Urban Planning and Design: Key Concepts

• Prepared by Arch. Ryan Christian J. Panapanaan, uap

Urban vs Regional

• Urban areas are defined by their concentration of buildings and infrastructure
• Regional areas encompass a broader geographical scale, including multiple cities and rural landscapes

Urban Planning vs Urban Design

• Urban planning involves strategizing the development of cities, including policies, infrastructure, and regulations; it focuses on the technical and political aspects of structure and policy
• Urban design focuses on the aesthetics and function of individual city features, like transportation systems, parks, and facilities
• Urban planning operates on a larger scale and with a longer time frame (5-20 years), while urban design focuses on places between buildings with a shorter-term approach
• Urban planning is strategic planning, while urban design is technical design

Elements of Urban Design

• Buildings
• Public spaces
• Streets
• Transportation
• Landscape

Elements of Urban Planning

• Built-up areas: residential, public and semi-public, commercial, and industrial buildings
• Communications: roadways, railways, airways, and waterways
• Road networks: arterial, sub-arterial, collector, and local streets
• Open spaces: recreational areas like gardens and playgrounds, land for graveyards and cremation grounds
• Public utility services: water, drainage, electricity, telephone, and gas
• Public amenities: post office, police station, petrol pumps, fire brigade station, and dairies

Urban Planners

• They assess market research to understand a city's wants and needs
• They work with land developers and public officials to plan parks and public buildings for the community's benefit

Urban Designers

• They use programs like AutoCAD, SketchUp, and GIS to develop blueprints for city parks and public building
• It requires creativity, artistic vision, and practical ability to ensure designs are workable
• Urban designers collaborate with landscapers, civil engineers, and more to create workable designs, ensuring the client's specifications are met

Human Ecology

• It is the interdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments
• Ernst Haeckel coined the term "oekologie" in 1866 to describe this study
• It integrates concepts from ecology like interconnectivity, community behavior, and spatial organization, and has roots in geography, sociology, biological ecology, and zoology

Characteristics of Populations

• Populations are defined by location, density, and growth rate
• Population size changes due to births, deaths, and migration

Population Growth

• Populations grow exponentially under ideal conditions
• Population growth slows or stops in the natural world, demonstrating "logistic growth;" the population size reaches a carrying capacity

Limiting Factors

• Density-independent limits affect a population regardless of its size; temperature, storms and floods
• Density-dependent limits increase as population size increases; disease, parasites, competition and predators

Human Population

• Human population growth is exponential due to the ability to eliminate competition, increase food production, and control disease

Humans and the Ecosystem

• Disrupting ecosystems can threaten biodiversity

Negative Human Actions

• Hunting
• Agriculture
• Animal domestication
• Urbanization
• Deforestation leads to a loss of biodiversity and soil erosion
• Overfarming leads to abandoned fields and erosion of topsoil

Urbanization Effects

• Increased runoff, leading to flooding and erosion
• Depletion of nonrenewable natural resources

Natural Resources

• Non-renewable: Includes coal, oil, natural gas, metals, and minerals that can be extracted once
• Renewable: Include air, water, soil, sunlight, and living things that are naturally replaced; human disrupt this

Natural Resources Conservations

• Conserving both renewable and nonrenewable resources is important
• Sustainable use uses natural resources at a rate that does not deplete them

Soil Conservation

• Soil needs to be conserved
• Cover crops are planted to protect against soil erosion

Conserving Soil

• Crop rotation
• Fertilizer
• Strip Cropping
• Terracing
• Contour farming
• Windbreaks

Conserving Forests

• Sustain-yield-free farming cuts down trees only in certain areas, leaving the surrounding areas untouched
• Reforestation replaces lost trees by planting new ones
• Forests provide wood and paper, prevent erosion, and retain large amounts of water, long time to destruction

Controlling Pollution

• Emission controls for cars
• Ban aerosol sprays
• Control industrial waste by treating gas before release and banning waste dumping in water and land
• Sewage treatment plants use bacteria to treat water before releasing

Restoring the Environment Actions

• Individual actions include: not polluting or burning garbage, changing products, driving fuel-efficient cars, reducing, reusing, and recycling
• Societal actions include: passing laws against pollution, fining or jailing polluters, holding public meetings and hearings about pollution, and giving incentives