CITY PLANNING

City planning is a process by which the growth and organization of a city is determined by some rational method. Roads, bridges, factories, and homes are built to take best advantage of the environment and provide a high quality of life. Even ancient cities were designed according to some sort of plan, some of which are quite beautiful and take good advantage of their natural resources.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and the United States, planners were concerned with creating monumental plazas, parks, boulevards, and other great public spaces. Paris, France, and Washington, D.C., with their notable plazas and great avenues radiating out from a central point, typified this kind of city planning. In the United States this impetus toward building attractive public areas became known as the City Beautiful Movement.

In the twentieth century, the concept of zoning developed out of a concern for the quality of life of ordinary citizens. Certain districts or zones were set aside for different types of development, with homes in one area, shops in another, and high-rise office buildings in a third. The impetus behind the development of zoning was a desire to shield urban residents from the harmful effects of pollution from factories, which were placed in special industrial districts. Thus, city planning developed into a complex process that involved economic, sociological, and political concerns, among others. Elements as diverse as race relations, traffic flow, noise pollution, and the economic well-being of citizens all play a part in modern city planning.