MUM 210 Lecture Supplement - Module I

Urban/City Growth and Spatial

Planning Theories

DR. TERESITA N. VALDEZ-GALACGAC, Ph.D., En.P., CESO V

Adjunct Professor and Facilitator/Lecturer
.
OUTLINE

A. INTRODUCTION

A. THEORIES ON
EMERGENCE OF
URBAN AREAS/CITIES

C.THEORIES/CONCEPTS
ON SPATIAL
PLANNING
• INTRODUCTION
➢ Spatial is relating to space

➢ Urbanization is the movement of population from

rural to urban areas; transformation of agricultural to
non-agricultural economy

➢ City is a large settlement or urban area performing

generally urban functions with the use of modern
facilities

➢ Theory is an organized system of accepted

knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances
to explain a specific set of phenomena.

➢ In 1950 only 30% of the world's population was

urbanized and 50% in 2009 lived in urban centers. In
the Philippines, in 1950, 27% or 5 million of the total
population were urban residents, which increased to
53 million in 2005 or over 60% of the total population

HOW DO URBAN AREAS AND CITIES EMERGE?

B.EMERGENCE OF CITIES/TOWNS
THEORIES
1. CENTRAL PLACE THEORY
➢ developed by the German geographer
Walter Christaller in 1933
➢ explains the reasons behind the
distribution, patterns, size and number of
cities and towns
➢ Tested in Southern Germany with the
conclusion that people gather together in
towns/cities to share goods, services,
ideas/knowledge, livelihood,etc.
➢ Assumptions

✓ humans will always purchase goods from the

closest place, with unbounded isotropic (all
flat), homogeneous, limitless surface, with
evenly distributed population

✓ all settlements are equidistant and exist in a

triangular lattice pattern with evenly
distributed resources
2. PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY

➢ advanced by Paul Peterson in his 1981 book, City

Limits

➢ States that urban politicians and governing

regimes are subordinate to the overall economic
principles that force cities to compete to capture
new investment and capital

➢ The competitive nature of cities encourages the

business elite and politicians to favour new
development
C. THEORIES/CONCEPTS/MODELS
ON TOWN/CITY ARRANGEMENT
1. GRID MODEL / HIPPODAMIAN Plan

➢ Proposed by Hippodamus of Miletus who is

considered the Father of Rational City Planning

➢ The center of the city contains the agora

(market place), theaters, and temples.Private
rooms surround the city's public arenas.

➢ The plan can be laid out uniformly over any

kind of terrain since it is based on angles and
measurements.
• 2. CONCENTRIC ZONE MODEL (also
known as The Burgess Model, The
Bull's Eye Model)

➢ developed in the 1920s by the urban

sociologist Ernest Burgess

➢ The model portrays how cities social

groups are spatially arranged in a series of
rings.The size of the rings may vary, but
the order always remains the same.

➢ It has the Central Business District, Zone

of Transition, Zone of the Working Class,
Zone of Better Residence, Commuter's
Zone/Suburbs
➢ Shortcomings
✓ It assumes an isotropic plain
✓ Land may restrict growth of certain
sectors
✓ The model does not fit polycentric cities
✓ It describes the peculiar American
geography, where the inner city is poor
while suburbs are wealthy; the converse
is the norm elsewhere
3. SECTOR MODEL
➢ developed in 1939 by land economist Homer
Hoyt
➢ a model of the internal structure of cities
➢ social groups are arranged around a series of
sectors, or wedges radiating out from the
central business district (CBD) and centered
on major transportation lines
➢ low-income households to be near railroad
lines and commercial establishments to be
along business thoroughfares
➢ Shortcomings
✓ applies well to some towns only
✓ low-cost housing is near industry and
transportation proving Hoyts model
✓ Theory based on 20th Century and does not
take into account cars which make commerce
easier
✓ With cars, people can live anywhere and
farther from the city
• SECTOR MODEL
ILLUSTRATION
4. MULTIPLE NUCLEI METHOD
➢ This is an ecological model created by Chauncy
Harris and Edward Ullman in the 1945
➢ City grows from several independent points rather
than from one central business district
➢ As these expand, they merge to form a single
urban area
➢ Ports, universities, airports and parks also act as
nodes
➢ Based on the idea that people have greater
movement due to increased car ownership
➢ The model has four geographic principles
✓ Certain activities require highly specialized facilities
● accessible transportation for a factory
● large areas of open land for a housing tract
✓ Certain activities cluster because they profit from
mutual association
✓ Certain activities repel each other and will not be
found in the same area
✓ Certain activities could not make a profit if they
paid the high rent of the most desirable locations
• Modelling Cities: Harris - Ullman Illustration
• 5. URBAN REALMS MODEL
➢ Developed by James E. Vance, Jr. in the
1960s
➢ Each realm is a separate economic, social
and political entity that is linked together to
form a larger metro framework
➢ Suburbs are within the sphere of influence of
the central city and its metropolitan CBD
➢ New urban realms have become, so large
they even have exurbs, not just suburbs
• Urban realms method depends on overall
size of the metropolitan region, topography
and major land features, internal
accessibility of each realm.
• 6. CORE FRAME MODEL
➢ shows the urban structure of the CBD of a
town/city
➢ the model includes an inner core where land
is expensive and used intensively
➢ the outer core and frame have lower land
values and are less intensively developed
➢ various land uses are linked to the bid rent
theory
7. BID RENT THEORY
➢ geographical economic theory that refers to
how the price and demand for real estate
change as the distance from the business
district (CBD)is farther or closer
➢ This is based upon the idea that retail
establishments wish to maximize their
profitability, so they are much more willing to
pay more for land close to the CBD and less
for land farther away from this area.
➢ The amount they are willing to pay is called
"bid rent"
• 8. IRREGULAR PATTERN MODEL
➢ Arrangement of Public space that
characterizes the Transition from village to
city" especially in Third World
➢ This urban model is due to lack of planning or
construction and illegal, without a specific
order
➢ Includes blocks with no fixed order, or
permanent and temporary structures.
Structures are not related to urban centers
near the place.
• 9. HOWARD GARDENS/GARDEN CITY
CONCEPT
➢ Developed by Sir Ebenezer Howard
(1898).He analyzed the reasons for people to
move to city or countrywide
➢ Inspired by the idea of Ideal/Utopian cities
➢ Inspired works on model villages by Robert
Owen and model industrial towns by
Buckingham
➢ Comprised of Town, Country and
Town-Country interactions
➢ This concept attempts to reduce and solve social
problems
➢ The Garden City consists of different zones, street
types and greens
➢ The core center contains central park surrounded by
commercial, cultural and administrative zones
➢ To avoid problems which occur in city expansion, the
concept limits the city's maximum people population
➢ Thus a new city has to be found in a reasonable
distance so the cities are well-connected.
➢ Garden City is the most
potent planning model in
Western urban planning
➢ Addresses urban and
rural problems
➢ Source of many key
planning ideas during the
20th Century
• 10. GEDDISIAN TRIAD CONCEPT

➢ developed by Patrick Geddes, the Father of Modern Town

Planning

➢ First to link sociological concepts into town planning

➢ Survey before plan, i.e. diagnosis before treatment

➢ The Geddisian Triad looks into the organic relationship

between social, economical and physical environment.It
looks into the place of work, the people who work and the
kind of work.

➢ The sequence of planning is regional survey, rural

development, town planning and city design.
•
 11. CITY OF TOMORROW CONCEPT

➢ Concept by Le Corbusier
➢ He believed that people prefer to live in suburb
rather than a city
➢ Thus he concluded that the center should be for
commerce, surrounded by 2 belts of residential area.
➢ His concept suggested that the center of a great city
should consist mainly of skycrapers-exclusively for
commercial use and area occupied by these should
not be greater than 5%, 95% be parks with trees
➢ Surrounding the centre would be belt of rsidential
buildings in the form of zigzag blocks with "set
backs".
12. BROAD ACRE CITY CONCEPT

• Urban, suburban development concept

• proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright
• a planning statement and socio-political
scheme
• each family will be given 1 acre or 4000
sq. m. of plot of land
 13. NEIGHBORHOOD UNIT CONCEPT

➢ This concept crystallized from the prevailing

social intellectual attitudes for residential
development
➢ developed by Clarence Perry and observed by
Louis Mumjord
➢ principles include central location of school,
placing arterial streets along perimeter to define
place from neighborhood
➢ design internal streets to distinguish between
streets and for safety and aesthetics
➢ 10% allocated for parks and open spaces
➢ a community living within a city
14. HUMAN SETTLEMENTS CONCEPT

• The concept is termed as Ekistics which

means science of settlement
• Coined by K.A. Doxiadis
• This includes regional, city, community
planning and dwelling design
• He organized 5 ekistic elements: nature,
anthropos, society, shells and nehoorks
• Ekistics aims to encompass all scales of
human habitation & seek to learn from
archaelogical historic record as much as
possible, at total settlement pattern
15. MILE HIGH CITY CONCEPT

• This gave new direction

to living.This was a
concept based on vertical
living
• This explains that a tower
1 mile high shall be built
and all community shall
live in it
• The idea of this living
came so that the land
could be utilized for
greening purposes and
save horizontal space
 16. RIBBON/LINEAR DEVELOPMENT

➢ prevalent along roads

and railways where
settlements are built
for accessibility
17. Coastal
• settlements are
formed along the
coastal areas
(sea,ocean,river)
usually by fishermen
and those engaged in
trade
 18. SATELLITE DEVELOPMENT

➢ a concept in urban planning that refers

essentially to miniature metropolitan areas
on the fringe of larger ones
➢ satellite cities/towns are physically
separated from the metropolis by rural
territory, have their own bedroom
communities, and surrounded by inner city
neighborhoods
19. Galaxy
• characterized by
clusters of
development with
each cluster having its
own specialization.
20.Centric and Nodal
• urban centers are
formed with one at the
center as major urban
center and the others
as minor or nodal
centers
• re directs
development away
from the urban core to
the other smaller
centers
21.Radial-Circumferential Form
• settlements fanning
out from a given
center where points of
activities are
interconnected by
radial and
circumferential road
systems
Conclusions:

• Cities/Towns/Urban areas are results of frequent

interactions of people who come together for foods,
services, trade, ideas and knowledge, livelihood,
recreation, etc. in areas where land and basic services
are available. They can also emerge due to legislation
or dictates/influence of authorities.

• Any or combination of two or more of the different

spatial/urban development concepts can emerge in an
area and that can be applied in preparing urban land
use plans, depending on the physical, financial and
administrative capability and underscoring the
development vision and thrust/s of the planning area.
 end

Prepared by:
DR. TERESITA VALDEZ-GALACGAC, Ph.D., En.P., CESO V