Urban and Regional Planning

History

Planning has been going on throughout history, and it is tempting to explain it away by merely stating that humans have a natural urge to plan; it is part of humans’ organizational makeup. Historians and anthropologists have uncovered evidence of planning from the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome to the nation-states and mercantile empires of the 19th century; in America, from the Iroquois confederation to the Inca and Aztec empires in Mexico; in Africa, from the tribal empires of the Ashanti and Mali in West Africa to the Zulu Empire and the kingdom of Zimbabwe in Southern Africa; and in the East, from the early cultures of Japan and China to the Persian Empire. The roots of planning extend to the first emergence of structured societies at the dawn of human history. Indeed, the planning of common activities, in the sense of deliberate anticipation, and the development of strategies for action are evident in all primitive human societies.

Planned cities were at the core of all great pre-classical civilizations. Evidence lies in the layout of early Roman and Greek cities and in the civilizations that developed in the Indus River valley. Greek cities were based on a grid system layout, and they included standard elements such as a temple complex or Acropolis, a marketplace or Agora, and a recreational complex made up of an amphitheater (for theater and performances) and a hippodrome (for sports events and chariot races). Such was the plan for the city of Miletus, which was planned by Hippodamus, the father of town planning, in 480 BC. In North America, early urban settlements were generally preplanned in Europe before the settlers set off for the New World. For instance, Savannah, Georgia, planned in 1733 by James Oglethorpe, was inspired by the layout of London's residential squares. Each square contained 40 residential lots laid out on a modified grid around a central square.

In addition to the traditional role of designing a city's physical form, planning expanded in the 19th century to include slum clearance, urban renewal, suburban development, transportation planning, urban growth management, and environmental planning. Today, planning has become so complex that it is useful to categorize it into three forms: (1) substantive planning, (2) contextual planning, and (3) spatial planning. Substantive planning refers to the functional areas of planning interest, and specific types include environmental planning, health planning, transportation planning, and physical or land use planning. Contextual planning refers to the context of planning, and specific examples include comprehensive planning, regulatory planning, policy planning, and strategic or long-range planning. Finally, spatial planning refers to the spatial aspect of planning, such as rural, urban, and regional planning.

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