Urban planning

Urban planning designs settlements, from the smallest towns to the largest cities. Shown here is Hong
Kong from Western District overlooking Kowloon, which are separated by the Victoria Harbour.

Urban, city, and town planning integrates land use planning and transportation planning to improve the
built, economic and social environments of communities. Regional planning deals with a still larger
environment, at a less detailed level.

Urban planning can include urban renewal, by adapting urban planning methods to existing cities
suffering from decay and lack of investment.

Collaborative planning in the United States

Collaborative planning arose in the US in response to the inadequacy of traditional public participation
techniques to provide real opportunities for the public to make decisions affecting their communities.
Collaborative planning is a method designed to empower stakeholders by elevating them to the level of
decision-makers through direct engagement and dialogue between stakeholders and public agencies, to
solicit ideas, active involvement, and participation in the community planning process. Active public
involvement can help planners achieve better outcomes by making them aware of the public’s needs
and preferences and by using local knowledge to inform projects. When properly administered,
collaboration can result in more meaningful participation and better, more creative outcomes to
persistent problems than can traditional participation methods. It enables planners to make decisions
that reflect community needs and values, it fosters faith in the wisdom and utility of the resulting
project, and the community is given a personal stake in its success.
Experiences in Portland and Seattle have demonstrated that successful collaborative planning depends
on a number of interrelated factors: the process must be truly inclusive, with all stakeholders and
affected groups invited to the table; the community must have final decision-making authority; full
government commitment (of both financial and intellectual resources) must be manifest; participants
should be given clear objectives by planning staff, who facilitate the process by providing guidance,
consultancy, expert opinions, and research; and facilitators should be trained in conflict resolution and
community organization.

Aspects

Aesthetics

Towns and cities have been planned with aesthetics in mind. Here in Bath, England, 18th-century private
sector development was designed to appear attractive.

In developed countries, there has been a backlash against excessive human-made clutter in the visual
environment, such as signposts, signs, and hoardings. Other issues that generate strong debate among
urban designers are tensions between peripheral growth, housing density and new settlements. There
are also debates about the mixing tenures and land uses, versus distinguishing geographic zones where
different uses dominate. Regardless, all successful urban planning considers urban character, local
identity, respects heritage, pedestrians, traffic, utilities and natural hazards.

Planners can help manage the growth of cities, applying tools like zoning and growth management to
manage the uses of land. Historically, many of the cities now thought the most beautiful are the result of
dense, long lasting systems of prohibitions and guidance about building sizes, uses and features. These
allowed substantial freedoms, yet enforce styles, safety, and often materials in practical ways. Many
conventional planning techniques are being repackaged using the contemporary term smart growth.
There are some cities that have been planned from conception, and while the results often don't turn
out quite as planned, evidence of the initial plan often remains.

Safety

The medieval walled city of Carcassonne in France is built upon high ground to provide maximum
protection from attackers.

Historically within the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the Old World, settlements were
located on higher ground (for defense) and close to fresh water sources. Cities have often grown onto
coastal and flood plains at risk of floods and storm surges. Urban planners must consider these threats.
If the dangers can be localised then the affected regions can be made into parkland or green belt, often
with the added benefit of open space provision.

Extreme weather, flood, or other emergencies can often be greatly mitigated with

secure emergency evacuation routes and emergency operations centres. These are relatively
inexpensive and unintrusive, and many consider them a reasonable precaution for any urban space.
Many cities will also have planned, built safety features, such as levees, retaining walls, and shelters.

In recent years, practitioners have also been expected to maximize the accessibility of an area to people
with different abilities, practicing the notion of "inclusive design," to anticipate criminal behaviour and
consequently to "design-out crime" and to consider "traffic calming" or "pedestrianisation" as ways of
making urban life more pleasant.

Some city planners try to control criminality with structures designed from theories such
as socio-architecture or environmental determinism. Refer to Foucault and the Encyclopedia of the
Prison System for more details. These theories say that an urban environment can influence individuals'
obedience to social rules and level of power. The theories often say that psychological pressure develops
in more densely developed, unadorned areas. This stress causes some crimes and some use of illegal
drugs. The antidote is usually more individual space and better, more beautiful design in place
of functionalism.[citation needed]

Oscar Newman’s defensible space theory cites the modernist housing projects of the 1960s as
an example of environmental determinism, where large blocks of flats are surrounded by shared and
disassociated public areas, which are hard for residents to identify with. As those on lower incomes
cannot hire others to maintain public space such as security guards or grounds keepers, and because no
individual feels personally responsible, there was a general deterioration of public space leading to a
sense of alienation and social disorder.

Jane Jacobs is another notable environmental determinist and is associated with the "eyes on
the street" concept. By improving ‘natural surveillance’ of shared land and facilities of nearby residents
by literally increasing the number of people who can see it, and increasing the familiarity of residents, as
a collective, residents can more easily detect undesirable or criminal behavior. However, this is not a
new concept. This was prevalent throughout the middle eastern world during the time of Mohamad. It
was not only reflected in the general structure of the outside of the home but also the inside. (refer to
various religious texts and archaeological sites)

The "broken-windows" theory argues that small indicators of neglect, such as broken windows

and unkempt lawns, promote a feeling that an area is in a state of decay. Anticipating decay, people
likewise fail to maintain their own properties. The theory suggests that abandonment causes crime,
rather than crime causing abandonment.

Some planning methods might help an elite group to control ordinary citizens. Haussmann's
renovation of Paris created a system of wide boulevards which prevented the construction of barricades
in the streets and eased the movement of military troops. In Rome, the Fascists in the 1930s created ex
novo many new suburbs in order to concentrate criminals and poorer classes away from the elegant
town.

Other social theories point out that in Britain and most countries since the 18th century, the
transformation of societies from rural agriculture to industry caused a difficult adaptation to urban
living. These theories emphasize that many planning policies ignore personal tensions, forcing
individuals to live in a condition of perpetual extraneity to their cities. Many people therefore lack the
comfort of feeling "at home" when at home. Often these theorists seek a reconsideration of commonly
used "standards" that rationalize the outcomes of a free (relatively unregulated) market.

Slums

The rapid urbanization of the last century caused more slums in the major cities of the world,
particularly in developing countries. Planning resources and strategies are needed to address the
problems of slum development. Many planners are calling for slum improvement, particularly
the Commonwealth Association of Planners.[26] When urban planners work on slums, they must cope
with racial and cultural differences to ensure that racial steering does not occur.

Slum were often "fixed" by clearance. However, more creative solutions are beginning to emerge such
as Nairobi's "Camp of Fire" program, where established slum-dwellers promise to build proper houses,
schools, and community centers without government money, in return for land on which they have
been illegally squatting on for 30 years. The "Camp of Fire" program is one of many similar projects
initiated by Slum Dwellers International, which has programs in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Decay

Urban decay is a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of disrepair and
neglect. It is characterized by depopulation, economic restructuring, property abandonment,
high unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and desolate urban
landscapes.

During the 1970s and 1980s, urban decay was often associated with central areas of cities
in North America and Europe. During this time, changes in global economies, demographics,
transportation, and policies fostered urban decay. [28] Many planners spoke of "white flight" during this
time. This pattern was different than the pattern of "outlying slums" and "suburban ghettos" found in
many cities outside of North America and Western Europe, where central urban areas actually had
higher real estate values.

Starting in the 1990s, many of the central urban areas in North America have been experiencing
a reversal of the urban decay, with rising real estate values, smarter development, demolition of
obsolete social housing and a wider variety of housing choices. [4]

Reconstruction and renewal

The overall area plan for the reconstruction of Kabul's Old City area, the proposed Kabul - City of Light
Development.

Areas devastated by war or invasion challenge urban planners. Resources are scarce. The
existing population has needs. Buildings, roads, services and basic infrastructure like power, water and
sewerage are often damaged, but with salvageable parts. Historic, religious or social centers also need
to be preserved and re-integrated into the new city plan. A prime example of this is the capital city
of Kabul, Afghanistan, which, after decades of civil war and occupation, has regions of rubble and
desolation. Despite this, the indigenous population continues to live in the area, constructing makeshift
homes and shops out of salvaged materials. Any reconstruction plan, such as Hisham Ashkouri's City of
Light Development, needs to be sensitive to the needs of this community and its existing culture and
businesses.

Urban Reconstruction Development plans must also work with government agencies as well as private
interests to develop workable designs.

Transport

Very densely built-up areas require high capacity urban transit, and urban planners must consider these
factors in long term plans (Canary Wharf tube station).
Although an important factor, there is a complex relationship between urban densities and car use.

Transport within urbanized areas presents unique problems. The density of an urban
environment increases traffic, which can harm businesses and increase pollution unless properly
managed. Parking space for private vehicles requires the construction of large parking garages in high
density areas. This space could often be more valuable for other development.

Good planning uses transit oriented development, which attempts to place higher densities of
jobs or residents near high-volume transportation. For example, some cities permit commerce and
multi-story apartment buildings only within one block of train stations and multilane boulevards, and
accept single-family dwellings and parks farther away.

Floor area ratio is often used to measure density. This is the floor area of buildings divided by the land
area. Ratios below 1.5 are low density. Ratios above five constitute very high density. Most exurbs are
below two, while most city centres are well above five. Walk-up apartments with basement garages can
easily achieve a density of three. Skyscrapers easily achieve densities of thirty or more.

City authorities may try to encourage higher densities to reduce per-capita infrastructure costs.
In the UK, recent years have seen a concerted effort to increase the density of residential development
in order to better achieve sustainable development. Increasing development density has the advantage
of making mass transport systems, district heating and other community facilities (schools, health
centres, etc.) more viable. However critics of this approach dub the densification of development as
'town cramming' and claim that it lowers quality of life and restricts market-led choice.

Problems can often occur at residential densities between about two and five. These densities can cause
traffic jams for automobiles, yet are too low to be commercially served by trains or light rail systems.
The conventional solution is to use buses, but these and light rail systems may fail where automobiles
and excess road network capacity are both available, achieving less than 2% ridership. [30]

The Lewis-Mogridge Position claims that increasing road space is not an effective way of relieving traffic
jams as latent or induced demand invariably emerges to restore a socially-tolerable level of congestion.

Suburbanization

Low (auto-oriented) density suburban development nearColorado Springs, Colorado, United States

In some countries, declining satisfaction with the urban environment is held to blame for
continuing migration to smaller towns and rural areas (so-called urban exodus). Successful urban
planning supported Regional planning can bring benefits to a much larger hinterland or city region and
help to reduce both congestion along transport routes and the wastage of energy implied by
excessive commuting.

Environmental factors

Environmental protection and conservation are of utmost importance to many planning systems

across the world. Not only are the specific effects of development to be mitigated, but attempts are
made to minimize the overall effect of development on the local and global environment. This is
commonly done through the assessment of Sustainable urban infrastructure and microclimate. In
Europe this process is known as a Sustainability Appraisal.

In most advanced urban or village planning models, local context is critical. In

many, gardening and other outdoor activities assumes a central role in the daily life of citizens.
Environmental planners focus now on smaller and larger systems of resource extraction and
consumption, energy production, and waste disposal. A practice known as Arcology seeks to unify the
fields of ecology and architecture, using principles of landscape architecture to achieve a harmonious
environment for all living things. On a small scale, the eco-village theory has become popular, as it
emphasizes a traditional 100-140 person scale for communities.

An urban planner can use a number of quantitative tools to forecast impacts of development on
the environmental, including roadway air dispersion models to predict air quality impacts of urban
highways and roadway noise models to predict noise pollution effects of urban highways. As early as the
1960s, noise pollution was addressed in the design of urban highways as well as noise barriers.
The Phase I Environmental Site Assessmentcan be an important tool to the urban planner by identifying
early in the planning process any geographic areas or parcels which have toxicconstraints.

Tall buildings in particular can have a substantial effect in channelling winds and shading large
areas. The microclimate around the building will typically be assessed as part of the environmental
impact assessment for the building.

Light and sound

The urban canyon effect is a colloquial, non-scientific term referring to street space bordered by

very high buildings. This type of environment may shade the sidewalk level from direct sunlight during
most daylight hours. While an oft-decried phenomenon, it is rare except in very dense, hyper-tall urban
environments, such as those found in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, Chicago's Loop and Kowloon in
Hong Kong.

In urban planning, sound is usually measured as a source of pollution. Another perspective on urban
sounds is developed in Soundscape studies emphasising that sound aesthetics involves more than noise
abatement and decibel measurements. Hedfor. coined 'Sonotope' as a useful concept in urban planning
to relate typical sounds to a specific place.

Light pollution has become a problem in urban residential areas, not only as it relates to its
effects on the night sky, but as some lighting is so intrusive as to cause conflict in the residential areas
and paradoxically intense improperly installed security lighting may pose a danger to the public,
producing excessive glare. The development of the full cutoff fixture, properly installed, has reduced this
problem considerably.

Process
Blight may sometimes cause communities to consider redeveloping and urban planning.

Prior to the 1950, Urban Planning was seldom considered a unique profession. Planning focused
on top-down processes by which the urban planner created the plans. The planner would know
architecture, surveying, or engineering, bringing to the town planning process ideals based on these
disciplines. They typically worked for national or local governments.

Changes to the planning process Strategic Urban Planning over past decades have witnessed the
metamorphosis of the role of the urban planner in the planning process. More citizens calling
for democratic planning & development processes have played a huge role in allowing the public to
make important decisions as part of the planning process. Community organizers and social workers are
now very involved in planning from the grassroots level. The term advocacy planning was coined by Paul
Davidoff in his influential 1965 paper, "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning" which acknowledged the
political nature of planning and urged planners to acknowledge that their actions are not value-neutral
and encouraged minority and under represented voices to be part of planning decisions.

Ozawa and Seltzer (1999)advocate a communicative planning model in education to teach

planners to work within the social and political context of the planning process. In their paper "Taking
Our Bearings: Mapping a Relationship among Planning Practice, Theory, and Education," the authors
demonstrate the importance of educating planners beyond the rational planning model in which
planners make supposedly value-neutral recommendations based on science and reason . Through a
survey of employers, it was found that the most highly rated skills in entry-level professional hiring are
communication-based. The results suggest this view of planning as a communicative discourse as a
possible bridge between theory and practice, and indicate that the education of planners needs to
incorporate synthesis and communication across the curriculum.

Developers have also played huge roles in development, particularly by planning projects. Many
recent developments were results of large and small-scale developers who purchased land, designed the
district and constructed the development from scratch. The Melbourne Docklands, for example, was
largely an initiative pushed by private developers to redevelop the waterfront into a high-end residential
and commercial district.

Recent theories of urban planning, espoused, for example by Salingaros see the city as
a adaptive system that grows according to process similar to those of plants. They say that urban
planning should thus take its cues from such natural processes.  Such theories also
advocate participation by inhabitants in the design of the urban environment, as opposed to simply
leaving all development to large-scale construction firms.

In the process of creating an urban plan or urban design, carrier-infill is one mechanism of
spatial organization in which the city's figure and ground components are considered separately. The
urban figure, namely buildings, are represented as total possible building volumes, which are left to be
designed by architects in following stages. The urban ground, namely in-between spaces and open
areas, are designed to a higher level of detail. The carrier-infill approach is defined by an urban design
performing as the carrying structure that creates the shape and scale of the spaces, including future
building volumes that are then infilled by architects' designs. The contents of the carrier structure may
include street pattern, landscape architecture, open space, waterways, and other infrastructure. The
infill structure may contain zoning, building codes, quality guidelines, and Solar Access based upon
a solar envelope.[39][40] Carrier-Infill urban design is differentiated from complete urban design, such as in
the monumental axis of Brasília, in which the urban design and architecture were created together.

In carrier-infill urban design or urban planning, the negative space of the city, including
landscape, open space, and infrastructure is designed in detail. The positive space, typically building site
for future construction, are only represented as unresolved volumes. The volumes are representative of
the total possible building envelope, which can then be infilled by individual architects.
Urban design

Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and
in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a
disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times
has been linked to emergent disciplines such as landscape urbanism. However, with its increasing
prominence in the activities of these disciplines, it is better conceptualised as a design practice that
operates at the intersection of all three, and requires a good understanding of a range of others besides,
such as real estate development, urban economics, political economy and social theory.

Urban design theory deals primarily with the design and management of public space (i.e. the
'public environment', 'public realm' or 'public domain'), and the way public places are experienced and
used. Public space includes the totality of spaces used freely on a day-to-day basis by the general public,
such as streets, plazas, parks and public infrastructure. Some aspects of privately owned spaces, such as
building facades or domestic gardens, also contribute to public space and are therefore also considered
by Urban design theory. Important writers on, and advocates for, urban design theory
includeChristopher Alexander, Michael E. Arth, Edmund Bacon, Ian Bentley,[1]Peter Calthorpe, Alex
Krieger, Gordon Cullen, Andres Duany, Jane Jacobs, Jan Gehl, Kevin Lynch, Roger Montgomery, Aldo
Rossi,Colin Rowe, Robert Venturi, William H. Whyte, Bill Hillier, and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.

While the two fields are closely related, 'urban design' differs from 'urban planning' in its focus
on physical improvement of the public environment, whereas the latter tends, in practice, to focus on
the management of private development through established planning methods and programs, and
other statutory development controls.

Principles

L'Enfant's plan for Washington DC

 Gehl Architects' project for Brighton New Road employing shared space

Public spaces are frequently subject to overlapping management responsibilities of multiple

public agencies or authorities and the interests of nearby property owners, as well as the requirements
of multiple and sometimes competing users. The design, construction and management of public spaces
therefore typically demands consultation and negotiation across a variety of spheres. Urban designers
rarely have the degree of artistic liberty or control sometimes offered in design professions such as
architecture. It also typically requires interdisciplinary input with balanced representation of multiple
fields including engineering, ecology, local history, and transport planning.

egree of detail considered varies depending on context and needs. It ranges from the layout of
entire cities, as with l'Enfant's plan for Washington DC, Griffin and Mahony's plan
for Canberra and Doxiadis' plan for Islamabad (although such opportunities are obviously rare), through
'managing the sense of a region' as described by Kevin Lynch, to the design of street furniture.

Urban design may encompass the preparation of design guidelines and regulatory frameworks,
or even legislation to control development, advertising, etc. and in this sense overlaps with  urban
planning. It may encompass the design of particular spaces and structures and in this sense overlaps
with architecture, landscape architecture, highway engineering and industrial design. It may also deal
with ‘place management’ to guide and assist the use and maintenance of urban areas and public spaces.

Much urban design work is undertaken by urban planners, landscape architects and architects
but there are professionals who identify themselves specifically as urban designers. Many architecture,
landscape and planning programs incorporate urban design theory and design subjects into their
curricula and there are an increasing number of university programs offering degrees in urban design,
usually at post-graduate level.

Urban design considers:

 Urban structure – How a place is put together and how its parts relate to each other
 Urban typology, density and sustainability - spatial types and morphologies related to intensity
of use, consumption of resources and production and maintenance of viable communities
 Accessibility – Providing for ease, safety and choice when moving to and through places
 Legibility and wayfinding – Helping people to find their way around and understand how a
place works
 Animation – Designing places to stimulate public activity
 Function and fit – Shaping places to support their varied intended uses
 Complementary mixed uses – Locating activities to allow constructive interaction between them
 Character and meaning – Recognizing and valuing the differences between one place and
another
 Order and incident – Balancing consistency and variety in the urban environment in the
interests of appreciating both
 Continuity and change – Locating people in time and place, including respect for heritage and
support for contemporary culture
 Civil society – Making places where people are free to encounter each other as civic equals, an
important component in building social capital

History

Although contemporary professional use of the term 'urban design' dates from the mid-20th
century, urban design as such has been practiced throughout history. Ancient examples of carefully
planned and designed cities exist in Asia, India, Africa, Europe and the Americas, and are particularly
well-known within Classical Chinese, Roman and Greek cultures (see Hippodamus of Miletus). European
Medieval cities are often regarded as exemplars of undesigned or 'organic' city development, but there
are clear examples of considered urban design in the Middle Ages (see, e.g., David Friedman, Florentine
New Towns: Urban Design in the Late Middle Ages, MIT 1988).

Throughout history, design of streets and deliberate configuration of public spaces with buildings have

reflected contemporaneous social norms or philosophical and religious beliefs (see, e.g.,  Erwin
Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, Meridian Books, 1957). Yet the link between designed
urban space and human mind appears to be bidirectional. Indeed, the reverse impact of urban
structure upon human behaviour and upon thought is evidenced by both observational study and
historical record. There are clear indications of impact through Renaissance urban design on the thought
ofJohannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei (see, e.g., Abraham Akkerman, "Urban planning in the founding of
Cartesian thought," Philosophy and Geography 4(1), 2001). Already René Descartes in his Discourse on
the Method had attested to the impact Renaissance planned new towns had upon his own thought, and
much evidence exists that the Renaissance streetscape was also the perceptual stimulus that had led to
the development of coordinate geometry (see, e.g., Claudia Lacour Brodsky, Lines of Thought: Discourse,
Architectonics, and the Origins of Modern Philosophy, Duke 1996).

The beginnings of modern urban design in Europe are indeed associated with
the Renaissance but, especially, with the Age of Enlightenment. Spanish colonial cities were often
planned, as were some towns settled by other imperial cultures. These sometimes embodied utopian
ambitions as well as aims for functionality and good governance, as with James Oglethorpe's plan
for Savannah, Georgia. In theBaroque period the design approaches developed in French formal gardens
such as Versailles were extended into urban development and redevelopment. In this period, when
modern professional specialisations did not exist, urban design was undertaken by people with skills in
areas as diverse as sculpture, architecture, garden design, surveying, astronomy, and military
engineering. In the 18th and 19th centuries, urban design was perhaps most closely linked with
surveyors and architects. Much of Frederick Law Olmsted's work was concerned with urban design, and
so the (then-new) profession of landscape architecture also began to play a significant role in the late
19th century.

Modern urban design can be considered as part of the wider discipline of Urban planning.
Indeed, Urban planning began as a movement primarily occupied with matters of urban design. Works
such asIldefons Cerda's General Theory of Urbanization (1867), Camillo Sitte’s City Planning According to
Artistic Principles (1889), and Robinson’s The Improvement of Cities and Towns (1901) and Modern Civic
Art (1903), all were primarily concerned with urban design, as did the later City Beautiful movement in
North America.

'Urban design' was first used as a distinctive term when Harvard University hosted a series of
Urban Design Conferences from 1956 . These conferences provided a platform for the launching of
Harvard's Urban Design program in 1959-60. The writings of Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, Gordon
Cullen and Christopher Alexander became authoritative works for the school of Urban Design.

Gordon Cullen's The Concise Townscape, first published in 1961, also had a great influence on many
urban designers. Cullen examined the traditional artistic approach to city design of theorists such as
Camillo Sitte, Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. He created the concept of 'serial vision', defining the
urban landscape as a series of related spaces.

Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, was also a catalyst
for interest in ideas of urban design. She critiqued the Modernism of CIAM, and asserted that the
publicly unowned spaces created by the 'city in the park' notion of Modernists was one of the main
reasons for the rising crime rate. She argued instead for an 'eyes on the street' approach to town
planning, and the resurrection of main public space precedents, such as streets and squares, in the
design of cities.

Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City of 1961 was also seminal to the movement, particularly with
regards to the concept of legibility, and the reduction of urban design theory to five basic elements -
paths, districts, edges, nodes, landmarks. He also made popular the use of mental maps to
understanding the city, rather than the two-dimensional physical master plans of the previous 50 years.

Other notable works include Rossi's Architecture of the City (1966), Venturi’s Learning from Las

Vegas (1972), Colin Rowe's Collage City (1978), and Peter Calthorpe's The Next American
Metropolis (1993). Rossi introduced the concepts of 'historicism' and 'collective memory' to urban
design, and proposed a 'collage metaphor' to understand the collage of new and older forms within the
same urban space. Calthorpe, on the other hand, developed a manifesto for sustainable urban living via
medium density living, as well as a design manual for building new settlements in accordance with his
concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson in "The Social Logic of
Space" (1984) introduced the concept of Space Syntax to predict how movement patterns in cities would
contribute to urban vitality, anti-social behaviour and economic success. The popularity of these works
resulted in terms such as 'historicism', 'sustainability', 'livability', 'high quality of urban components', etc.
become everyday language in the field of urban planning.

Urban Design Element

Go a l s:

1. To create an attractive, lively, and gracious city for people.

2. To promote an image of quality and distinction in the harmonious blending of the natural and built
environments.

3. To create and develop public and semi-public spaces to attract people.

4. To give visual prominence to pedestrian facilities and environments.

5. To develop a functional and aesthetically pleasing urban Downtown.

6. To strengthen residential neighborhood identity by defining edgesand designating landmarks.

7. To provide compatible transitions between areas of different land use intensity and to “soften” new
development where it adjoins less intensive uses.

8. To encourage and support the arts as a vital part of community life.

9. To soften the visual impact of the automobile on the city.

The Urban Design Element guides public and private development to create a city that is diverse,
people oriented, aesthetically appealing, and functionally understandable. It provides a design
framework for community development and guidelines for new construction and improvements while
protecting the city’s positive characteristics. These goals and policies apply to three-dimensional aspects
of the built environment in Bellevue: buildings, streets, sidewalks, parks, neighborhoods, plazas, etc.
Urban design combines aspects of architecture, landscape architecture, public works, public art, and
transportation systems. Implementation of these urban design policies will create an inviting and
attractive city with a cohesive city image that entices people to more actively use their city.

Po l i c i e s
Site and Building Design

POLICY UD-1. Encourage high quality, attractive, architecturally appealing designs for major buildings
in order to create distinctive visual reference points in the community.

POLICY UD-2. Support designs for the built environment that are visually stimulating and thoughtful
and which convey excellence in architecture and workmanship, and durability in building materials.

POLICY UD-3. Encourage a variety of site and building designs which are compatible and consistent
with surrounding development and that implement the policies of this Plan.

POLICY UD-4. Ensure that development relates, connects, and continues design quality and site
functions from site to site

Discussion: Examples are shared driveways, similar landscaping, pedestrian connections, similar
building form, collective open and public space, and continuous pedestrian protection from weather.
Assets and attributes of adjacent sites, when connected or combined, improve the overall urban design
of the area.

POLICY UD-5. Include accessible and attractive places for the general public, employees and visitors to
wait, to be outdoors, or to socialize in more intensive commercial development. Less intensive
commercial development should include such places for employees and visitors.

POLICY UD-6. Design buildings located on the edge of public places using materials, forms, details and
other architectural elements that will enrich the appearance of the places and encourage people to use
them.

POLICY UD-7. Encourage private and institutional developers to include artists on design teams and
incorporate artwork into the public areas of their projects through the use of incentives.
POLICY UD-8. Design rooftop mechanical screening so that it is integral with building architecture.
Consider the visual effects of technical advances such as satellite dishes, on building design.

POLICY UD-9. Use site design, landscaping, and appropriate lighting to reduce the visual impact of
parking lots to public areas.

POLICY UD-10. Encourage public and private development to incorporate access to sunlight.

POLICY UD-11. Encourage architectural elements that provide for both rain cover and access to
sunlight in pedestrian areas.

POLICY UD-12. Place and design outdoor lighting around buildings, in parking lots, and along streets to
prevent excessive glare into residential areas.

POLICY UD-13. Encourage water as an auditory and tactile design element in both the built and
natural environment. In the built environment such features should bedesigned to minimize water loss
and be required to utilize recirculating or recycled water.

POLICY UD-14. Encourage seasonal color plantings in public and semi-public areas.

POLICY UD-15. Use landscape design that is urban in character in more urban settings and use natural
landscape design in more suburban settings.

POLICY UD-16. Exemplify the Pacific Northwest character through the retention of existing vegetation
and through use of native plants in new landscaping. Encourage water conservation in landscape
designs.

POLICY UD-17. Consider the maintenance of existing and added vegetation in site design and
development.

POLICY UD-18. Preservesignificant trees and mature vegetation, with special consideration given to
the protection of groups of trees and associated undergrowth, specimen trees, and evergreen trees.

POLICY UD-19. Preserve trees as a component of the skyline to retain the image of a “City in a Park.”

POLICY UD-20. Preserve and encourage open space as a dominant element of the community’s
character.

POLICY UD-21. Encourage major development to integrate public and semipublic open spaces. (See
Public Places and Connections section.)

POLICY UD-22. Foster and value private open space as a contribution to the visual character of the
community.

POLICY UD-23. Preserve and enhance views of water, mountains, skylines, or otherunique landmarks
from public places as valuable civic assets.
POLICY UD-24. Take aggressive steps to protect waterfronts and make them accessible to the public
so that they continue to give Bellevue an image of a city surrounded by natural beauty.

POLICY UD-25. Assure that sign design and placement is compatible with building architecture.

POLICY UD-26. Ensure compatible signs in commercial development with multiple businesses.

POLICY UD-27. Ensure that signs are compatible with their surroundings. Signs should provide
information and make a positive visual contribution to the character of the community.

POLICY UD-28. Develop a public signage and wayfinding system throughout the city that reinforces
the identity of Bellevue and its distinct neighborhoods.

POLICY UD-29. Provide a system of public places of various sizes and types throughout the
community.

POLICY UD-30. Ensure public places give access to sunlight, a sense of security, seating, landscaping,
accessibility, and connections to surrounding uses and activities.

POLICY UD-31. Consider the edges of public places that abut residential property for special design
treatment that creates a buffer effect, but does not interfere with security or visual access.

POLICY UD-32. Ensure access to sunlight in public places by avoiding building shadows during periods
of the year and times of the day when outdoor activity is most prevalent.

POLICY UD-33. Incorporate pavilions in major public places that provide protection from inclement
weather. While total enclosure is generally discouraged, some enclosure may be necessary.

POLICY UD-34. Identify and maintain prime views from public places through regulations and
standards.

POLICY UD-35. Support a variety of artwork and arts activities in public places, such as parks, public
buildings, and plazas.

POLICY UD-36. Encourage development, display, and performance opportunities for a wide range of
artistic expression throughout the city.

POLICY UD-37. Expand the city’s public art collection; involve the community in selection of new major
items; and encourage partnerships with other arts organizations and private enterprise in city artistic
activities.

POLICY UD-38. Ensure continuous and ample sidewalks along principal, minor, and collector arterials
which are integrated with abutting land uses.

POLICY UD-39. Include clear and ample walkways from street sidewalks and parking areas to building
entrances and within and between developments as a part of site design.
POLICY UD-40. Ensure that sidewalks, walkways, and trails are furnished, where needed and
appropriate, with lighting, seating, landscaping, street trees, trash

POLICY UD-41. Design vehicular and pedestrian routes to be visually appealing connections between
different parts of Bellevue.

POLICY UD-42. These features may be achieved through a combination of public improvements in the
right-of-way and private improvements consistent with city design guidelines

POLICY UD-43. Provide clear and identifiable circulation systems A combination of aligned building
facades, passageways, covered walkways, consolidated parking areas, signs, markings, special paving,
and other methods can be used.

POLICY UD-44. Encourage special streetscape design for designated intersections that create entry
points into the city or neighborhoods or that warrant enhancedpedestrian features.

POLICY UD-45. Establish attractive gateways at all key entry points into the city and into smaller
districts and communities within the city.

POLICY UD-46. Incorporate dramatic and imaginative landscape and art features when reconstructing
streets and/or sidewalks at key gateways.

POLICY UD-47. Work closely and cooperatively with the regional transit provider in the planning and
design of any transit facility to ensure that the design of the facilities

POLICY UD-48. Encourage site and building designs that support and connect with existing or planned
transit facilities in the vicinity.

POLICY UD-49. Design and coordinate the proximity of bike racks, wheelchair access, pedestrian
amenities, and other modes of transportation with transit facilities.

POLICY UD-50. Work with the state to achieve high quality design on new freeway projects, with
special consideration for both views from the freeways and views of the freeways.

POLICY UD-51. Encourage dense plantings, hedges, or large, fast-growing trees to act as visual screens
at locations where existing views of or from freeways are unappealing.

POLICY UD-52. Ensure that all development abutting the freeway corridors includes special design
features which provide an attractive entrance to the city and presents the city in an attractive manner.

POLICY UD-53. Integrate into the designs of frontage roads along the I-90 freeway corridor the
Mountain-to-Sound greenway concept. Give particular attention to multiuse trails, large scale
landscaping, and pedestrian amenities. Bellevue is comprised of a number of neighborhoods that
contain residences with schools, parks and other public facilities, and commercial and public centers
which provide a variety of retail and service activity. Public centers typically include college,
government, and hospital services. Urban design policies can maintain and strengthen the more private
and insular qualities of residential areas while encouraging the commercial and public centers to attract
people and to provide services to nearby residents.

POLICY UD-54. Give identity and continuity to street corridors by using a comprehensive street tree
plan and other landscaping to enhance circulationroutes, soften the appearance of pavement and
separate pedestrians from traffic.

POLICY UD-55. Incorporate architectural character, landscaping, Commercial centers should

incorporate architectural character, landscaping, and signage in a cohesive manner.

POLICY UD-56. Ensure that perimeter areas of major commercial and public centers use appropriate
planting, lighting, and signs to blend with surrounding development and to be compatible with
surrounding residential neighborhoods.

POLICY UD-57. Allow buildings to be sited at or near the public sidewalk as long as the full sidewalk
potential is not diminished.

POLICY UD-58. Allow buildings on adjacent but separate properties to have common walls.

POLICY UD-59. Assure that more intense development is compatible with adjacent, less intense
development by incorporating elements in site and building design that soften the impact from
commercial to residential areas or from multifamily to singlefamily areas.

POLICY UD-60. Incorporate entry designs to residential neighborhoods such as

low profile, identification signs, and landscaping which is in character with the

neighborhood.

POLICY UD-61. Encourage the green and wooded character of existing

neighborhoods.

POLICY UD-62. Minimize the removal of existing vegetation when improving

streets to preserve the natural character of neighborhoods.

POLICY UD-63. Maintain vegetation along major neighborhood arterials.

POLICY UD-64. Design collector arterials that go through residential neighborhoods

to reduce traffic impacts and to support the existing residential character.

POLICY UD-65. Clear and trim vegetation selectively when developing land

to enhance views of prominent landforms and panoramas and soften views of

commercial development.
POLICY UD-66. Enhance the appearance of neighborhoods, especially those

which are older, with targeted city programs and services, such as landscaping

and maintenance along the public right-of-way, sidewalk enhancements, identity

treatments, and other actions that may enhance neighborhood appearance.

POLICY UD-67. Enhance the appearance,

image, and design character of the

Downtown to be an inspiring place to live,

shop, play, and work.

POLICY UD-68. Encourage rooflines

which create interesting and distinctive

forms against the sky within the Downtown.

POLICY UD-69. Develop a functional and

attractive Downtown which is harmonious

with adjacent neighborhoods by considering

the impacts of through-traffic, views,

building scale, and land use.

POLICY UD-70. Use landscaping or greenspace to mitigate the potential impacts on

surrounding neighborhoods.

POLICY UD-71. Permit high intensity residential development subject to design

criteria which assures a livable urban environment.

POLICY UD-72. Link the increased intensity of development with the increased

pedestrian amenities, pedestrian-oriented building design, midblock connections,

public spaces, activities, openness, sunlight, and view preservation.

POLICY UD-73. Create a pedestrian environment with a sense of activity and

protection.
POLICY UD-74. Discourage signs at upper levels of high-rise buildings with

limited exception for hotel names and logos when compatible with the building’s

architecture.

POLICY UD-75. Use urban design features to soften the public right-of-way and

sidewalk environment as appropriate. These features include, but are not limited

to, street trees, landscaping, water features, raised planter boxes, potted plantings,

pedestrian-scaled lighting, street furniture, paving treatments, medians, and the

separation of pedestrians from traffic.

Downtown is shaped by design guidelines

that enhance the area’s livability and

character.

POLICY UD-76. Preserve, enhance and interpret Bellevue’s historical identity.

Discussion: Complete and maintain a comprehensive record of historic resources

(including buildings, artifacts, and sites) and make available to individuals and

community organizations.

POLICY UD-77. Recognize the heritage of the community by naming (or renaming) parks, streets, and
other public places after major figures and events.

Historical buildings and landmarks are important reminders

of Bellevue’s unique past (Winters House - Built in 1928).Urban Design Element Page 290

POLICY UD-78. Designate historic landmark sites and structures and review

proposed changes to ensure that these sites and structures will continue to be a part of

the community and explore incentives for rehabilitation.

POLICY UD-79. Identify vista points and landmarks such as major trees, buildings

and landforms to preserve as Bellevue develops.

THE CITY

Metro Manila has a weak identity and its citizens feel little attachment to it. But the soullessness of the
city is not fated. The future of the city of our dreams is in our hands and that of enlightened local
governments and urban planners.

by Paulo Alcazaren 

Metro Manila circa 2005 is a sprawling, congested and anarchic

emgacity without a soul. [photos courtesy of Paulo Alcazaren]

AT TIMES, when the breeze is just so, the sun is shining, and peals of children's laughter ring out,
Luneta's grand past can still be glimpsed, leaving no one to doubt that for 19th-century Manila, it was
the prime leisure amenity. The American planner Daniel Burnham laid out a grand civic district in
Manila, like Washington D.C.'s. Burnham's grand plan was never fully implemented. Only a few of the
planned civic structures were built. After the war, plans were revised to move the capital to Quezon City.
Luneta became a cogon-filled no-man's land eventually turning into the city's Central Park.

In the last two decades, Luneta has lost its original luster. Malls and fast-food joints have replaced it as
city folk's weekend destination of choice, despite efforts to include both features on the grounds. The
park is now populated with strange statues, like the 40-foot Lapu Lapu where the 1960's globe fountain
used to be — kitsch replaced by folly. Extensions to the seaside section — their threats to mar the views
of the bay thwarted by the project's suspension for lack of funds — are an eyesore. Most of the park's
daily users are Manilans but their own local government does not manage this prime city amenity since
it is under the National Parks Development Committee. It does function as a national civic space for
Independence Day and presidential inaugurations but, without key national government buildings, the
place is without a soul.

This is also true of Metro Manila, whose soullessness is one of the main reasons the metropolis has a
weak identity and why its citizens feel little attachment to it. Metro Manila is a national capital without a
clearly defined physical center. Unlike Washington D.C., Canberra, or New Delhi, Metro Manila's major
civic structures are scattered around the metropolis. The Congress is in Novaliches, the Senate in Pasay,
the Supreme Court on Padre Faura, and Malacañan is by the Pasig. The present administration's plans to
decentralize its functions, like the move of the Department of Tourism (DOT) to Cebu, further fragments
the national government's already inefficient physical infrastructure.

But before there was Metro Manila, there was, of course, Manila, whose urban history predates
Burnham and goes back over 400 years to when the Spaniards used urbanization as a tool for control.
Intramuros de Manila was the prime example, creating a template for all Philippine towns and cities.
Pursued even by the Americans, this hegemony is continued today by the local elite. Thus, Manila's ups
and downs reflect the instability of empires that placed it only at the fringe of their attentions, and,
later, the vagaries of postcolonial, Third-World development. Manila, in other words, has always been a
work in progress, with master plans continually being abandoned as regimes changed. This is why the
city has always looked haphazard and why its future has always been in question.

Sure, there's been growth-in area, population, and urban problems. The arrabales around it evolved to
new towns and eventually a "greater" Manila that would become today's maddening Metropolitan
Manila. Future change seems destined to go from bad to worse. By 2015, can a city already so fractured
in its governance, infrastructure and identity, possibly sink lower in the mess its citizens are now mired
in? Can traffic, crime, floods, lack of jobs, a dearth of open space, and the loss of heritage get any direr?
Can air, water, noise and visual pollution overwhelm Manilans any more than these four elements of
urban blight already do?

Sadly, yes and yes. It's the reality of runaway urban population fueling sprawl and speculation-driven,
environment-unfriendly, culturally vacuous "real-estate development." For the 11 million currently living
in Metro Manila, the more compelling question may be, how far worse can it get?

There are several answers to that. Fortunately, among the possible

replies is that it need not get any worse because there are a few
things that can still be done to avoid what seems inevitable for a
dystopic city. 

BUT LET'S start from the beginning: Intramuros, the site of the

original settlement of Maynilad, has a past long forgotten but for
what remains of its walls and churches destroyed in the war.
Restoration attempts began in the 1960s, but contemporary
interventions have succeeded only in Disneyfying sections as

Postwar Manila still had traces of

the genteel city Daniel Burnham
had envisioned in the early
1900s.
marketing gimmicks to attract tourists. Initially, the Intramuros Administration did a good job. But today,
its goals are lost in get-rich-quick schemes that compromise the district's heritage structures and
management. There are now more informal settlers residing within than when 1960s Mayor Antonio
'Yeba' Villegas rudely tossed them out. Today Intramuros has lost most of its appeal and relevance to
the lives of most Manilans, "wowing" few but the kitsch-inclined.

Unless complementary programs fit within larger plans for Manila's revival, the Walled City will find
itself more and more colonized by squatters, fast-food stalls, and a booming student population. Being
independent of the Manila City government, the district also suffers from an administrative detachment
leading spotty public services. Residents within the walls, formal or otherwise, lack a clear connection to
the larger community. The rebuilt walls, in effect, isolate Intramuros from the rest of the city, just as
they did in the first three centuries of its existence.

Reconnection is the key to its revival. This should start at the administrative level. Intramuros was
Manila and to separate it physically, administratively, and socially creates a cultural vacuum that
explains some of the city's emotional emptiness. The changes should follow quickly at the physical level
of urban design. Reunited Germany's Berlin has undergone a modern renaissance, due to an enlightened
program of redevelopment taking into account the original fabric of its historic core without limiting
creative architectural solutions. The world's greatest architects contributed to Berlin's innovative "infill"
projects. These replaced lost housing, office stock, as well as allowed new structures, helping central
Berlin connect itself with its greater metropolitan area.

The same can be done with Intramuros. Reconnect it by mass transit or sensible traffic rerouting. Relax
the stringent "historical" constraints to architecture (tropical modernist buildings can be respectful of
older structures as well as to the conserved street layout as in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong).
Make sure a mix of uses balances the mainly warehouse and educational functions that Intramuros now
accommodates. Finally, re-populating its interior with formal residents in affordable housing, resulting in
an interesting resident mix, will counter the temptation to "gentrify" the district. It is this mix that will
ensure the place is alive after hours and supports the activity that will also bring in the tourists.

Urban design as social control

Tuesday, 01 June 2010 12:00 AM Eli Paolo R. Fresnoza

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Where we live shapes who we are.  Paradoxically,

the overall conglomerate of our identity, culture, and distinctiveness also defines the place where we
live.  The degree as to which one exerts more influence on the other is a very arguable topic.  The
espousal of values, morality, and behavior has been traditionally a human-to-human process from child
weaning to early adulthood.  In such an anthropocentric world, the physical environment as a factor for
molding human temperament has been often left undervalued.
 
 
The remarkable link between intrinsic human qualities such as behavior, conduct, and demeanor, and
the external environment has been existent for years.  But because of skepticism and the perception of
its meager importance, this link has not  been given much consideration in the design of our built
environment.  It is only now that this awareness is gaining ground in the contemporary design and
planning of our cities and places where we live, work, and play.
In the first of a number of series, we examine the interesting interrelationship between man and the
built environment.  Generally, we will look into the environment-to-human influence, while specifically
we will study it through its design, planning, management, and how it affects human
behavior.  Particularly, a focus on the City Beautiful Movement will be discussed in this article and how it
promotes the design of cities that influence social order and character.
How cities affect human behavior has its origins in philosophical grounds.  In the late nineteenth
century, the City Beautiful Movement, a school of thought that advocated the relationship between
social character and urban design, emerged as the standard in the planning of cities and urban
landscapes.  This veered away from the old-school notion that urban planning and city design were
meant for aesthetic functions only.  The City Beautiful Movement espoused the notion that urban
beautification results in social control and order, and thus "would increase the quality of life and help to
remove social ills."
It was in the nineteenth century that the City Beautiful Movement started as a byproduct of French
Beaux Arts neoclassical architecture.  As opposed to just architecture per se, Beaux Arts also paid
attention to urban landscaping, focal points in spaces such as grand plazas, wide avenues with
terminating landmarks, symmetrical design, and huge monumental structures.  These design principles
came only as an aesthetic standpoint in which the City Beautiful Movement went further by configuring
such designs in order to become instruments of social control and behavioral influence.
As mentioned, urban beautification through the City Beautiful Movement incorporated Beaux Arts
aspects of harmony and large-scale design.  Examples include wide boulevards, elegant parks,
recreational waterways and riverbanks, spacious public plazas adorned with grand monuments and
fountains, and spread-out road layouts, which portrayed the ideal utopian city and society.  Especially
with grand structural designs and focal points, these easy-to-interpret designs symbolize political
superiority and control.  Such espoused the sense that citizens were to value, respect, and keep their
surroundings beautiful and tidy, and that they become more urbane and socially refined.  Physically, the
City Beautiful Movement also aimed to reverse the city’s overall impression of being overcrowded and
blighted.
Several New World cities in the nineteenth century adopted the City Beautiful Movement in its urban
planning and design.  Such cities included Chicago; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Cleveland; and
Detroit, among others that mirrored the concept of City Beautiful.  Almost all of them have strikingly
common similarities with respect to fanned-out road layouts, wide avenues, and focal centers that are
often the locations of civic buildings in the city.
This configuration was borne from a need for social reform due to the increasingly overcrowded and
depressing conditions of cities in late nineteenth-century America.  In these times, a diaspora from the
rural fringes to urban centers ensued as jobs flourished in cities due to the often false perception of
these areas as greener pastures. Consequently, the diaspora resulted in economic hardships that
sparked an atmosphere of social upheaval, labor strikes, violence, squalid habitations, and disease-
infested growing cities.
It was alarm on the part of middle- and upper-class residents of the cities that called for a reform in city
design in the United States.  This catalyzed the instigation of the City Beautiful Movement to be
promulgated in the urban planning of the growing cities these residents live in.   This movement’s
ambition was for cities to be at par with European urban and cultural elegance, as well as a preventative
and remedial solution to the continuous overcrowding and squalor of the city.  For the most part, it was
out of fear that the middle and upper strata of society preferred to maintain the elitist status of their
ideal utopian city.  In addition, the movement was created as an assurance to pacify their notion of rural
migrants as the main contributors of social upheaval and squalor.
The designs of the cities of Manila and Baguio in the early twentieth century echoed the principles of the
City Beautiful Movement.  Proceeding from the emancipation of the Spaniards, Manila was posed to
become a world-class city at the height of the American occupation.  As such, the American Insular
Government in the Philippines commissioned Architect Daniel Burnham to lead its urban design.
Burnham, whose name we know from the park, designed Manila faithful to the tenets and evident of his
advocacy to the City Beautiful Movement.  At that time, Manila’s population was expanding and its
central business district had seen a shift from Intramuros to the extramuros or “outside of the
walls.”  Hence, the development outside Intramuros emphasized the symbolic end of Spanish Rule and
the transition to the American era.
The Burnham Plan, as it was known, included a focal park such as Luneta in Manila, located one block
south of Intramuros, and Burnham Park in Baguio, with circumferential roads and other roads that fan
out to the periphery.  Also laid in Manila’s urban blueprint were gargantuan civic building designs
manifested by the current Philippine Postal Office, Department of Tourism Building, Manila City Hall,
and the National Museum.  These designs became a construction shock-and-awe, inducing a sense of
civic supremacy, loyalty, and obedience to the state, as well as calm and order along the streets.
 

 
Manila was supposed to be the trophy of the City Beautiful Movement.  But if we look today, what has
happened?  Have we become the ideal utopian city that the movement was supposed to favor?  Urban
decay is evident in many dilapidated buildings along Taft Avenue, traffic is pervasive, people are
disobedient and rude, rivers and creeks are clogged by informal settlers.  A significant divide between
social classes in sections of the city grew; the poor and working class were ostracized in the city’s
periphery. Not exactly the city beautiful that Burnham envisioned for Manila’s future.
The decay of the City Beautiful Movement in Manila is a result of numerous factors.  Urban planning
critics say that how Manila was planned was guised as a stamp of American colonial presence.   The
uncanny resemblance of how the middle- and upper-classes instigated the City Beautiful Movement in
the United States seemed to have been reflected similarly in the Philippine context.  But instead of
conflicts within different Filipino classes, it looks as if American colonialists applied the City Beautiful
Movement as a form of a subconscious placation of Filipino insurgency within the newly acquired colony
of the United States.  To add, the Movement may have been meant as a sugar coating to beautify a city
but with the cloaked intention of conditioning Filipino colonists to become respectful and loyal to their
American colonizers.
The City Beautiful Movement was criticized as a purely aesthetic-focused design with little consideration
to functionality and social control.  Manila’s civic buildings as well as parks and recreation areas were
laid on the map, but the allocation for the main business and economic center was missed out.   It was
only after the American era and Second World War that Filipino planners soon allocated a business
center north of the Pasig River, which later came to be the Escolta area as well as Binondo.
True enough, the grand colonial architecture that reflected the City Beautiful Movement did evoke a
sense of high civic respect.  However, its lack of indigenous flavor and suitability to the Philippine
context rendered its social control function ineffective and defunct.  It is not because Filipinos were
touted as uncivilized at that time.  The City Beautiful Movement just did not work out and resulted in
the seemingly opposite due to the lack of local involvement and the Filipinos’ realization that another
tiring era of colonialism had just been ushered in.
Social decay that would plague the city’s residents until today was furthered by numerous other factors
such as the aftermath of the Second World War, the growing poverty due to imbalanced migration to
the city, and crumbling socio-economic programs, among many others.  What we can observe today
really has been beyond the faux pas of the City Beautiful Movement, though it may have arguably been
part of it.  Though the City Beautiful Movement was ineffective in Manila, other cities in the world,
mainly in the United States, benefited from it.  Slums and blighted areas in Washington D.C. were
cleaned and revitalized, while Chicago’s waterways became attractive recreation areas.  The City
Beautiful’s social control function did not really work effectively and was just not suited in the Philippine
context.
Surely, there have been positive contributions that the movement provided in Manila such as the
aesthetic beautification of Manila and the layout of road circulation networks around the city.  Despite
this, the City Beautiful Movement’s potential was not fully optimized.  It can even be deemed
controversial as it did not deliver its full benefit to Filipinos but rather exhibited undertones of the
exuberance and grandness of colonial architecture.  Whatever the movement’s aim, the transformation
of Manila was only observed as something aesthetic and physical.
City planning and urban design, if it were to have a further objective to manipulate and influence public
behavior and control, is truly a challenge.  The City Beautiful Movement seemed to have made Manila its
guinea pig.  Measuring and testing the effectivity of the City Beautiful Movement is not as easy as
conducting an experiment in a science lab due to its scope and magnitude of development.  Indeed, the
principle of behavior-by-design also involves complex psychological studies taking consideration of the
local cultural context beyond how shapes, sizes, and locations induce certain behaviors.
Today, the City Beautiful Movement is obsolete and has catalyzed the development of new urban
planning disciplines such as environmental psychology or ecopsychology.  These disciplines take the
primitive objective of human behavior influenced by built-up design and apply in greater context and
detail in the process of urban planning.   Overall, the concept of the City Beautiful Movement has been
an interesting example of the attempt to prove that urban design can also be a multi-functional
discipline.  Ultimately, the flaws of the City Beautiful Movement became testament that such urban
design philosophies, despite their noble intentions of social engineering and reform, can also have
severe consequences on the social and urban fabric