of proposed development suggests that
they seek a complete absence of new growth. Compare with the acronym NIMBY, Not In My Backyard,
which describes development stymied by those who do not want the development in "their backyard".

The term is commonly used within the context of planning in the United Kingdom. The Sunderland City
Council lists the term on their online dictionary of jargon. [1

Back-to-back houses are a form of terraced house in which two houses share a rear wall (or in which the
rear wall of a house directly abuts a factory or other building)..

Usually of low quality (sometimes with only two rooms, one on each floor) and high density, they were
built for working class people and because three of the four walls of the house were shared with other
buildings and therefore contained no doors or windows, back-to-back houses were notoriously ill-lit and
poorly ventilated and sanitation was of a poor standard.

Barrioization is a term used in the field of Human Geography.

It is defined by geographer James Curtis as the "dramatic" increase in Hispanic population in a given
neighbourhood. It is mostly likely to be related to the situation in the United States of America. The
origin of the word is barrio, which is the Spanish word for neighbourhood. It should be noted, however,
that it needs to have a dramatic change in the population.

Beautification is the process of making visual improvements in a town or city, typically to an urban area.
This most often involves planting trees, shrubbery, and other greenery, but frequently also includes
adding decorative or historic-style street lights and other lighting and replacing broken pavement, often
with brick or other natural materials. Old-fashioned cobblestones are sometimes used for crosswalks;
they provide the additional benefit of slowing motorists.

Beautification projects are often undertaken by city councils to refurbish their downtown areas, in order
to boost tourism or other commerce. Often, this is also spurred by broken sidewalks, which pose a
safety hazard for pedestrians and potentially insurmountable obstacles for wheelchair users. These
projects are frequently part of other larger projects such as construction, especially in conjunction with
ones for transit, such as streets and roads and mass transit.

The Laurel Hill Association of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1853, is the oldest incorporated
village beautification society in the country. [1] The Memphis City Beautiful Commission, the oldest city
beautification project in the United States, was established in 1930.

Binary distribution is when a country has 2 or more dominant cities (megacities).

Boomburb is a neologism for a large, rapidly growing city that remains essentially suburban in character
even as it reaches populations more typical of urban core cities. Like edge city, an older and more widely
accepted term, it describes a relatively recent phenomenon in North America.

Brownfields are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use.
Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental
contaminations.[1]

Brownfield status is a condition, within certain legal exclusions and additions, of real property, the
expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence
of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant, which may include petroleum hydrocarbon
releases. Brownfield status generally means there are use or development restrictions on the site.
In town planning, brownfield land is an area of land previously used or built upon, as opposed to
greenfield land which has never been built upon. Brownfield status is a legal designation which places
restrictions, conditions or incentives on redevelopment.

Brusselization is a term used by urbanists to describe an anarchic urban development in a historic city.
The term origined as the result of the uncontrolled development of Brussels in the 1960s and 1970s. The
term can also describe developers method of destroying old buildings by neglect, allowing them to
decay to the point where demolition is unavoidable.

Build-out is an urban planner’s estimate of the amount and location of potential development for an
area. Sometimes called a "lot-yield analysis", build-out is one step of the land use planning process.
Evaluation of potential development impacts begins with a build-out analysis.

The phrase built environment refers to the man-made surroundings that provide the setting for human
activity, ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places.

The term is also now widely used to describe the interdisciplinary field of study which addresses the
design, management and use of these man-made surroundings and their relationship to the human
activities which take place within them. The field is generally not regarded as an academic discipline in
its own right, but as a "field of application" (or "interdiscipline") which draws upon the individual
disciplines of economics, law, management, design and technology in sustainable sense.

Ciclovía (also ciclovia or cyclovia) is a Spanish term, meaning "bike path," used in Latin America to mean
either a permanent designated bicycle route or a temporary event closing of the street to automobiles
to allow dominance by other users. Permanent designated bicycle lanes are also known as ciclo-rutas,
while streets temporarily closed for that purpose are always called ciclovías.

A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city
block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the
street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric. City blocks may be subdivided
into any number of smaller lots or parcels of land usually in private ownership, though in some cases, it
may be other forms of tenure. City blocks are usually built-up to varying degrees and thus form the
physical containers or 'streetwalls' of public space. Most cities are composed of a greater or lesser
variety of sizes and shapes of urban block. For example, many pre-industrial cores of cities in Europe,
Asia and the Middle-east tend to have irregularly shaped street patterns and urban blocks, while cities
based on grids have much more regular arrangements.

City networks are the connections between cities.

The term city region has been in use since about 1950 by urbanists, economists and urban planners to
mean not just the administrative area of a recognisable city or conurbation but also its hinterland that
will often be far bigger. Conventionally, if one lives in an apparently rural area, suburb or county town
where a majority of wage-earners travel into a particular city for a full or part-time job then one is (in
effect) residing in the city region.

A civic center or civic centre (see "American and British English spelling differences") is a prominent land
area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or
more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the term
"civic center" has been used in reference to an entire central business district of a community or a major
shopping center in the middle of a community. In this type of civic center, special attention is paid to the
way public structures are grouped and landscaped.

A Community Street Review is a new survey method where a Community Street Audit is combined with
a numerical rating system.[1] The methodology is the result of research commissioned by Land Transport
New Zealand for improving Walkability in New Zealand. The methodology involves taking a group of
community members to a location and have them review their perceptions of the walking environment.
The participant resonses are entered into a database and a level of service is assinged to the area.
Physical and operational variables are also collected at the time of the review and paired with the
responses and level of service calculations. Once enough reviews have been completed, it is expected
that walkability level of service will be derived straight from the measurement of physical and
operational variables.

A community separator (or simply a separator) is a parcel of undeveloped land, sometimes in the form
of open space, separating two or more urban areas under different municipal jurisdictions which has
been designated to provide a permanent low-density area preserving the communal integrity of the two
municipalities. Separators are typically created by one or more municipalities in situations of rapid urban
growth, where unchecked development might otherwise result in the contiguity of the urban areas. A
unilateral separator that partially or completely encircles a municipality is commonly known as a
greenbelt.

Separators often consist of undeveloped farmland, forests, floodplains, or other areas that may or may
not be desirable for residential or commercial development. The enactment of a separator is commonly
achieved through a variety of different means, including conservation easements, outright purchase of
land for parks, or zoning restrictions. Separators are often enacted along major highways connecting
municipalities in order to preserve the open viewshed that provides a natural boundary between two
communities.

Separators are sometimes controversial since they can withdraw desirable development land from the
marketplace, resulting not only in the loss of tax revenue but also incurring the cost of acquiring and
managing the land

A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the
workforce commute out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby
metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns. Commuter towns
belong to the metropolitan area of a city, and a ring of commuter towns around an urban area is known
as a commuter belt.

A commuter town may also be known as a bedroom community or "bedroom suburb" (Canada and U.S.
usage), a dormitory town (UK Commonwealth and Ireland usage), or less commonly a dormitory village
(UK Commonwealth and Ireland). These terms suggest that residents sleep in these neighborhoods, but
mostly work elsewhere; they further suggest that these communities have little commercial or industrial
activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward serving the residents.

Comprehensive planning is a term used in the United States by land use planners to describe a process
that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The outcome of
comprehensive planning is the Comprehensive Plan which dictates public policy in terms of
transportation, utilities, land use, recreation, and housing. Comprehensive plans typically encompass
large geographical areas, a broad range of topics, and cover a long-term time horizon.

A conurbation is an urban area or agglomeration comprising a number of cities, large towns and larger
urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one
continuous urban and industrially developed area. In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric
agglomeration, in which transportation has developed to link areas to create a single urban labour
market or travel to work area.[1]

The term "conurbation" was coined as a neologism in 1915 by Patrick Geddes in his book Cities In
Evolution. He drew attention to the ability of the (then) new technology of electric power and motorised
transport to allow cities to spread and agglomerate together, and gave as examples "Midlandton" in
England, the Ruhr in Germany, and New York-Boston in the USA.[2]
A conurbation can be confused with a metropolitan area. As the term is used in North America, a
metropolitan area consists of many neighborhoods, while a conurbation consists of many different
metropolitan areas that are connected with one another. Internationally, the term "urban
agglomeration" is often used to convey a similar meaning to "conurbation". [3]

A county island is an unincorporated area within a county, usually, but not always, surrounded on all
sides by another incorporated area, such as a city. On maps, these geopolitical anomalies will form
jagged or complex borders and 'holes' in the city limits. Generally found more frequently in the western
United States, county islands form in areas of expansion when previously smaller cities will annex and
incorporate more land into their jurisdiction. If residents or landowners in a particular unincorporated
area do not vote to incorporate with the surrounding city, the area remains unincorporated. The
formation of a county island usually follows stages where it will come into being on the edge of an
incorporated area, and as more territory is incorporated, be cut off from the rest of the unincorporated
area within the county. These areas are not, by definition, exclaves because they are simply
unincorporated within a surrounding city.

Coving is a method of urban planning used in subdivision characterized by non-uniform lot shapes and
home placement. When combined with winding roads, lot area is increased and road area reduced.
Coving is used as an alternative to conventional "grid" subdivision layout in order to reduce costs, such
as road surfacing, while improving aesthetics, and increasing the amount of land available for
construction

Downtown is a term primarily used in North America to refer to a city's core or central business district,
usually in a geographical, commercial, and community sense.

Ecovillages are intended to be socially, economically and ecologically sustainable intentional

communities. Some aim for a population of 50-150 individuals because this size is considered to be the
maximum social network according to findings from sociology and anthropology.[1] Larger ecovillages of
up to 2,000 individuals exist as networks of smaller subcommunities to create an ecovillage model that
allows for social networks within a broader foundation of support. Certain ecovillages have grown by the
nearby addition of others, not necessarily members, settling on the periphery of the ecovillage and
effectively participating in the ecovillage community.

Ecumenopolis (from Greek: οικουμένη, meaning world, and πόλις (polis) meaning city, thus a city made
of the whole world; pl. ecumenopolises or ecumenopoleis) is a word invented in 1967 by the Greek city
planner Constantinos Doxiadis to represent the idea that in the future urban areas and megalopolises
would eventually fuse and there would be a single continuous worldwide city as a progression from the
current urbanization and population growth trends. Before the word ecumenopolis had been coined, the
American religious leader Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906) mentioned city-planets in his verses, and
science fiction author Isaac Asimov uses the city-planet Trantor as the setting of some of his novels.

Edge city is an American term for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a
traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community. The term
was first used in Tom Wolfe's 1968 novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and popularized in the 1991
book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier by Joel Garreau, who established its current meaning while
working as a reporter for the Washington Post. Garreau argues that the edge city has become the
standard form of urban growth worldwide, representing a 20th-century urban form unlike that of the
19th-century central downtown. Other terms for the areas include suburban activity centers,
megacenters, and suburban business districts.

The term Ekistics (coined by Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis in 1942) applies to the science of human
settlements.[1] It includes regional, city, community planning and dwelling design. It involves the study of
all kinds of human settlements, with a view to geography and ecology - the physical environment- , and
human psychology and anthropology, and cultural, political, and occasionally aesthetics.
As a scientific mode of study is currently found to rely on statistics and description, organized in five
ekistic elements: nature, anthropos, society, shells, and networks. It is generally a more academic field
than "urban planning", and has considerable overlap with some of the less restrained fields of
architectural theory.

In application, conclusions are drawn aimed at achieving harmony between the inhabitants of a
settlement and their physical and socio-cultural environments. [2]

In geography and urban planning, elbow roomers are people who leave a city for the countryside to
seek more land and greater freedom from governmental and neighborhood interference.

Facadism (also façadism or facadomy) is the practice of demolishing a building but leaving its facade
intact for the purposes of building new structures around it.

The Floor Area Ratio (FAR) or Floor Space Index (FSI) is the ratio of the total floor area of buildings on a
certain location to the size of the land of that location, or the limit imposed on such a ratio.

The Floor Area Ratio is the total building square footage (building area) divided by the site size square
footage (site area).

As a formula: Floor Area Ratio = (Total covered area on all floors of all buildings on a certain plot)/(Area
of the plot)

Thus, an FSI of 2.0 would indicate that the total floor area of a building is two times the gross
area of the plot on which it is constructed, as would be found in a multiple-story building.

Edward Soja uses the term fractal city to describe the "metropolarities" and the restructured social
mosaic of today's urban landscape or "postmetropolis". In his book, Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of
Cities and Regions, he discusses how the contemporary American city has become far more complex
than the familiar upperclass vs. middleclass or black vs. white models of society. It has become a fractal
city of intensified inequalities and social polarization. The term "fractal" gives it the idea of having a
fractured social geometry. This is a patterning of metropolarities, or an intesification of socio-economic
inequalities, some of which Soja tries to pinpoint and discuss.

A green belt or greenbelt is a policy or land use designation used in land use planning to retain areas of
largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas. Similar
concepts are greenways or green wedges which have a linear character and may run through an urban
area instead of around it. A green belt is basically an invisible line that goes around a certain area,
stopping people from building there so that some of the wild and agricultural land can be saved.

Greenfield land is a term used to describe a piece of previously undeveloped land, in a city or rural area,
either currently used for agriculture, landscape design, or just left to nature. In contrast, brownfield land
is an area that has previously been developed, such as the site of a gas station, a paved parking lot or
the site of a demolished building. Greenfield land can be unfenced open fields or urban lots, or
restricted, closed property kept off limits to the general public by a private or governmental entity.

Greenfield status is a term used to describe an end point wherein a parcel of land that had been in
industrial use is, in principle, restored to the conditions existing before the construction of the plant. It is
synonymous to a status of unrestricted re-use; the older term.

All power plants, coal, gas and nuclear, have a finite life beyond which it is no longer economical to
operate them. At this point they must be decommissioned; that is, they must be dismantled and their
components disposed of ether by sale or scrapping. In some cases the buildings that housed the plant
may be put to other uses. However, in many cases contamination is unacceptable and the buildings
must be demolished. The land on which the plant sat also may have been polluted with high levels of
toxins, and in this case other remedial measures like removal and replacement of the top soil or clay
capping may be required to render the site non-hazardous.

It is becoming standard practice in many jurisdictions to mandate a return to Green Field status at the
end of plant service as a condition of the initial site license, and potential licensees must demonstrate
that steps will be taken to assure the availability of funds via the posting of a Reclamation Bond for that
task before a site-license will be issued. While this concept has mainly applied to the power generating
industry, the term is coming into wider use in other areas of industrial decommissioning.

A greenway is a long, narrow piece of land, often used for recreation and pedestrian and bicycle traffic
and sometimes including multiple transportation (streetcar, light rail) or retail uses.

The term greenway comes from the "green" in green belt and the "way" in parkway, implying a
recreational or pedestrian use rather than a typical street corridor, as well as an emphasis on
introducing or maintaining vegetation, in a location where such vegetation is otherwise lacking. Some
greenways include community gardens as well as typical park-style landscaping of trees and shrubs.
They also tend to have a mostly contiguous pathway, allowing urban commuting via bicycle or foot.

Greyfield land is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe economically obsolescent,
outdated, failing, moribund and/or underutilized real estate assets or land.

Infill in its broadest meaning is material that fills in an otherwise unoccupied space. The term is
commonly used in association with construction techniques such as wattle and daub, and civil
engineering activities such as land reclamation.

Local community is a geographically defined community of place, a group of people living close to each
other.

The term community suggest that its members have some relations that are communal - experiences,
values, and/or interests may be shared, they may interact with each other and are concerned about
mutual and collective well-being.

In real estate, a lot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A lot is
essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning
practically the same thing) in other countries. Possible owner(s) of a lot can be one or more person(s) or
another legal entity, such as a company/corporation, organization, government, or trust. A common
form of ownership of a lot is called fee simple in some countries.

A megacity is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million
people.[1] Some definitions also set a minimum level for population density (at least 2,000
persons/square km). Megacities can be distinguished from global cities by their rapid growth, new forms
of spatial density of population, formal and informal economics, as well as poverty, crime, and high
levels of social fragmentation. A megacity can be a single metropolitan area or two or more
metropolitan areas that converge upon one another. The terms conurbation, metropolis and metroplex
are also applied to the latter. The terms megapolis and megalopolis are sometimes used synonymously
with megacity.

A megalopolis (sometimes called a megapolis) is defined as an extensive metropolitan area or a long

chain of roughly continuous metropolitan areas.

A metroplex is large metropolitan area containing several cities and their suburbs. [1] It is also sometimes
used as an alternative to metropolis or megalopolis, which is a chain of continuous metropolitan areas.
The term was coined for, and is still commonly used to describe, the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.[2][dead
link]
Sometimes, a region is not clearly defined. It can be seen as a metroplex or a single metropolitan area
(for example, Dallas - Fort Worth is closer to the definition of a metro and Norcal is closer to the
definition of a megalopolis).
Microdistrict, or microraion (Russian: микрорайо́ н), is a residential compound—a primary structural
element of the residential area construction in the Soviet Union and in some post-Soviet states.
Residential districts in most of the cities and towns in Russia and the republics of the former Soviet
Union were built in accordance with this concept.

A microtown is a municipality with less than 500 residents that is not part of the suburbia of a
neighboring city. (Such towns might also be known as villages and hamlets.) Microtowns used to be
prevalent in the West and Midwest in the 18th and 19th centuries as people moved for cheaper land
and started their own municipality. Today, a microtown is usually a strong sign of a locality's decline, as
people have moved away to seek more properous opportunities elsewhere, although many such places
still exist today, always in rural America. The smallest documented microtown is in Maine with a
population of exactly one (it is legally a town), although a town usually has some degree of
independence. A population of zero is a ghost town.

Commonly referred to as a plaza, an office complex is often confused with an office building. Complexes
are just one story, with extensive fields available in retail positioning, but primarily used for medical
practitioners along with a stronghold potential for community development. This due to its non-
exclusive company occupants, as opposed to office buildings that are technology focused.

Open space reserve, open space preserve, and open space reservation, are planning and conservation
ethics terms used to describe areas of protected or conserved land or water on which development is
indefinitely set aside. The term green space or greenspace is often used in the same manner.

Overdevelopment refers to a process by which natural resources are impacted by urbanization and/or
road construction, at a rate significantly harmful to the ecosystem. Environmental activism is a frequent
response to overdevelopment, as well as are many fields of academic study. Sustainability is the
conceptual goal that is frequently cited [weasel  words] as a response.

Rresidential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial
areas.

In land use, a setback is the distance which a building or other structure is set back from a street or
road, a river or other stream, a shore or flood plain, or any other place which needs protection.
Depending on the jurisdiction, other things like fences, landscaping, septic tanks, and various potential
hazards or nuisances might be regulated. Setbacks are generally set in municipal ordinances or zoning.
Setbacks along state, provincial, or federal highways may also be set in the laws of the state or province,
or the federal government.

Homes usually have a setback from the property boundary, so that they cannot be placed too close
together. This would not only be psychologically uncomfortable to residents staring through windows
into each others' blank exterior walls (or even into windows, causing a privacy problem), but would
present a fire hazard, particularly during windy conditions. Setbacks may also allow for public utilities to
access the buildings, and for access to utility meters. In some municipalities, setbacks are based on
street right-of-ways, and not the front property line.

A shopping mall, shopping center, or shopping centre is a building or set of buildings which contain
retail units, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit.

In an urban setting, a skyway, catwalk, or skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or

covered bridge between two buildings. This protects pedestrians from the weather. These skyways are
usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces (compare with sidewalk). Skyways
usually connect on the first few floors above the ground-level floor, though they are sometimes much
higher, as in Petronas Towers (though this skyway is often referred to as a sky bridge). The space in the
buildings connected by skyways is often devoted to retail business, so areas around the skyway may
operate as a shopping mall. Non-commercial areas with closely associated buildings, such as university
campuses, can often have skyways and/or tunnels connecting buildings.
A strip mall (also called a shopping plaza or mini-mall) is an open area shopping center where the stores
are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have
large parking lots in front. They face major traffic arterials and tend to be self-contained with few
pedestrian connections to surrounding neighborhoods.

Subdivision is the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via
a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known as a subdivision in the United States. If it is used
for housing it is typically known as a housing subdivision or housing development, although some
developers tend to call these areas communities.

Subdivisions may also be for the purpose of commercial or industrial development, and the results vary
from retail malls with independently owned out parcels to industrial parks.

Synekism is a concept in urban studies coined by Edward Soja. It refers to the dynamic formation of the
polis state - the union of several small urban settlements under the rule of a "capital" city (or so-called
city-state or urban system). Soja's definition of synekism, mentioned in Writing the city spatially, is "the
stimulus of urban agglomeration."

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality. To "incorporate"
in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city or town with its own government. Thus, an
unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government. Such regions
are generally administered by default as a part of larger administrative divisions, such as a township,
borough, county, state, province, canton, parish, or country. It is not unknown, but uncommon, for small
towns in fiscal crisis to disincorporate in order to have services provided by a higher administration.

Urbanology is the study of specialized problems of cities (as planning, education, sociology, and politics).

Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is the spreading of a city and its suburbs over rural land
at the fringe of an urban area. [1] Residents of sprawling neighborhoods tend to live in single-family
homes and commute by automobile to work. Low population density is an indicator of sprawl. Urban
planners emphasize the qualitative aspects of sprawl such as the lack of transportation options and
pedestrian friendly neighborhoods. Conservationists tend to focus on the actual amount of land that has
been urbanized by spraw

White flight is a term for the demographic trend in which white people move away from urban
neighborhoods that are becoming racially desegregated to white suburbs and exurbs.[1][2][3] The
phenomenon was first named in the United States, but has occurred in other countries as well. A major
contributing factor for the start of this trend in the United States is considered to be the 1954 Brown v.
Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which began the process of desegregating the country's
public schools.

A Zone of Visual Influence is the area from which a development is theoretically visible. It is usually
represented as a map using color to indicate visibility.

Zone of transition is the area between the factory zone and the working class zone in the Concentric
zone model of urban structure devised by Ernest Burgess. The zone of transition is an area of flux where
the land use is changing.

URBAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Executive Summary

Asia's economic development over the past 50 years has been rapid, and accompanied by a dramatic
increase in the level of urbanization. Asia has been particularly successful at exploiting the natural
comparative advantages of its urban areas as efficient exchange points for labor, goods, services, and
capital. At the same time, rapid urbanization has, in many instances, outpaced housing and service
provision. With urbanization expected to surpass the 50 percent level by 2020, it is clear that the main
challenges of the future will be tackled in the urban areas of the Asian and Pacific Region.

This paper reviews the causes and effects of urbanization, highlights the resulting demands for improved
management and servicing of urban growth, and proposes a strategy for Bank action in the sector.
Unlike other traditional sectors, the urban sector, encompassing several subsectors, is a complex
development arena that includes cross cutting themes as broad as poverty reduction, quality of life,
gender and development, and urban governance. Further, while measures to improve the extent,
management, and operation of urban services benefit both local and national economies, urban areas
are also exposed to external forces over which they have little control. The strategy must therefore be
viewed as a responsive, flexible framework that can evolve to meet the varied demands of the urban
sector.

The strategy highlights the operational objectives of (i) maximizing the economic efficiency of urban
areas, (ii) reducing urban poverty, (iii) improving quality of life, and (iv) achieving more sustainable
forms of urban development. These objectives are to be achieved through the promotion of urban
sector policies for (i) encouraging good governance; (ii) improving urban management; (iii) mobilizing
financial resources; (iv) reducing urban poverty; and (v) addressing urban development subsectors:
water supply, sanitation, and solid waste management; land management; transport; and housing. Good
governance includes the principles of accountability, predictability, and transparency, as well as policies
and mechanisms for decentralization, community participation, and increased private sector
involvement. The strategy highlights key policy priorities in a number of areas, which are synthesized
and presented as the recommended urban sector strategy.

The urban sector strategy proposes an incremental and systematic expansion of the Bank's involvement
in the urban sector in terms of the volume of lending, the range of subsectors to be addressed, and
interrelationships of project components. The increasing complexity of the sector and the relative
weakness of sector institutions points to the need for more careful preparation of projects, including
more emphasis on institutional aspects to maximize project benefits and increase sustainability. The
strategy calls for more in-depth sector analysis and focus on policy and institutional issues, which in turn
requires more emphasis on capacity building, in developing member countries (DMCs) as well as within
the Bank.

Adoption of the strategy will strengthen the leadership role the Bank continues to play in the urban
sector in the Region, and expand the level and impact of development assistance provided to DMCs to
manage the process of urban growth. By increasing support for the sector, the Bank will be able to
pursue important opportunities to advance the goal of national economic development, while achieving
poverty reduction and sustainable urban development in key urban centers in the Region.

I. Introduction

A. Major Themes

This paper reviews the causes and effects of urbanization 1 in the Asian and Pacific Region, highlights the
resulting demands for improved management and servicing of urban growth, and proposes a strategy
for Bank action in the sector. Because of the enormous variety of urban conditions and stages of
economic growth in developing member countries (DMCs), the development of an urban strategy for
the region is complex and needs to recognize the importance and diversity of country-specific policies
and programs. However, a number of common themes underlie the strategy.

At the macro level, urbanization is strongly linked to economic growth and has contributed positively to
the gains made in many countries throughout the Region. Measures to improve the extent,
management, and operation of urban services benefit both local and national economies. At the same
time, urban areas are exposed to external forces over which they have little control, such as the
progressive globalization of decision-making and the economic crisis currently affecting the Region. The
Bank’s urban strategy, therefore, must be both robust and flexible to respond to such forces and their
impacts.
The phenomenal rate at which urbanization is occurring has overwhelmed those tasked with managing
urban areas, particularly in the poorer countries of the Region. Exacerbated by a flood of rural-urban
migrants, cities have witnessed tremendous growth of unserviced slum and squatter areas where
millions of urban poor residents lack adequate access to potable water and sanitation services. A key
theme is the way in which the problems of environmental degradation of urban poor communities, and
urban poverty in particular, can be addressed. Related to these challenges are issues concerning
improvement in the status of women and other vulnerable groups.

Potential improvements in the provision and maintenance of urban infrastructure and services are
constrained by poor urban governance, management, and finance. Outdated legal, institutional, and
governance traditions, as well as inadequate reform measures have constrained the pace of
development. Thus a major theme is to address urban governance and the improvement of urban
management through innovative approaches in the design and implementation of development
activities; participatory processes at the local level; and the building of partnerships between corporate,
community, and public sectors. The more efficient use of existing financial tools, the introduction of
market-based approaches to local government operations, and the use of innovative financing
mechanisms will also be required.

Achieving sustainable urban development is a final crosscutting theme, defined here as meeting the
growing needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. This is in accordance with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (1992), known as the “Earth Summit,” and the Second United Nations
Conference on Human Settlements (1996), Habitat II. The comprehensive Global Plan of Action adopted
at Habitat II incorporates policies for the sustainable development of settlements and the increased role
of local governments in urban development and management. The urban strategy is designed to achieve
significant increasesin sustainability within the framework defined by the long-term goal of full urban
sustainability in DMCs in environmental, financial, and socioeconomic terms.

B. Development of the Urban Strategy

Responding to the growth of increasingly complex urban areas requires a review of Bank approaches to
urban program and project formulation, prioritization, and implementation within and among DMCs,
taking into account lessons learned from the Bank’s 30-year experience in the sector. While DMCs can
be broadly grouped by stage of economic growth in terms of the priority needs of their urban areas,
urban strategies must respond to competitive and comparative advantages, local urban economic
circumstance, and other location-specific concerns. Therefore, this paper proposes a broad regional
strategy for the urban sector that can provide both a framework for specific DMC urban strategies and a
guide for Bank action in the sector.

The strategy was prepared by staff of the Water Supply, Urban Development and Housing (East)
Division, with the support of interdepartmental working groups 2 guided by an interdepartmental
steering committee3.

Objectives and Policy Priorities

A. Urban Development Objectives

The starting point for formulating urban development objectives is the Bank’s Medium Term Strategic
Framework, 1995-1998. The five strategic objectives against which Bank project activities are measured
are (i) promoting economic growth, (ii) reducing poverty, (iii) supporting human development, (iv)
improving the status of women, and (v) protecting the environment. While the objectives are currently
under review, they are not likely to change dramatically. At least 50 percent of projects and 40 percent
of lending should be for projects with social or environmental benefits. Bank operations are targeted to
emphasize policy support; capacity building; strengthening of productive capacity, infrastructure, and
services; and improved regional cooperation.
Most urban development, water supply, and housing projects are classified by the Bank as human
development projects. In addition, depending on their specific goals, urban projects frequently address
one or more of the other four overall strategic objectives. The current priority for the Bank to respond
to the economic crisis in several DMCs is highlighting the key role of urban projects in reducing urban
poverty. The overall strategic objectives can be realized for the urban sector through the following
operational objectives:

i. maximizing the economic efficiency of urban areas (economic growth) through

a. increased contribution to GDP;

b. easier market entry for small businesses;

c. creation of employment;

d. attraction of inward investment; and

e. availability of suitable land, infrastructure, energy, and services to meet business

demand;

ii. reducing urban poverty through

a. reduced unemployment; and

b. increased number of households with access to land, infrastructure, and services;

iii. improving quality of life (human development and the status of women) through

a. reductions in environmental pollution levels;

b. improved support mechanisms for the disadvantaged;

c. enhanced role for gender development;

d. reduced crime levels;

e. reduction in serious illness;

f. availability of suitable land, infrastructure, and services to meet residents’ demand; and

g. increased participation in decision making;

iv. achieving sustainable urban development (protecting the environment) through

a. reduced use of nonreplaceable natural resources;

b. increased use of energy pricing, taxation, and energy-saving forms of

c. urban land use and construction;

d. increased social equity in the distribution of social benefits;

e. reductions in environmental pollution levels; and

f. use of improved urban management systems, including good governance,

decentralization, private sector involvement, funding mechanisms, and community
participation.

To achieve these objectives, the Bank should promote the following policies for inclusion in national
government urban sector policy and strategic frameworks: (i) promoting good urban governance, (ii)
improving urban management; (iii) mobilizing financial resources; (iv) reducing urban poverty; and (v)
addressing urban development subsectors (IUDPs; water supply, sanitation, and solid waste
management; and transport and housing).
B. Policies for Promoting Urban Governance

1. Principles

Four principles for achieving good governance underlie all policies for strengthening urban management
in DMCs.

i. Accountability. If city managers and staff are to be more accountable to central government
policy makers and to residents, their work will need to be assessed using performance indicators
and benchmark criteria. Accountability is also increasingly important in the delivery of services
by the private sector.
ii. Participation. Greater participation is an essential prerequisite of good governance, represented
by a growing web of interest groups that want more say in policy development and
implementation. Participatory approaches are of particular relevance to reduce urban poverty
and enhance the role of the informal sector. Community participation will also be enhanced
where the principles of demand management are used to improve service delivery.

iii. Predictability. With many cities growing faster than the institutional capacity to manage their
growth, administrative and legal procedures are often applied unevenly and to the disadvantage
of the poor. An overhaul is required, so that, for instance, housing and land regulations and
standards are affordable to poor families. Innovative land tenure policies could allow squatter
families and informal businesses to enter the formal housing and land markets. Streamlined
procedures for land registration and the validity of titles give confidence to households and
businesses. In addition, potential private investors in the delivery of city services need
confidence that the legal system is adequate in terms of contract law, dispute procedures, and
clear allocation of responsibilities.

iv. Transparency. In dealings between the private sector and local governments, transparency is
too often lacking. As an example, data on land markets is often not freely available, resulting in
increased costs to the potential developer and often the payment of illegal demands for money.
This problem should ease as, for example, computer-based land information systems facilitate
the storage and dissemination of data and as the benefits of freely available data are realized.
To promote transparency and accountability, specific anticorruption measures should be put in
place and enforced.

2. Decentralization

Decentralization is a commitment to sustainable development through empowering citizens and their

locally elected officials, accompanied by a reduction in the monopolization of resources and powers by
central authorities. From the perspective of intervention, external resources should be used not so much
to produce direct results as to strengthen local capacities to initiate and manage activities that produce
benefits for the local community. This implies a demand-driven process, where communities define
what they feel they need in terms of development, and where participatory processes for such input are
institutionalized. Decentralization should not be viewed as a goal in itself, but as an instrument for
achieving more effective service delivery systems, opening institutions to wider civic participation, and
increasing public trust in government.

There are compelling reasons for DMCs to pursue decentralization policies, which, properly conceived,
will greatly improve the management of urban areas and support the better delivery of urban services.
The Local Government Code (1991) in the Philippines, the Decentralization Act (1998) in Nepal, and the
74th Constitutional Amendment in India for example, are landmark pieces of legislation by which local
governments have been given greater authority, responsibility, and resources to implement urban
development projects. A prudent decentralization program should include

i. the simultaneous decentralization of responsibilities, resources, and autonomy;

ii. strengthening of local government capabilities, powers, and responsibilities;

iii. the collection and diffusion of information on local government services;

 iv. the retention by central government of certain functions for reasons of efficiency, such as
income redistribution and macroeconomic policy; and

v. review of city government remuneration, incentives, and career structures.

Three critical types of coordination are needed to support the decentralization process. Policies are
needed to address the following:

i. Vertical coordination will remain important to urban management as central government will
continue to be responsible for the legal framework of the public sector and for various critical
functions. Responsibility for services should be assigned to the level of government whose
boundaries best incorporate the beneficiaries of those services.
ii. Horizontal coordination will be needed among public sector stakeholders involved in city
development as well as public-private sector coordination. Cross-border coordination will be
needed where large contiguous urban areas are composed of numerous local governments
(such as the Metro Manila National Capital Region, the Calcutta metropolitan area, and
Indonesia’s JABOTABEK, the Jakarta metropolitan area).

iii. Internal coordination mechanisms are critical to overcome poor coordination of

interdepartmental, sectoral, spatial, and financial planning; poor coordination of service
provision; inadequate staffing; and unfamiliarity in dealing with private service delivery
companies. In addition, cities face many cross-sectoral issues such as poverty reduction and
environmental protection that require new arrangements for coordinated action.

3. Community Participation

Development programs funded through external assistance have often been criticized for having been
designed in a top-down fashion, dictating the kinds of activities that should be undertaken. Such
programs were typically not designed in consultation with stakeholders who would be affected by the
project, or worse, by those required to implement, operate, and maintain them. The following principles
support community participation:

i. Support and utilize participatory processes. Learning from past experience, current
development theory encourages stakeholder participation in community and urban
development. For this to work, people must be aware of the issues, and have the authority to
make decisions, act on them, and mobilize the required resources.
ii. Develop effective systems for communication, replication, and feedback. Participatory
decision-making processes, by design, require decentralized local governments that can be
effectively responsive. Inherent within these processes are systems for communication,
replication, and feedback.

4. Private Sector Involvement

The introduction of market-based principles and private sector expertise into the urban sector can bring
a variety of benefits, particularly in larger cities.

i. Market-based approaches. The adoption of market-based approaches may allow existing

agencies to deliver better and self-financing services. In other cases, the private sector may bid
to operate a service, either on a contractual or an ownership basis. For example, the
corporatization of public sector water enterprises to allow more autonomy and better human
resources than local governments, can lead to improved services, increased operational
efficiency, reduced tariffs, and access to private financial resources. Similar approaches can and
are being applied in public transport, markets, and solid waste management in many DMC cities.
However, the possible problems associated with replacing public monopolies with private
monopolies in the delivery of services should be considered, especially in Pacific DMCs whose
market size is extremely limited.
ii. Training and familiarization for local officials. Whichever form of private sector involvement in
service delivery is decided upon, government officials will need to be trained in their new
responsibilities as a party to the contract. The contract will bind the private operator to provide
 services in which payment is by results, while the government retains overall regulatory
authority. A national statutory framework is needed as a starting point for contract negotiations
and must cover factors such as minimum quality standards and environmental parameters.

iii. Regulatory framework. At the local level, regulations will need to address the quality, price, and
required reliability of the service; the investment program; maintenance of assets; and rights of
access in the public domain. Risk assessment is another skill where public agencies will need to
gain understanding so that they can create an environment conducive to attracting the private
sector. Furthermore, in forging agreements with private sector providers, the rights of the urban
poor to enjoy equitable access to basic urban services must to be protected.

C. Policies for Mobilizing Financial Resources

A variety of policies are available to support the mobilization of financial resources, and to finance and
maintain urban infrastructure and services, including the following:

i. Promotion of fiscal autonomy. The catalyst for improving financial management at the city level
is the drive toward financial autonomy that encourages responsibility, efficiency, and increased
sustainability in funding urban services. In this connection, DMCs’ central governments should
allow localgovernments to retain locally collected revenue and to seek funding from a wide
range of sources, including the private sector. Increased fiscal autonomy should be accompanied
by regulatory mechanisms appropriate to protect the interests of producer and consumer.
ii. Computerization and automation. Increased autonomy should also encourage computer-based
accounting, cost control, billing and collection procedures; contracting out of services such as
infrastructure maintenance; and development of management information systems and
strategic financial planning.

iii. Market-based and economic pricing of services. Pricing policy will become more urgent given
the pressures on government resources and the increased role of the private sector. While full
cost recovery is the long-term objective, in the short term efficiency, cost reduction, and
revenue collection should be improved. Action needs to center on the establishment of sound
pricing policies, i.e., marginal costs must reflect the costs of additional capacity together with
those of O&M and the externalities associated with environmental damage. However, despite
the drawbacks, some element of cross-subsidy will frequently be justified as a last resort to
maintain access to services for the urban poor. More rigorous targeting of subsidies to families
rather than property will need to be encouraged.

iv. Direct cost recovery. At the same time, service quality will need to be kept commensurate with
prices to avoid the build-up of consumer resistance. For that reason, direct cost recovery
through user charges will usually be more effective than indirect cost recovery through property
taxes and similar levies. However, indirect taxes will remain important elements in the local
government revenue base. Property taxes in particular can be better structured to capture the
economic benefits of land, as being shown by Bank-assisted projects in Dhaka. 14

v. User charges and service fees. The adoption of market-based principles for pricing urban
infrastructure and services will also help DMCs estimate the incremental demand for resources
more accurately. Differential pricing of road usage, for instance, coupled with efficient public
transport, as in Singapore, will help keep the demand for new road space at levels that are
economically sustainable. Fees should also take account of maintenance costs; for example, by
adding a surcharge to water bills to help fund the cleaning and repair of drainage systems. Such
charges also act to develop pressure within user groups to compel local governments to
maintain assets at high standards.

vi. Land-related financial instruments. DMCs also need to examine different methods of capturing
some of the unearned gains in land values, which result from new or upgraded road
construction and other assets built at public cost; for example, through betterment charges,
land readjustment techniques, and contributions in cash or kind by developers.
 vii. New sources of funds. New funding sources including private capital are needed for DMCs to
meet the costs of infrastructure investments. However, many city economies will take time to
expand to a level where they can afford to employ private capital. In the meantime, they will
need to continue to rely on transfers from central governments to supplement locally raised
revenues. In turn, decisions will be needed on which taxes and charges should be controlled by
local governments. Other methods that can be used to supplement local revenues include
municipal development funds and other financial intermediaries, community mortgage
programs, loans for housing finance through local CBOs, and the funding of new infrastructure
through associated property development, as in Hong Kong, China and the Philippines.

viii. Capital markets and credit finance. Cities need assistance to achieve long-term access to capital
markets and/or direct private investment in infrastructure. Issues include removing constraints
such as the lack of credit ratings for local governments, addressing the lack of long-term debt
instruments such as municipal bonds, and assisting central governments to cope with the
required expansion of credit and understand the lending options for urban infrastructure
projects. The many examples of private concession contracts in relation to regulatory entities
need to be available to people involved in city finance.

D. Policies for Improving Urban Management

1. Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building

Examples of the Bank’s increasing support for capacity building are the recently approved loans for the
urban sector in India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka 15,and for TAs for governance in Dhaka and Bangalore,
India16. Across the Region, some of the priority areas to be addressed include training in management
skills, especially in response to the increasing use of demand-led provision of services; development of
expertise in performance monitoring; financing of investments; evaluation of development proposals;
coordination of spatial planning and sector investments; and an increasing use of community resources.
Key elements are as follows:

i. Define clear roles and functions. A fundamental component of improving urban management is
the appropriate institutional structure for planning, financing, and delivering services and other
functions of government. Responsibilities for delivery of a service should be assigned clearly to
one level of government, the corporate private sector, or the community. An underlying
problem is that policies for the urban sector are made in many parts of governments with poor
cross-sectoral coordination of policy making. In addition, the growing importance of the private
sector is placing new demands on the public sector, which is already short of skilled staff. It is
important for city government to thoroughly review responsibilities for service delivery before
inviting the private sector to participate.
ii. Promote government as an enabler, not provider. The public sector needs to adopt an enabling
role in support of the private sector. In an enabling role, the government sets policies and makes
choices in sector priorities; monitors private sector operations in service delivery; supports the
economic health of the city; and protects the community against threats to urban quality of life,
including pollution, congestion, overcrowding, and damage to scarce resources. An important
component of the new relationship is to encourage public-private partnerships in land and
property development, and service delivery. In many urban areas capacity building is crucial to
enable governments to fulfill their existing mandate, let alone take on the new skills required.

iii. Support for skills training and other capacity-building initiatives. The lack of skilled human
resources is a major constraint to developing the necessary structures for urban management,
particularly at the local government level. The relatively low status and pay, and lack of
incentives offered by most local governments is a principal cause. In some cases, as in India and
Indonesia, the status of the local civil service could be elevated to be on par with the national
civil service. In addition, public and private corporations can be created that often attract better-
qualified staff than government.
 iv. Promote regional cooperation. The problems of managing urban growth and improving the
competitiveness and livability of urban areas are common to many countries. Bringing DMCs
together at various levels of interaction, including the local government level, is a powerful way
to share best practices, cross-fertilize innovation, and promote new ways of problem solving.
Networking and cooperation also allows one city to learn from and prepare for problems
currently being encountered in another city, and for lessons learned to be shared and successes
repeated.

Building appropriate institutional structures for urban management is an incremental process. It is

better to have imperfect institutions that can adapt quickly to outside forces than to have rigid systems
that cannot. Moreover, even in small and medium-sized towns with few resources, a small group of
well-trained multidisciplinary staff willing to think innovatively and with strong community and political
backing can have a significant impact on achieving city development objectives.

2. Urban Land Management

Policies to achieve adequate land for residential, industrial, and other uses to improve the economic
efficiency of urban areas and to improve the quality of life for residents are as follows:

i. Improve the efficiency and transparency of land markets. The tools that can be used to
improve the efficiency and transparency of land markets include improved mechanisms for land
transfer (cadastral mapping, land titling, and registration); land information systems for the
benefit of private and public interests; deregulation of unnecessary land-use controls;
incremental forms of tenure designed to help residents in informal/squatter areas become part
of the formal city; and institutional and legal reforms so that land can be used as collateral. Such
policy and technical reforms can also contribute to improved property-based tax revenues.
ii. Rationalize the institutional framework for land administration. The framework for land
administration needs to be rationalized in the context of decentralizing responsibilities for urban
management. An example would be merging land development public corporations that
operate at the national level with local governments.

iii. Accelerate the delivery of serviced land17. The Bank will support capacity-building actions to
accelerate the delivery of land serviced with adequate access to roads, water, drainage, and
electricity. For example, in cities in South Asia DMCs with remaining public land, the objective
may be to treat land as an asset in an investment portfolio, i.e., to secure funding and provide
security for private sector partners. In DMCs where land is predominantly privately owned, land
pooling mechanisms can be tested and applied as part of public-private partnerships, using
techniques such as joint ventures for commercial property development, land readjustment,
and guided land development.

iv. Improve spatial planning and urban planning systems. Improved systems for urban planning
and regulation should continue to give strategic guidance on urban expansion and renewal
policies, and to address the externalities arising from land development such as pollution.
However, systems should consider the use of innovative approaches to planning and building
standards, incremental in nature, that also increase affordability. Other approaches may include
the use of flexible zoning, techniques whereby the private sector provides social/offsite
infrastructure in exchange for fast-track planning/building approvals, permissive systems of
development control, and innovative techniques such as land-use controls tied to environmental
impact.

v. Establish procedures for public participation. More effective procedures are needed for public
participation in decision-making on the use of land and location of infrastructure investments.
Planning processes should incorporate specific components and resources for discussions with a
wide range of stakeholders, CBOs, NGOs, business groups, environmental and other pressure
groups, academia, etc., as well as other public sector agencies. There should be procedures for
an iterative process of plan development and project implementation, using focus groups for
example. Mechanisms should be developed and put in place to ensure public participation in the
urban land management processes.
3. Urban Environmental Management

Policies for environmental management are designed to manage air, water, land, and soil resources to
(i) maintain their qualities and quantities at levels that are not harmful to public health, (ii) support
balanced ecosystems, (iii) contribute to the visual aspects of urban development, and (iv) provide
sustainable urban areas. Priority strategies include the following:

i. Stimulate demand for investments and policy reform. The demand for urban environmental
improvement can be pursued through (a) institutional strengthening, including the issues of low
willingness to pay, weak institutional and technical capability, lack of supporting policy and legal
frameworks, and the need to create a conducive setting for private sector financing; (b) pilot
projects to demonstrate the benefits of urban environmental improvement; (c) strengthening of
municipal financial capacity for environmental improvements; (d) increased resource utilization
as a project objective; for example, the incorporation of a sewage treatment project within the
overall water quality management framework; (e) campaigns to heighten public awareness of
environmental issues; and (f) promotion of regional cooperation.
ii. Address industrial waste management. Items covered should include hazardous and toxic
wastes, medical waste, and other nondomestic waste from industrial processes. Emphasis
should be placed on the development of economic instruments to minimize waste creation and
enforce due care by waste generators. Where treatment systems are necessary, development of
centralized systems should be encouraged.

iii. Manage domestic waste. Particular attention should be paid to the collection, treatment, and
disposal of domestic (solid and liquid) wastes in order to mitigate the health risk and
environmental nuisance. Minimizing the creation of solid waste should be encouraged through a
combination of economic instruments and public awareness.

iv. Control air pollution. Large cities should focus particularly on air quality monitoring systems;
vehicle maintenance; traffic management; and the introduction of unleaded gasoline, natural
gas, and other benign fuel technologies for domestic and vehicle use. In addition, TA and
institutional strengthening will be required to assist in developing appropriate legal instruments
and incentive frameworks, and in legal enforcement.

v. Strengthen urban environmental management systems. Strengthening urban environmental

management systems in DMCs will involve (a) promoting close coordination and cooperation
between national environmental management agencies and municipal governments, (b)
strengthening environmental impact assessment of urban development projects, (c)
strengthening the process of environmental audit, and (d) strengthening capacity for integrating
environmental dimensions into spatial planning and development projects in environmentally
sensitive areas.

vi. Provide for disaster mitigation. Government, local communities, and the private sector must
take a proactive role in natural disaster mitigation, including preparedness programs to help
people reduce personal and economic loss caused by earthquakes, floods, and severe weather
disturbances. Reducing earthquake hazards, for instance, can include better forecasting;
improved model building codes and land-use practices, development and improvement of
seismic design and construction techniques, accelerated application of research results, and
reduced risk through the use of post-earthquake investigations and education.

E. Policies for Reducing Urban Poverty

While the growth process in most DMCs may not have been as equitable as desired, it has led to
significant improvements in the living conditions of the urban poor. However, the benefits of “trickle
down” economic growth can not be relied upon to eradicate severe and absolute poverty in the next
several decades. Instead, explicit objectives must be identified and consciously incorporated in
development strategies to reduce the level of urban poverty. The key strategies are as follows:
 i. Implement integrated poverty reduction programs. Physical, economic, and social components
should be combined to have the greatest impact on reducing poverty, with a focus on improving
quality of life. Attention should be placed on improved access to basic social services, and on
related issues such as addressing the needs of vulnerable groups such as women and street
children. Infrastructure and service projects and pricing mechanisms should incorporate policies
to ensure equitable access to urban services at affordable prices for the urban poor.
ii. Improve access to microcredit. Broadening the opportunities for the urban poor to gain access
to microcredit will ensure that the potential business acumen for the poor is fully realized,
generating beneficial impacts in terms of economic growth and poverty alleviation.

iii. Strengthen gender equity. Empower women through facilitating their equal access to
education, health, job opportunities, land, and credit.

iv. Develop partnerships of local and provincial governments, central government, and
communities. The energies and commitment of the poor will be harnessed only if communities
recognize a general commitment to community-based participatory programs with real
resources and shared decision-making. Awareness building is needed to help engender between
all parties, the strong element of trust that is necessary.

v. Develop a policy framework. The direct approach uses the availability of land, employment
generation, human resource development, and population growth control, and relies on
programs aimed directly at increasing the incomes of targeted families. The indirect approach
requires the incorporation of explicit policies into growth strategies designed to reduce poverty.
The indirect approach has an obvious appeal to many economically hard-hit DMCs at present,
but will be severely constrained by budget considerations.

F. Policies for Urban Subsectors

1. Integrated Urban Development Projects

Given the necessity to retain a holistic approach to addressing urban development issues, IUDPs will
continue as a mainstay of the Bank’s urban assistance. However, such projects should be based more
firmly on institutional reform and have a clearer client focus. IUDPs will benefit from the following
modifications:

i. Incorporate institutional strengthening and policy dialogue. IUDPs should be developed

following or in parallel with a sustained process of institutional development and policy dialogue
in the participating agencies and local government units. Where commitment or capacity is
weak, related physical components will be reduced in size or eliminated unless commitment and
capacity is enhanced through dialogue and capacity building. Where poor capacity or
inadequate awareness is preventing the expression of demand in circumstances of clearly
demonstrable need, capacity should be strengthened and awareness heightened so that
demand will be adequately expressed.
ii. Select cities in response to demand. Candidate cities and towns will be selected only if the
potential beneficiary local government demonstrates commitment, and has urban management
capacity. Participation criteria should include (a) a staff structure and complement adequate to
undertake current.33 obligations and project activities; (b) preparation of annual accounts to
prescribed standards; (c) demonstrable financial soundness (e.g., an accumulated surplus, no
recent deficit, and positive net working capital); and (d) manageable accounts receivable.
Furthermore, continued improvement in management and financial performance should be a
condition of remaining in the program.

iii. Tailor the scope of projects. The scope of projects, though not necessarily the number of
components, will increase to reflect the new demands of effective urban management, including
reforms to the land and housing market, capacity-building in public-private contract procedures,
new roles for the public sector, the use of microcredit and skills upgrading for the poor, and the
application of management information technologies. Projects will include only subsectors that
will clearly benefit from synergies between components under the IUDP approach.
 iv. Develop long-term relationships. To the extent possible, the Bank should seek to develop long-
term relationships with participating agencies and local government units to achieve effective
improvements in their institutional development, including management reforms.

In summary, the changes in the approach to IUDPs should be evolutionary rather than radical, building
on the extensive experience of their use in DMCs, with the aim of generating as large a catalytic effect
on the urban sector as possible. Long-term relationships with particular towns and cities also lend
themselves to pilot tests of sustainable development policies, information exchange, cofinancing
opportunities, and demand-driven approaches to service delivery.

2. Water Supply, Sanitation, and Solid Waste Management

Based on the overall objective of providing equitable, cost-effective, and sustainable investments in
urban water supply, sanitation, and solid waste, subsector policies should include the following:

i. Increase institutional autonomy. Autonomy in water supply, sanitation, and solid waste
management agencies, should be increased through decentralization, devolution, and
community participation and responsibility. Public awareness of issues such as hygiene
education, water conservation, and
ii. waste minimization needs to be strongly developed. Where appropriate, private sector
participation under the direction of a regulatory agency should be encouraged to help support
the autonomy objective through management contracts, leasing, or concession arrangements. If
there are severe financial constraints on water resource development, concession contracts may
be most appropriate.

iii. Improve financial resource management. Improved financial resource management can be
achieved by (a) ensuring the utility has well qualified and trained staff appropriate to the volume
of funds being handled; (b) seeking independence from government subsidies, (e.g., following
Bank policy to restrict subsidies to piped metered water supplied in bulk to informal
settlements, even where residents do not have official tenure to the land); (c) giving priority to a
sound cash flow that allows revenues from tariffs to meet O&M costs, debt servicing, and a
contribution to capital investment; (d) reducing accounts receivable to the lowest practical
amount; and (e) ensuring the utility produces an audited annual report. Ideally, the financial
management of the utility will be guided by a government statement on tariffs.

iv. Use performance indicators. Improved management of water resources or solid waste can be
achieved if the utility uses performance indicators to measure unaccounted-for water, collection
efficiency, etc. This enables the utility to compare its performance over time, monitor the
performance of contractors, and compare its performance with that of other utilities. For water
utilities, leak repair, accurate measurement of consumption, identification of illegal connections,
and up-to-date mapping all contribute to reductions in unaccounted-for water. The Bank
strongly encourages water demand management through high tariffs to discourage excessive
consumption and supports the development of public awareness programs to help public
understanding of the need for tariff increases, water conservation, waste minimization, etc.

3. Urban Transport

Policies in the transport subsector should support the spatial and economic growth of urban areas, as
well as contribute to urban sustainability in general. Policy priorities include the following:

i. Maximize the benefits of transport infrastructure. Benefits of current infrastructure can be

maximized by (a) ensuring that roads and drainage are maintained; (b) providing for pedestrian
access and safety; (c) managing traffic efficiently; (d) enforcing driver training, licensing, and
compliance; (e) giving priority to public transport; (f) using traffic restraint measures such as
road pricing and parking controls; and (g) reducing air and noise pollution. Benefits of new
infrastructure can be maximized by (a) developing an effective road hierarchy, giving access to
underused land, and creating safe environmental areas; and (b) using road investment (and in
some cities using mass transit systems) as part of coordinated land-use/transport planning to
 guide city expansion into preferred areas, rather than relying on ineffective physical planning
controls.
ii. Establish clear roles for the public and private sectors. The public sector should be responsible
for (a) developing overall city transport goals; and (b) taking policy decisions on public funding,
tariffs, and environmental acceptability, as a framework for private sector operation of transport
services and the implementation of transport projects. Once such restructuring is under way,
the private sector is more likely to become substantially involved.

iii. Generate competitive markets. Transport sustainability requires generating competitive

markets, including competition between modes. Public regulation will be needed to ensure that
strategic goals are met, e.g., avoiding wasteful duplication of infrastructure, maintaining safety
standards, and monitoring the performance of privatized or contractual operations of public
transport services. A priority is to develop market-based skills and procedures among state-
owned transport enterprises, in some cases aiming for full corporatization with a mandate to set
tariffs, borrow, and determine expenditures. Prices should, as far as possible, reflect the
externalities of (a) the sector in the form of user charges (with social objectives provided for
separately through explicit subsidies to transport operators); and (b) the impacts of traffic
congestion, pollution, and road damage. In the absence of more direct charging mechanisms,
fuel taxation may be used.

iv. Develop public transport alternatives. Measures to restrain private transport will not be
effective without a high quality public transport alternative. Mass rail.35 transit (MRT) is a vital
long-term tool in structuring cities—especially megacities in the Region. However, experience in
Bangkok, Metro Manila, and elsewhere shows that MRTs will only be effective as part of an
integrated transport strategy that may take many years to complete. MRTs may not be viable
without associated property development, as many of the benefits accrue to people who do not
use the service and thus cannot be reflected in income. As such, MRTs are very suitable for
cofinancing. An interim solution, where cities have not yet developed integrated transport
policies and/or cannot afford the high costs of MRTs, is the use of high capacity dedicated bus
lanes.

4. Urban Housing

Bank operations will aim to improve the efficiency of selected housing and housing finance subsectors so
they can better serve the urban housing needs of the DMCs, particularly their low-income residents.
Policy priorities include the following:

i. Implement legal and regulatory reforms. Legal and regulatory reforms allow for better operation
of housing markets, for example by introducing simplified forms of tenure, procedures for using
collateral and noncollateral to access credit, more flexible regulations for mixed land uses, and
use of traditional building materials.
ii. Minimize use of subsidies. Cost recovery should be maximized and subsidies minimized in the
financing of low-income housing and slum upgrading. Where subsidies are necessary, they
should be transparent, up-front capital write-downs of the shelter package.

iii. Increase private sector participation. As part of the transition to an enabling role for
governments in DMCs, the private sector, NGOs, community groups, and low-income
householders should play an increasing role in the provision and maintenance of their own
housing.

iv. Leverage financial resources. Financial interventions can be substantially leveraged by assisting
formal housing institutions to establish lending windows and programs for community-based
finance institutions. However, to successfully lend to low-income markets, the Bank must be
prepared to program substantial amounts of TA to build the borrowing and operational capacity
of these institutions.

v. Restructure and refocus existing public institutions. Public housing institutions are in great need
of restructuring and refocusing and should expand their links with NGOs and CBOs active in
providing low-income shelter.
 vi. Support innovative low-income housing schemes. Innovative low-income shelter schemes could
have tremendous impact. They should be offered initially through pilot projects, using
combinations of community groups, municipalities, and/or the private sector. Closely associated
with such schemes are programs that, in addition to lending for housing, support income
generation.

vii. Assist primary housing lenders. Using such models as India’s Housing Development Finance
Corporation (private), assistance through loans and equity participation could leverage
significant funds to help primary housing lenders mobilize long term-capital for mortgage
lending.

viii. Support secondary mortgage markets. In many countries a number of primary lenders have
been established and a secondary mortgage market would be helpful in recycling primary
mortgage funds. Assistance could involve advice and expertise on establishing secondary
mortgage markets and taking equity participation to assist the formation of such markets. The
Bank is assisting India to develop such markets and insurance procedures.