Urban

Form/Pattern
PLANNING 1
City
 A city is a group of people and a number of permanent structures
within a limited geographical area, so organized as to facilitate the
interchange of goods and services among its residents and with the
outside world.
 The settlements grew into villages, villages transformed into cities.
 Cities created when large number of people live together, in a
specific geographic location leading to the Creation of urban
areas.
 Cities exist for many reasons, and the diversity of urban forms
depends on the complex functions that cities perform.
What is Urban Form…?
 Urban Form refers to the:
• physical layout and design of the city
• spatial imprint of an urban transport system
• adjacent physical infrastructures.
Jointly, they confer a level of spatial arrangement to cities.

 Urban form or city form defined as

‘ the spatial pattern of human activities at a

certain point in time’.
Types of City Form
 The Radio centric city
 The Grid Iron city
 The Linear city
The Radiocentric city
 Geographical possibilities of spreading in all directions.
 Radio centric - Radiate outward from a common centre.
 Inner Outer ring roads linked by radiating roads.
 Core has business area.
 Industrial area interspersed within the residential.
 Periphery has green belts.

Advantages:
• A direct line of travel for
centrally directed flows.
• Economics of a single-
centralized terminal or origin
point.
Disadvantages:
• Central congestion.
• local flow problems.
• difficult building sites.
Moscow, 1893
The Grid Iron city
 It is composed of straight streets crossing at right angles to create
many regular city blocks.
 This form is typical of cities built after the industrial revolution –
because only then did cities place such importance on economic
activity.
 A city grid iron plan facilitates the movement of people and
product throughout the city.

Advantages:
• High accessibility,
• Minimum disruption of flow,
• Expansion flexibility,
• Excellent psychological
orientation, adaptability to
level or moderately rolling
terrain.
Disadvantages:
• Requires flow hierarchies,
• Limited in its adaptability to
the terrain,
• Potentially monotonous
The Linear city
 Initially proposed by Soria Y Mata.
 Expand the city along the spine of transport
 The Linear City concept is a Conscious Form Of Urban Development
with Housing And Industry Growing Along The Highway Between
existing cities and contained by the continuous open space of the
rural countryside.

Advantages: Disadvantages:
• High accessibility, • Very sensitive to blockage
• Adaptability to linear requires control of growth,
growth, • Lacks focus,
• Useful along the limited • The choice of connection
edge. or of direction of movement
are much less.
Ecological urban land-use Model
 Concentric zone model.
 Sector Model.
 Multiple nuclei model.
Concentric Zone model
Developed in 1925 by Ernest w. Burgess.
 Cities grow radially outward away from a single centre.
 Different land uses are distributed like concentric rings around the
city centre.
 They are: CBD, zone in transition, low-class residential zone, middle-
class residential zone, high-class residential zone.

Criticisms about concentric zone theory

• Physical features -land may restrict growth of certain sectors
• Commuter villages defy the theory, being in the commuter zone but
located far from the city
• Decentralization of shops, manufacturing industry, and entertainment
• It assumes an isotropic plain -an even, unchanging landscape
Sector Model
Developed in 1939 by Homer Hoyt,states that a city develops in
sectors, not rings
 All land uses except the CBD form sectors around the city centre.
 The land use zones are influenced by radial transport routes.
 High-rental and low-rental areas repel one another.

Criticisms about sector model

• Low cost housing is near industry and transportation proving Hoyt’s model.
• Theory based on 20th century and does not take into account cars which
make commerce easier.
• With cars, people can live anywhere and further from the city and still travel
to the CBD using their car. Not only do high-class residents have cars, but
also middle and lower class people may have cars.
Multiple nuclei model.
 A model of urban land use in which a city grows from several
independent points rather than from one central business district.
 Apart from the CBD, there are several separated, secondary
centers.
 Certain functions require specialized facilities or sites, e.g. a port
district needs a suitable waterfront.
 Similar functions may group together for agglomeration economies.

Criticisms about the Multiple nuclei model

• Negligence of height of buildings.
• Non-existence of abrupt divisions between zones.
• No consideration of influence of physical relief and government policy.
• The concepts may not be totally applicable to oriental cities with different
cultural, economic and political backgrounds.
THANKS