How Urban Planning Works by WILLIAM HARRIS SCIENCE | GREEN SCIENCE

How Urban Planning Works BY WILLIAM HARRIS SCIENCE | GREEN SCIENCE Source: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/urban-planning.htm , Accessed August, 2016 The Roman Forum as seen from the Arch of Titus. See morepictures of famous landmarks. DAVE HUSS/ISTOCKPHOTO At the height of its power, Rome reached a population of nearly one million people -- the largest city of an empire that stretched from Scotland in the west to the Persian Gulf in the east. A city of that size required enormous planning, and Roman engineers obliged by taking into consideration a number of features that ensured the safety, productivity and well-being of its citizens. They provided systems to dispose of sewage. They built aqueducts to bring water to the city. They built roads to facilitate transportation and communication. They designed and arranged financing for baths, sports arenas and theaters. And they placed, at the heart of the city, a forum where Romans of every class and distinction could gather to socialize, worship and conduct business. 1 Although ancient Rome finally collapsed, the principles of municipal planning that made the city so splendid and powerful lived on. As other cities grew, they also had to address the myriad problems that arose whenever a large number of people crowded into a relatively small amount of space. Over time, the development process cities undertook -- a process that led to solutions for habitation, communication, education, transportation and more -- became known as urban planning. And the people who guided the work became known as urban planners. Today, urban planning is one of the most important occupations when you consider how much of the world's population lives in cities and their surrounding areas. In 1800, a little more than 2 percent of the world's population lived in urban areas. By 1900, that number had grown to 45 percent. And by 2010, it is expected to grow to 51.3 percent, according to the United Nations [source: ScienceDaily]. Clearly, effective urban planning will be critical to the success of our planet. But what exactly is it? That's the question this article will answer. We'll look closely at what urban planning is, how long it's been around, what it entails and who provides the services in most cities and towns. We'll also explore the future of urban planning to understand how municipal planning principles used today may be incorporated into cities of the future, including cities that could exist on the moon or Mars. But before we travel into outer space, let's go back to Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century. City Beautiful The Administration Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where Daniel Hudson Burnham's City Beautiful movement made its debut. STOCK MONTAGE/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES 2 To understand Chicago of the early 1900s, consider this observation from Truesdale Marshall, the protagonist of Henry Blake Fuller's novel, "With the Procession:" "[Chicago is a] hideous monster … so pitifully grotesque, gruesome, appalling." Many people, foreigners and Americans alike, felt the same way about most cities in America. By 1910, many cities contained one million residents, but few planned properly for such a population explosion. As a result, cities developed in an ad hoc fashion. This made them shapeless, inefficient and, in many cases, dangerous. Daniel Hudson Burnham, a Chicago architect, began to address these issues in an approach to urban planning that would become known as the City Beautiful movement. City Beautiful was characterized by the belief that if you improved form, function would follow. In other words, an attractive city would perform better than an unattractive one. Beauty came from what Burnham called "municipal art" -- magnificent parks, highly designed buildings, wide boulevards, and public gathering places adorned with fountains and monuments. Such beautiful additions to the cityscape could not directly address perceived social ills, but they could, at least in Burnham's thinking, indirectly improve social problems by enhancing the urban environment. Burnham first displayed the City Beautiful principles at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His dream city, known as White City, featured large-scale monuments, electric lights and state-of-the-art transport systems. It also removed all visible signs of poverty so that the roughly 27 million visitors who streamed through the exhibition witnessed a true urban utopia. Burnham then applied City Beautiful ideas to several city designs between 1902 and 1905. He directed plans for Washington, D.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; Manila; and San Francisco, Calif., But the culmination of the movement came in 1906 when Burnham teamed up with Edward Bennett to prepare the Plan of Chicago, the first comprehensive plan for controlled growth of an American city. The Plan encompassed the development of Chicago within a 60-mile radius and called for a double-decker boulevard to better accommodate commercial and regular traffic, straightening of the Chicago River, consolidation of competing rail lines and an integrated park system that encompassed a 20-mile park area along Lake Michigan. Some of these features, such as the twin-level roadway, were firsts in any city, anywhere in the world. 3 Although the City Beautiful movement was revolutionary in America, it drew upon urban planning ideas used for many years in Europe. In particular, Burnham used Paris as a successful model of urban planning. Planning of Paris began in earnest in the 1600s during the reign of Louis XIV when architects used great foresight to build squares, parks and avenues in areas that were barely settled. As Paris increased its population, it was able to grow into its design. Then, in another era of notable development beginning in the 1850s, Georges Eugéne Haussmann, appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte, began reworking the city, making it more suitable and attractive for the vast numbers of visitors, merchants, manufacturers and residents who filled the city. Burnham also recognized the contribution of the ancient planners responsible for Athens and Rome, as well as the planning tradition that went back for centuries. In the next section, we'll look at how this tradition manifests itself today in the hands of modern planners. Urban Planning Basics Coastal cities, such as Miami, enjoy certain advantages by having access to the ocean. They also face certain challenges, including exposure to hurricanes. HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES The goal of planning is to guide the development of a city or town so that it furthers the welfare of its current and future residents by creating convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient and attractive environments. Most urban planners work in existing communities, but some help develop communities -- known as 4 new towns, new cities or planned communities -- from scratch. Either way, urban planners must consider three key aspects of a city as they map out their programs: The physical environment: A city's physical environment includes its location, its climate and its proximity to sources of food and water. Because drinking water is so crucial, many cities are founded at the head of a river or at the fall line, the point where rivers descend from the regions of older, harder rocks toward the softer sediments of the coastal plain. The rapids that often form at the fall line mark ideal locations for towns and villages to evolve. Coastal cities also have a great advantage in that their accessibility positions them to become important trading centers. Planners must often consider an area's geologic history to understand the full character of a city. For example, the physical environment of New York City and the surrounding region reflects the culmination of a billion years of geologic activity. Over this great span of time, mountain ranges formed and were worn away. Seaways came and went. Most recently, episodes of continental glaciation covered the area with ice sheets that eventually retreated. All of this activity makes New York City what it is today and affects how it might change in the future. The social environment: The social environment includes the groups to which a city's residents belong, the neighborhoods in which they live, the organization of its workplaces, and the policies created to impose order. One of the biggest issues in most cities is the inequitable distribution of resources. For example, more than 50 percent of the population of Mumbai and New Delhi (cities in India) live in slums, while in Lagos and Nairobi (cities in Africa), more than 60 percent of households aren't connected to water [source: United Nations Human Settlements Programme]. As a result, the social environment can be a risk factor for disease and mortality as much as individual risk factors. Planners work with local authorities to make sure residents are not excluded from the benefits of urbanization as a result of physical, social or economic barriers. The economic environment: All cities work hard to support the retention and expansion of existing local businesses. Primary employers, such as manufacturing as well as research and development companies, retail businesses, universities, federal labs, local government, cultural institutions, 5 and departments of tourism all play strong roles in a city's economy. The programs of an urban planner should encourage partnerships among public agencies, private companies and nonprofit organizations; foster innovation and competitiveness; provide development

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