INTRODUCTION TO

URBAN PLANNING
 Rapid urbanization,
urban poverty and slums
 193,107 new urban dwellers are added to the world’s urban
population each day

 resulting (in the case of developing countries) in a new city the size of
Santiago or Kinshasa each month

 annual growth rates of 4 per cent or more suggests

that significant land and infrastructure development will have to
take place to accommodate this growing population.
 the bulk of these new urbanites will be poor and therefore will not
be able to meet their accommodation and service needs through formal
mechanisms.

 Governments will have to take the lead in directing service

and shelter delivery

 The failure of governments to do this in the past has resulted in

close to 1 billion slum dwellers worldwide. This figure is
expected to double in the next 30 years if no firm action is
taken
 upgrading of slums is a more expensive process than
planning ahead of development, there is no question that new urban
growth should be planned.

 Planning can ensure that slum upgrading programmes are

participatory.

 This requires identifying the existing and potential

roles of the various stakeholders, who include the poor, national and
local authorities, the private sector and civil society groups, as
well as the international community.
 a key role of planning would be to ‘assess ways in which the relative
strengths of each stakeholder group can be combined to maximize
synergies between their contributions’

 Planning can also ensure that slum upgrading programmes are

community led, negotiated and participatory in order to avoid
conflicts and safeguard the livelihoods of the poor.
 Planning will have to play a significant role in providing
alternatives to the formation of new slums

 cities need to apply the principle of planning before development

by focusing on the future needs of low-income populations through
effective land-use planning, and mobilization of resources
and capacity-building.
 First making land and trunk infrastructure available for low-income
housing in agreed locations, as well as the provision of education,
healthcare, access to employment, and other social services within
these areas.

 This would also require enacting realistic and enforceable

regulations that reflect the culture and lifestyle of the community.

 The second will entail leveraging a variety of local/domestic and

international sources to facilitate community financing and the
mobilization of local action.
 Sustainable urban development
and climate change

 The goal of sustainable urbanization is livable, productive and

inclusive cities, towns and villages.

 Achieving sustainable cities and contributing to climate protection

requires planned change to the way in which cities are spatially
configured and serviced.
Environmentally sustainable urbanization requires that:

 greenhouse gas emissions are reduced and serious climate change

mitigation and adaptation actions are implemented;
 urban sprawl is minimized and more compact towns and cities
served by public transport are developed;
 non-renewable resources are sensibly used and conserved;
 renewable resources are not depleted;
 the energy used and the waste produced per unit of output or
consumption is reduced;
 the waste produced is recycled or disposed of in ways that do not
damage the wider environment; and
 the ecological footprint of towns and cities is reduced.

Only by dealing with urbanization within regional, national and even

international planning and policy frameworks can these
requirements be met.
Economic sustainability of towns and cities should focus on local
economic development, which entails developing the basic
conditions needed for the efficient operation of economic
enterprises, both large and small, formal and informal. These
include:
 reliable in infrastructure and services, including water supply,
waste management, transport, communications and energy
supply;
 access to land or premises in appropriate locations with secure
tenure;
 financial institutions and markets capable of mobilizing investment
and credit;
Priorities and actions for
 a healthy educated workforce with appropriate skills;
 a legal system which ensures competition, accountability and
property rights;
 appropriate regulatory frameworks, which define and enforce
non-discriminatory locally appropriate minimum standards for the
provision of safe and healthy workplaces and the treatment and
handling of wastes and emissions.

For several reasons, special attention needs to be given to

supporting the urban informal sector, which is vital for a sustainable
urban economy.
The social aspects of sustainable urbanization includes the
promotion of:

 equal access to and fair and equitable provision of services;

 social integration by prohibiting discrimination and offering
opportunities and physical space to encourage positive interaction;
 gender and disability sensitive planning and management; and
 the prevention, reduction and elimination of violence and crime.
Social justice recognizes the need for a rights-based approach, which
demands equal access to ‘equal quality’ urban services, with the
needs and rights of vulnerable groups appropriately addressed.
 Climate change is a global phenomenon, but a deeply local issue.
Urban areas contribute to climate change through resource use in
urban activities. But they can also play a pivotal role in climate
change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

 Responding to climate change has important implications for urban

planning: steering settlement away from flood-prone coastal areas
and those subject to mudslides; protecting forest, agricultural and
wilderness areas and promoting new ones; and developing and
enforcing local climate protection measures.
 Ideas about compact and public transport-based cities are ways in
which cities could impact less upon climate change.
 Retrofitting existing car-based cities with public transport- and
pedestrian-based movement systems would go a long way towards
reducing fuel demands.
 It has also been suggested that cities planned in this way are more
equitable in terms of providing good accessibility to both wealthier
and poorer urban residents and overcoming spatial marginalization
 urban crime and violence

 While there are numerous social and economic factors that

give rise to crime and violence in cities, poor planning,
design and management are also contributing causes.

 At the design level, it is important to promote human surveillance

of public spaces and the design of parks and public
spaces so that they are well lit and well integrated with other
activity-generating uses.
 Large mono-functional areas such as open-space parking and
industrial areas are likely to be deserted at certain times and,
hence, unsafe.
 High blank walls and buildings without active street frontage can
also encourage crime. Mixed-use higher-density developments with
integrated public space systems are preferable.
 Experience has shown that it is important for safety principles to
be factored into all urban design and planning. For instance, in the
UK, police architectural liaison officers are available to advise
planners and designers.
 There are also advisory documents available at both national and
local government level, setting out the goals of the planning
system in relation to urban safety.

 UN-Habitat, as part of its Safer Cities Programme in African cities,

has developed a number of planning and design suggestions.
INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO
URBAN PLANNING
 Strategic spatial planning
 Strategic spatial planning emerged in Western Europe during the
1980s and 1990s partly in response to an earlier disillusionment
with master planning.

 But also due to a realization that the project-based approach to

urban development, which had become dominant in the 1980s, was
equally problematic in the absence of a broader and longer term
spatial framework.
To date, strategic spatial planning is more prominent in the planning
literature than it is in practice, but it appears to be enjoying growing
support as it :

 is responsive to strong civil-society (and business)

demands for involvement in government and planning;
 can coordinate and integrate economic, infrastructural
and social policies in space in the interests of a city’s global economic
positioning;
 can take a strong stand on resource protection and environmental
issues, as well as on heritage and ‘quality of place’ issues; and
 is implementation focused.

Strategic spatial planning often focuses on a process of decision-

making: it does not carry with it a predetermined urban form or set
of values.
It could just as easily deliver gated communities, suburbia
or new urbanism, depending upon the groups involved in the
implementation process.
The typical strategic spatial planning system contains a ‘directive’ or
forward, long-range spatial plan that consists of frameworks and
principles, and broad spatial ideas, rather than detailed spatial design
(although it may set the framework for detailed local plans and
projects).

The plan does not address every part of a city – being

strategic means focusing on only those aspects or areas that are
important to overall plan objectives. Usually these general planning
goals are sustainable development and spatial quality.
Strategic spatial planning also has a crucial institutional dimension.
Proponents argue that the actual process of formulating the plan is
as important as the plan itself.

It is an active force which needs to bring about changed mindsets of

those participating, as well as the development of new institutional
structures and arrangements, within and between levels of
governance, to carry the plan.
 Planning and Informality
Urban informality has generally been regarded as illegal and
undesirable.

Typical responses have been removal or neglect,

sometimes accompanied by grudging accommodation, underlain by
a desire to extend conventional approaches to spatial planning and
regulation to all urban land and property development and economic
activity.
Alternatives to eviction

 Often, public agencies’ preference is to halt and remove informal

developments and economic activities that do not comply with
plans, policies and regulations, as well as seeking to evict
occupants of land required for public purposes.
 Private owners use the courts or strong-arm tactics to harass or
evict squatters or unwanted tenants.
 Forced evictions disproportionately affect certain groups such as
women, travelers, migrants and indigenous people.
 Evictions also occur through market forces when the demand for well-
located land increases.
As some residents respond to rising prices by selling their rights to land
and property, it may become increasingly difficult for others to resist
pressure from purchasers to sell, sometimes at below market prices.

 International law now regards forced eviction as a human rights

violation and recommended governments, first, to consider all feasible
alternatives and, second, to hold on to good practice guidelines if
eviction is necessary
International agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank, as well as UN-Habitat’s Advisory Group on
Forced Evictions, specify that the people affected should be:

 consulted before the decision to evict is taken;

 given adequate notice of when eviction will occur;
 provided with information on the purpose for which the land is
required;
 provided with the legal right to appeal and legal aid where
appropriate; and
 provided with fair and equitable compensation for lost assets,
livelihoods and incomes
 A growing acceptance of ‘the informal city’ has been detected in recent
years. Sometimes this arises from recognition of the fact that informal
economic activities are vital to the urban economy and the livelihoods of
many urban residents, especially when governments cannot provide
safety nets to sustain large numbers of households above the poverty
line.

 At other times it arises from recognition of the fact that the supply
of formal public and private plots and houses not only falls far short of
demand, but is unaffordable for a large proportion of households, a gap
that is filled by informal settlements.
 In Turkey, informal settlements, or gecekondus, are tolerated
and have been subject to periodic amnesties.

 Publicly calling a halt to harassment and eviction of informal

occupants of land in public ownership immediately increases their
security of tenure, encouraging them to invest in their houses and
enterprises, and improving the prospects for dialogue about the
future of the areas concerned.
 In Thailand, most informal occupiers have rental agreements with
private owners of undeveloped sites, with the result that when an
owner wishes to redevelop a site, eviction is unacceptable.
 In some instances, on both publicly and privately owned land, land
sharing has been successfully negotiated as an alternative.

Under this arrangement, the landowner leases or sells part of it to

existing occupants, who redevelop their houses at higher densities,
typically multi-storey apartments, and develops the rest. The result is
that their occupation is formalized and living conditions improved.
 It may be necessary to modify standards to permit the owner to develop
more intensively than permitted by the zoning provisions and to ensure
that the replacement housing is affordable by existing residents.

 Inevitably, some settlements are in locations that are too unsafe for
permanent residence, while other settlements and some informal
economic activities are on land required for legitimate public purposes or
compete with other users of public spaces, such as streets and squares.
Regularization and upgrading of informally
developed areas

 Regularization and upgrading of informally developed areas is preferable to

neglect or demolition. Regularization implies recognition and provision of
secure tenure, while upgrading generally focuses on the provision or
improvement of basic services, although it may also involve replanning and
redevelopment to ensure compliance with planning and building regulations.

 Formalization of tenure is generally taken to involve the provision of title to

individual plots – the strongest legal form tenure rights can take.
 A 2001 to 2003 review of 3 years of upgrading informal settlements
in African cities found that early upgrading projects were ambitious
in their scale and scope, seeking to regularize tenure, invest in
infrastructure and improve housing.

 Over time, in recognition of the complexity of tenure

regularization, interventions have become more modest, focusing
on infrastructure improvements as a means of enhancing tenure
security and encouraging investment in housing, rather than tenure
security being regarded as a necessary precursor to other
improvements.
Influencing development actors by strategic
use of planning tools

 Construction of trunk infrastructure

This can be used to attract investment to preferred locations for
example, increasing the attraction of secondary centers within
extended metropolitan regions in order to reduce congestion in the
core city by improving links between them. For example, New
Mumbai was established in 1972 around the port of Nava Sheva, with
rail and road links with the city of Mumbai. By 2001 it had a
population of 1.5 million
Guided land development
Planning in advance of development is preferable and more efficient
than regularization.
 This requires an outline strategic plan that identifies the main areas
for phased urban expansion, including industrial areas and the
location of urban commercial centres; reserves sites for major
public facilities such as universities or secondary schools; protects
the areas of greatest environmental significance; and is linked to a
programme of major infrastructure investment, especially main
roads, drainage and water supply.
Phased construction of roads and water supply will, it is further
proposed, guide developers to appropriate grid superblocks, within
which detailed planning regulation may not be necessary.

Provision for Urban Reference Plans has been made in a number of

Francophone African countries, based on an urban grid of main
roads intended to protect areas for public use, provide a basis for
more detailed planning and prevent the emergence of informal
settlements
Land readjustment
If development is to occur within the blocks defined by a strategic
plan, a series of supporting activities and instruments that provide
both sticks and carrots to developers are required.

Public–private partnerships for subdivision to produce low-cost plots

are available, although much more experimentation is needed.

For example, the Social Urbaniser is a new public initiative in Brazil

that attempts to provide incentives to private developers to comply
with planning regulations by adjusting standards in return for issuing
development permission.
Working with informal economic actors to manage public space
and provide services

Innovative approaches are based on an acknowledgement of, first,

the important contribution that informal activities make to the urban
economy and their vital role in household livelihoods, and, second,
the right of informal entrepreneurs to operate in the city.

Most cities assign the handling of street traders to agencies that deal
with law and order, such as the police, resulting in evictions that
destroy or disrupt livelihoods and involve the excessive use of force.
Traders are generally willing to pay licence fees or user charges if
they feel that they are getting good value for money (e.g. in the
form of security of tenure, access to water and sanitation facilities,
and public transport access).

Once markets are recognized, services may be provided by the

market association independently or in collaboration with the
municipal government.
Informal operators, especially vendors(sellers), commonly share
public space with other users, especially vehicles, cyclists
and pedestrians. Because of their dependence upon passing
customer traffic, they are reluctant to relocate.

Limited investment can reduce conflicts and produce dramatic

improvements in circulation, hygiene and the operating environment
for enterprises.
The absence of a regulatory environment can be as costly to
informal operators as excessive regulation, so regulation is needed;
but it should be streamlined to increase the likelihood of agreement.

The incentives to comply must at least balance the

costs of doing so – for example, by simplifying procedures, reducing
or differentiating fees, and linking compliance to access to services
or other forms of support.
Arrangements for sharing trading locations can include space and
time zoning, including demarcation and provision of dedicated
trading areas in pedestrian areas and temporary closure of streets
for markets.

Thus, licensing can be used as an enabling rather than restrictive tool

that provides traders with rights to general or location-specific
trading on a daily basis or for a specified period, and the municipality
with resources to invest in improved facilities.
Informal operators are both users and providers of basic services.
Whether located in designated areas or shared public space, the
provision of services to informal operators (e.g. electricity, water
and sanitation) can support their operations, increase the likelihood
of compliance with official hygiene standards, and improve the
working environment for the operators themselves.
In summary, the key elements of policy to facilitate and manage
informal enterprises include

 supportive regulation and licensing;

 modest financial contributions by operators to pay for regulation,
space allocation and management and services;
 traffic, public transport and road management;
 planning and design of civic spaces;
 provision of sites for markets and small producers in appropriate
locations;
 provision of basic infrastructure and services;
 encouragement of traders’ associations;
 municipal capacity-building to improve understanding of the
economics and operation of informal trade; and
 participatory approaches to policy-making and management.
 Linking spatial planning to
infrastructure planning

Spatial frameworks should give direction to infrastructure planning

but have not been effective in doing so.

Housing and private developments have tended to lead, while

infrastructure development and spatial planning have followed.
Geographic information systems (GIS) and urban modelling have
been used to highlight key interrelationships between forms of
Urban development and infrastructure costs, and to feed
into decision-making.

A set of scenarios was developed to model the impacts of various

spatial development patterns on the requirements for
infrastructure and its cost, as well as to identify key patterns.
A cost surface model can be developed to predict the cost of
providing bulk services to

 new housing developments,

 highlighting the costs of peripheral location
 and enabling arguments for greater expenditure on
development in better located areas.
An accessibility model can be used to assess the need for facilities in
new housing developments.

These models have not determined development directions. Rather,

they are an input into development decision-making, and they allow
more informed discussion between various groups of officials, and
between councilors and communities.
 New forms of master planning
In some parts of the world, traditional master planning and
regulatory systems continue; but these instruments are being used
in innovative ways.

In Brazil, ‘new’ master plans are seen as different from the old ones
in that they are bottom up and participatory, oriented towards social
justice and aim to counter the effects of land speculation.
New urban master planning deals with the existing city to develop
tools to tackle problems like informality in just and democratic ways.

One important new regulatory tool has been the special zones of
social interest. This is a legal instrument for land management
applied to areas with a ‘public interest’: existing favelas and to vacant
public land.
It intervenes in the dynamics of the real estate market to

 control land access,

 secure social housing, and
 protect against down-raiding and speculation
that would dispossess the poor.
 NEW URBANISM
 Urban design movement originating in the late ’80s – early ’90s.
 Aims to reform all aspects of real estate development.
 Involves: new development, urban retrofits, and suburban infill.
 Affects both regional and local plans.
 Supports the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable,
compact, mixed-use communities.
Why do we need it ?
 Disinvestments in
central cities.
 Spread of placeless
sprawl.
 Increasing separation of
race and income.
 Environmental
deterioration.
 Loss of agricultural
lands and wilderness.
Root causes

 Changing household
demographics.
 Land consumption without
regard to natural features or
physical limits.
 Federal and state policies that
encourage low-density sprawl.
 Street standards are
insensitive to human needs.
 Zoning codes leave little room
for individualization.
 Charter of new urbanism

On a regional scale:

 Finite places with geographic boundaries.

 Fragile relationship between urban area and hinterland.
 Development patterns should not blur edges of the metropolis.
 Infill development should be encouraged over peripheral expansion.
 Revenues and resources should be shared among the municipalities to
avoid destructive competition.
On a neighborhood scale:

 Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian-friendly and

mixed-use.
 Broad range of housing types to bring diversity.
 Civic, institutional and commercial activity should be embedded in
neighborhoods, not isolated.
 Public transportation should be a viable alternative to the
automobile.
On a block scale:

 Individual architectural projects should be

linked to their surroundings.
 Architecture and landscape design should
grow from local climate, topography,
history, and building practice.
 Development must adequately
accommodate automobiles while being
pedestrian-friendly.
 Streets should be safe, yet interesting and
open to the pedestrian.
 Principles of New Urbanism

#1: Walkability
 Most errands
should be
accomplished
within a 10-min.
walk from home
or work.

 Pedestrian-
friendly street
design.
 #2: Connectivity

Interconnected street
grid network disperses
traffic and eases
walking.
 #3: Mixed-use and diversity

A mix of shops, offices,

apartments and homes.
Mixed-use within
neighborhood, within
block, within buildings.
#5: Quality of architecture
& urban design

Emphasis on beauty, aesthetics,

human comfort, and creating a
sense of place.

Human-scale architecture.
#6: Traditional neighborhood structure
Highest density at town center; progressively
less dense towards the edge. This urban-to-
rural transect hierarchy has appropriate
building and street types for each area along
the continuum.
 #8: Transportation

 A network of high-quality transit connecting

cities and towns together.
• Pedestrian-friendly designs that encourage the
use of bicycles, scooters and walking as daily
transportation.
 #9: Sustainability

 Minimal environmental
impact of development.

 Less use of finite fuels.

 More local production.

Benefits

 Less traffic congestion

and driving.
 Healthier lifestyle:
pedestrian-friendly
communities.
 More freedom and
independence for
children, the elderly and
the poor.
 More open space.
 Less tax money spent on
infrastructure.
 Planning implications of urban
economic context
Urban planning, poverty and slums

Planning can address the problem of slums and informal

settlements through upgrading programmes, which
entail the provision or improvement of infrastructure and
basic services such as water, sanitation, garbage
collection, storm drainage, street lighting, paved
footpaths and streets.
 economic growth,
 poverty reduction
 Environmental sustainability,
 reduce the health burden faced by residents, as well as contribute
to achieving the slum, water and sanitation targets of the MDGs.
Urban planning and inequality

Income inequality and spatial fragmentation are mutually

reinforcing, leading to segregated and violent cities.

Urban planning can also address the issue of inequality through

redistributive policies that give priority to low-income groups and
areas in the provision of urban services.
 The provision of schools, basic health services, water supply and
sanitation in poor neighbourhoods will, in the long run, contribute to
reducing the level of inequality within cities.

 In cities of developed countries, a key issue that urban planning will have
to contend with involves the spatial manifestations associated with the
various forms of social exclusion and marginalization that migrants and
other minority groups face.
Urban planning and economic uncertainty

After the economic crisis in the US all countries –developed,

developing and transitional – have been affected in various ways in a
relation less funding for state initiated development.

 need for governments to act in partnership with civil society and

private-sector actors – both formal and informal – on urban planning
issues.
Urban planning and employment

urban planning can play a key role in facilitating livelihoods through local
economic development.

Local economic development is a community- empowering participatory

process in which local governments, local communities, civil society, as
well as the private and public sectors work together to stimulate and
improve the local economy of a given area
Local economic development seeks to

 enhance economic competitiveness;

 to increase sustainable growth;
 to ensure that growth is inclusive; and
 to produce tangible benefits for participating local communities

a key component of local economic development is poverty

reduction
Urban planning could also create the enabling conditions for
employment to thrive by adopting more flexible land-use
management or zoning systems that allow for mixed land uses, as
opposed to mono-functional zoning that seeks to segregate
different activities.