We may believe our cities sprang organically from a thousand different plans, a patchwork of streets and districts. Yet cities that have been truly thought through possess a fundamental order behind everything we observe.
Urban planning is not simply charting space. It is the art of managing life.
Hierarchy is one of the central features of all thriving cities. Cities are never a flat network of identical roads, neighborhoods, and spaces. Cities must always feature arterial roads as opposed to neighborhood streets, centers as opposed to suburbs, and transport nodes as opposed to small-scale connections. Without such an architecture, no city would be able to accommodate the complexity that it generates without any one element being overworked.
Connectivity is the other key feature of well-designed cities. Urban places are the most functional when their elements fit together coherently and purposefully. There should be a smooth flow of people between residential areas, work places, places for services, and places for entertainment. In cities that lack connectivity, even a short trip can be turned into an everyday ordeal.
Land use planning is also vital. Cities are split by function; residential, commercial, industrial, and recreational areas, all with distinct characteristics. In the current day, there is a greater focus on mixed-use development, the creation of more open, diverse, and interconnected places which are capable of hosting multiple functions in one building, or at least one block.
Density is also important to think about. Cities that are too sparsely populated are wasting space and other resources, but a city can be too dense with an inadequate planning system, creating an unpleasant city to live in. It is in the equilibrium of these two forces that the efficiency and comfort of a city are determined.
There is also infrastructure which acts as the hidden skeleton of the city. Infrastructure, water, electricity, drainage, sanitation, internet, are the essential utilities that make a city operate. These systems are not usually considered until cities are created, but they should be incorporated into the earliest stage of city planning.
There is another thing which is often forgotten; time. A city is an evolving entity that will continue to develop and grow and change. Good city planning considers how an area of a city will look after a few years, a few decades, or a few centuries, not just how it functions in the present. It is in this way that good planning takes into account future needs such as demographic change, economic development, and environmental sustainability.
As a result, sustainability is a central focus on urban design in this day and age. In order to build sustainable cities today, urban planners have to balance a city’s need for expansion and development with the need for environmental responsibility. Cities must be developed with green areas, efficient transit systems, and low-impact construction techniques in order to have a reduced environmental footprint in the long-term.
These are all taught by UrbanPlanCore as a single system and not as isolated modules, which allows students to see how cities are actually formed and why they work the way they do.
Because behind every city that feels “natural” is always a very deliberate design.