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Megalopolis 10million-500million
The settlements grew into villages, villages transformed into cities.
1. Geography
4. Period of development.
5. Trade practiced.
Cities are physical artifacts inserted into a preexisting natural world,
and natural constraints must be respected if a settlement is to survive
and prosper.
Climate influences city form. For example, streets have been aligned to
take advantage of cooling breezes, and arcades designed to shield
pedestrians from sun and rain.
Cities must have a healthy water supply, and locations along rivers and
streams, or near underground watercourses, have always been favored.
NETWORKS
1. Every modern city contains an array of pathways to carry flows of people,
goods, water, energy, and information. Transportation networks are the
largest and most visible of these.
a. When cities were small, obtaining pure water and disposing of wastes
was not a major problem.
b. But cities with large populations and high densities require expensive
public infrastructure. American and European cities began to install
adequate sewer and water systems.
BUILDINGS
1. Buildings are the most visible elements of the city, the features that give each
city its unique character.
a. Residential structures occupy almost half of all urban land, with the
building types ranging from scattered single-family homes to dense high-
rise apartments.
2. City planners engage in a constant search for the proper arrangement of these
different types of land use, paying particular attention to the compatibility of
different activities, population densities, traffic generation, economic
efficiency, social relationships, and the height and bulk of buildings.
OPEN SPACES
2. Hard spaces such as plazas, malls, and courtyards provide settings for public
activities of all kinds.
3. Soft spaces such as parks, gardens, lawns, and nature preserves provide
essential relief from harsh urban conditions and serve as space for recreational
activities.
This gives variation in the extent of city planning, some being planned more
intensely than others.
2. GRID:
a. refers to orthogonal layouts.
b. Cities in which there is a formal and organized arrangement of
building and spaces.
3. DIAGRAM CITIES:
a. refers to inflexible cities.
b. Planned for the present as a precise diagram of some pre conceived
ideas.
c. Based on the single minded vision of some pre determined
individual or institution of how the world should function ideally.
City’s regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile. It was
based on the Hippodamian or grid plan.
The plan consisted of orthogonal streets, with sea being the main landscaping
element.
1. The main street known as CANOPIC connected the gate of the moon to
the west with the gate of the sun in the east.
2. It then extended eastward, along a road, up to canopus.
3. Orthogonal to the CANOPIC was the “StreetStreet of the SOMA”
SOMA
4. At the termination of these streets were dockyards or major waterways.
The major urban area was the city forum with city services, surrounded by
compact, rectilinear grid of streets, wrapped in a wall for defense.
To reduce travel time, two diagonal streets crossed the square grid passing
through the central square.
Sewage disposal, transportation, water supply was aided by the river flowing
through the city.
TOWN PLANNING OF THE MEDIEVAL
PERIOD
Early medieval town was dominated by church or monastery & castle of lords.
For protective measures, towns were sited in irregular terrain, occupying hill tops or
islands.
Roads generally radiated from church plaza& market plaza to gates with secondary
lateral roadways connecting them.
Castle was surrounded by wall & moat as a protective elements. Irregular pattern in
planning was devised to confuse enemies; as enemies unfamiliar with town.
Open spaces, streets, plazas developed as an integral part of site.Streets were used for
pedestrian while wheels were restricted to main roads.
CITIES IN 12TH AND 13TH CENTURY
The city of middle ages grew within the confines of the walls.
While the population was small, there was space in the town, but when it increased
the buildings were packed more closely and the open spaces filled.
Result was intolerable congestion, lack of hygiene and pestilence
When this type of development was proposed, the fast moving trolleys
of the late 19th Century maintaining speeds of about 30 kms per hour,
resulted in Linear Cities of less than 30 kms in length.
Central roadway,railroad with gridded slabs for houses and working areas on
both sides.
While designing one thing should be kept in mind that from every point of
the linear city, a new community could arise
The expansion of such a city is possible from any direction along the
communication channel.
New town could be added at an angle to the main line, where topography
permits.
Soria Y Mata neglected the influence of automobile on city planning.
The major drawback of this planning principle was that the city was not
zoned.
Also there was no centre or functional node thus the interaction between
the residents were less.
The city became monotonous.
Geographical possibility of
spreading in all directions.
Site leveled.
PLANNING OF COPENHAGEN,
\DENMARK
gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a
grid.
built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north-south and east-west
block was subdivided by small lanes.
Infrastructure cost for regular grid patterns is generally higher than for patterns
with discontinuous streets.
Street width (ROW) influences the amount of land that is devoted to streets, which
becomes unavailable for development and therefore represents an opportunity
cost.
Street length influences proportionately the amount of street components that have
to be constructed such as pavement, curbs and sidewalks, storm sewers.
Pavement width influences the cost by affecting the amount of materials and labour
required to provide a finished road surface
Modern city planning can be divided into two distinct but related types of
planning.
Although few have been realized in pure form, they have influenced the
layout of many new towns and urban redevelopment projects.
In his "Contemporary
Contemporary City for Three Million People" of 1922 and
1935 Le Corbusier advocated
"Radiant City" of 1935,
1. A high-density urban alternative,
2. With skyscraper office buildings and mid-rise apartments placed
within park-like open spaces.
3. Different land uses were located in separate districts, forming a rigid
geometric pattern with a sophisticated system of superhighways and
rail transit.
Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned a decentralized low-density city.
The roots of city planning lie in an array of reform efforts of the late
nineteenth century: the Parks movement, the City Beautiful movement.
The zoning of land became, and still is, the most potent instrument
available to city planners for controlling urban development.
The other important elements of existing city planning are subdivision
regulations and environmental regulations.
Businesses have been forced to reduce smoke emissions and the disposal
of wastes has been more closely monitored.