Urban planning

Urban planning is a technical and political process concerned with the use of land, protection and use of the environment, public welfare, and the design of the urban environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks. Urban Planning is also referred to as urban and regional, regional, town, city, rural planning or some combination in various areas worldwide. Urban planning takes many forms and it can share perspectives and practices with urban design.

Urban planning guides and ensures the orderly development of settlements and satellite communities which commute into and out of urban areas or share resources with it. Urban planners in the field are concerned with research and analysis, strategic thinking, architecture, urban design, public consultation, policy recommendations, implementation and management.

Urban Planners work with the cognate fields of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Public Administration to achieve strategic, policy and sustainability goals. Early urban planners were often members of these cognate fields. Today urban planning is a separate, independent professional discipline. The discipline is the broader category that includes many different sub-fields such as land-use planning, zoning, environmental planning, transportation planning, and Parks and Recreation.

Regional planning

Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. Regional planning is a sub-field of urban planning as it relates land use practices on a broader scale.

Nomenclature

Although the term "regional planning" is nearly universal in English-speaking countries the areas covered and specific administrative set ups vary widely. In North America, regional planning may encompass more than one state, such as the Regional Plan Association, or a larger conurbation or network of settlements. North American regional planning is likely to cover a much larger area than the Regional Assemblies of the UK; both, however, are equally "regional" in nature.

Overview

Regions require various land uses; protection of farmland, cities, industrial space, transportation hubs and infrastructure, military bases, and wilderness. Regional planning is the science of efficient placement of infrastructure and zoning for the sustainable growth of a region. Advocates for regional planning such as new urbanist Peter Calthorpe, promote the approach because it can address region-wide environmental, social, and economic issues which may necessarily require a regional focus.