EVOLUTION OF

PLANNING THEORIES
Era 1 : 1945 to 1960’s
Era 2: End of 1960’s
Era 3 : 1970’s to 1990’s

Part A
 ERA 1
Planning theories f ro m 1 9 4 5 - 1 9 6 0 ’s
Physical planning and design of human
settlement – activities carried out by
architects and civil engineers.
 COMPONENTS OF TOWN
PLANNING CONCEPT
1. Town planning as
physical planning
2. Design as central to
town planning
3. Production of
blueprints plans and
master plan
 TOWN PLANNING AS
PHYSICAL PLANNING

11 Deals primarily with land – not

economic, social or political planning?
(Read article by Taylor, N. 1999)
 DESIGN AS CENTRAL TO TOWN
PLANNING
§ Town planning is a task in planning the
physical location, form and layout of

22 2
land uses and buildings - physical or
urban design.
§ The task of designing in large scale –
designing the whole group of buildings
and urban spaces- townscape; rather
than individual buildings.
§ Task of planning as an exercise of large
scale urban design.
§ Planning as a design emphasized on
aesthetical character and
environmental quality.
§ Main focus of the task is the beauty of
urban life.
 PRODUCTION OF BLUEPRINTS
PLANS AND MASTER PLAN
§ The main task of planner is to produce
plans – town plans, regional plans,
plans for village extension etc.
§ Plan- guide future development,

32
identify sites for particular uses.
§ Plan as a statements of “end states”
to be achieved.
§ U.K. Town and Country Planning Act
1947 – production of zoning plan :
• identify how particular sites were to
be used and developed.
• locate detailed alignments of roads.
• do not take into account on how to
implement the plan/program.
 q Town planning as an exercise
in the physical planning and
design of land use and built
form.
q Planning had not been
distinguished from
WHAT CAN architecture.
q Town planning was like
YOU architecture but on a larger
scale.
CONCLUDE? q Emergence of plans showing
the ideal urban situation and
arrangement.
q Production of blueprints for
future urban form.
q Visionary plans or designs
showing how the ideal town
/city should be spatially
organised.
 PRINCIPLES OF
NORMATIVE CONCEPT
1. Utopian comprehensiveness
2. Anti urbanism aestheticism
3. Highly ordered view of urban structure
4. Assumed consensus over the aims of planning
 Utopian Comprehensiveness :
1 Characteristics
§ Utopia – “nowhere”.
§ Construct an imaginary ideal world.
§ Example: garden city, neighborhood concept, radiant city etc.
§ Create an entirely new kind of urban settlement.
§ Plan towns as a whole or comprehensiveness.
§ Comprehensiveness was part of utopia tradition.
§ Presuming the whole scale clearance of existing cities, of large parts of them
to make way for the new.
§ Clean sweep philosophy of planning – starting from scratch.
§ Critics from:
§ Young, Micheal. 1957
§ Willmott, Peter. 1957
§ Broady, Maurice.1968
§ Glass, Ruth.1948
§ Jacobs, Jane. 1961
 CRITICISMS
§ Referring to the U.K. Town and Country Planning Act
1947 – production of zoning plan.

§ Detailed site specific land use zoning did not allow for
changes over time which affect urban development –
treated as “one-off exercise”.

§ Town planning should be conceived as an “on going

process” with flexible strategies.
§ Failed to understand and address the problems of the
real life cities.

§ Ignore the study of the success and failure in real life

cities.

§ Theories were grounded in very little empirical analysis.

 Anti urbanism aestheticism:
2 Characteristics
§ Referring to Garden City concept.
§ Emphasized on positive elements of countryside - protection,
conservation, containment.
§ Protection - preserving the traditional values of society and traditional
rural settlement.
§ Containment - restrict or contain the further growth of urban areas.
§ Protect the countryside from uncontrolled urban sprawl – establishing
green belts.
§ Assumed that large cities as a place of actual and potential social disorder
– crime etc.
§ Large cities are ugly places.
§ Countryside was a place on earth closest to heaven.
 CRITICISMS
§ Ignore cities and create new ideas away from
cities.

§ Showed little interest in examining how large

cities worked – failed to understand the intricate,
the complex and cultural life of the metropolis.

§ Their vision of the ideal settlement was deeply

anti urban and so excluded the large city.
 Highly ordered view of urban
3 structure: Characteristics
§ A desire to improve the quality of the physical
environment of urban areas:
§ improve accessibility within towns.
§ dispersed, low density pattern of urban development.
§ land uses were clearly distinguished and provided for
in separate zone.
§ neighbourhood conceived as village like communities,
self contained.
§ ideal city- neat, tidy and clear separation of things one
from another.
 CRITICISMS
§ City is a mixture of uses, not their tidy separations
which generates more activity day and night –
adds to the diversity and vitality of an area.

§ Cities created by planners are artificial cities.

§ Artificial cities vs natural cities (Alexander, C. 1965)

§ Natural cities are more interesting and successful

places than modern planned cities.
 CRITICISMS (Cont.)
§ Mixture of uses and activities in a town, which
implies overlap and complexity which make a
successful cities.

§ Artificial cities are based on oversimplified urban

form – neatly ordered cellular structure –
simplicity, separation and order.

§ Planners assumed that the layout and forms of the

physical environment would shape and determine
the quality of social life (physical determinism).

§ “Bethnal Green was anything but a slum – it was a

healthy close knit community” (Young & Willmott,
1957)
 Assumed consensus over the
4 aims of planning : Characteristics
§ Consensus was assumed – ideals of planning were in
the public interest.
§ Planners know what most of the people want and that
they want to live in small town close to the
countryside.
 CRITICISMS
§ Town planning failed to understand the effect of
planning to various social groups and conflict of
values and interests of social group.
§ Town planning failed to appreciate the differential
distributive effects of planning action on various
social groups holding different and conflicting values
and interests.
§ Town planners did not even consult the inhabitants
about how they would like to see their surroundings
planned.
§ The judgement is purely technical professional
judgement and planners did not think it is necessary
to consult resident’s views.
§ Town planners assume they knew best what sorts of
physical environments were unfit for the people.