PATRICK GEDDES

Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) was a Scottish 'polymath,' a man with multiple talents. He was a biologist
by training, a pioneering town planner who inspired several generations of urban planners, a sociologist,
and an educator throughout his life. Known as the "Father of Modern Town Planning," he was the first
one to integrate sociological principles into town planning.

Early life and influences -

Patrick was raised and schooled in Perth's countryside. He spent his youth gardening with his father,
performing science experiments in the shed, and exploring the surrounding forests and cliffs, and these
experiences gave him important lessons about ecology, influencing his personality and profession.
Geddes has a lifelong aversion to exams and never pursued a university degree.

From 1874 to 1878, he opted to study biology under Darwin's advocate, Thomas Henry Huxley, at the
Royal College of Mines in London after being greatly inspired by Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas and
their applicability to society, but he departed after one week. From then on, and for the rest of his life,
he was an enthusiastic Francophile, with a strong affinity for France and French intellectual ideals that
significantly affected his thinking. He subsequently went on to study Botany and Zoology in London and
Paris with individual instructors and mentors.

Between 1880 to 1888, he lectured in Zoology at Edinburgh University and came into contact with some
of Europe's most progressive and radical ideas during this period. Geddes turned his attention
to sociology after an attack of blindness in Mexico hampered his biological experimentation. From 1920
to 1923, he then became a professor of civics and sociology at the University of Bombay and the founder
of the College des Ecossaise (Scots College), an international educational institution in Montpellier,
France in 1924.

Geddes was influenced by social theorists such as Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and French thinker
Frederic Le Play (1806–1882), and he built on previous theoretical advances that led to the notion of
regional planning. He adopted Spencer's notion that the concept of biological evolution could be used to
describe the evolution of society, and relied on Le Play's study of the key components of society as
"Lieu, Travail, Famille," but changed the final from "family" to "folk." According to this idea, the family is
the central "biological unit of human society" from which all else arises. According to Patrick, beautiful
and healthy children who can "fully participate in life" are born from "stable, healthy households" that
provide the essential conditions for mental and moral growth.

Geddes was a national and international personality who worked much to improve living circumstances
in his community. He traveled extensively and communicated with important intellectuals and authors
of the period, including Charles Darwin, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nobel winner Rabindranath Tagore.
Design and Planning for People in Place -

The primary Geddesian principles — his focus on the underlying unity and interdependence of culture
and environment, as well as his emphasis on transdisciplinary education and locally tailored direct action
as tools of cultural transformation — remain profoundly relevant today. Geddes saw the designer's
responsibility is twofold: 1) to contribute to the material adaptation of people and their livelihoods to
the unique opportunities and difficulties of the places they dwell, and 2) to influence cultural
transformation via education.

Geddes' goal was to contribute not just to the physical representation of culture in the form of material
designs, but also to engage in cultural design and influence the social and psychological expression of
culture through transdisciplinary education that involved hands, heart, and mind. Culturally
transformative education must make clear and question the fundamental assumptions that underpin
the prevailing cultural worldview. Geddes advocated for a design strategy that included bioregional
integration, cultural and worldview shifts, transdisciplinary synthesis, and holistic education.

Seeing life as a whole, that is, understanding life as a dynamic ecological, social, and cognitive process in
which mankind participates, enhances awareness of nature and culture's underlying
interconnectedness. Patrick Geddes has understood that a worldview that is so participatory, informed
by detailed information on the ecological, social, cultural, and hydrological conditions of the local region,
would play a major role in helping to develop sustainable human societies that would be unique to their
region.

Geddes revived Edinburgh's Old Town with his groundbreaking notions of "diagnostic surveys" and
"conservative surgery," which he went on to execute in town planning projects throughout Scotland,
India, and the Middle East. In reality, the city of Tel Aviv was created entirely after Geddes' concept. He
also popularized the word "conurbation" and brought the idea of "region" to architecture and planning.
His work has impacted many people, including urban thinkers like Lewis Mumford. Geddes also laid the
groundwork for future urban thinkers such as Jane Jacobs and the New Urbanism movement, which
emphasizes walkable neighborhoods, a diverse range of housing options, and a diversity of employment
types.

Geddes was not an academic who could be restricted to a single subject, nor could he be reduced to a
purely practical or simply theoretical emphasis for his efforts. Theory and practice, according to him,
constituted an essential continuity reflected in people's lifestyles and ideally influenced by insights from
many academic viewpoints. He was a multi-faceted individual who excelled as a biologist, sociologist,
town and regional planner, exhibition designer, public and academic educator, patron of the arts, and
natural philosopher.

Geddes' participatory approach to civic action, which emphasized the need for humanity to integrate
into the region's specific environmental conditions, as well as his recognition of education as a facilitator
of societal change, combined with his transdisciplinary design methodology, provides an integrated
pathway to sustainability. The bioregional concept is rapidly being acknowledged as a critical method in
long-term planning.
Geddes was acutely aware that major material transformation necessitates fundamental immaterial
changes in underlying attitudes and consciousness, and he saw transdisciplinary education as a
facilitator of such societal change. He believed in society's progress toward greater levels of
consciousness and cooperation as both possible and necessary.

Geddes offered an early example of a substantially enlarged understanding of design without explicitly
using the word design. Geddes lived out the role of the designer as the integrator of, and facilitator
between, various knowledge domains, as well as theory and practice, as an advocate of transdisciplinary
interchange of information, public education, and active citizen responsibility through direct
participatory action. Patrick Geddes's practical and theoretical work reflected a completely
contemporary understanding of the role that design may play in education and the building of a
sustainable human society.

Geddes and the Conurbation Theory –

The word "conurbation" was created by Patrick Geddes in his book Cities In Evolution in 1915. A
conurbation is a region made up of several cities, major towns, and other urban areas that have
combined due to population growth and physical development to form one continuous urban and
industrially developed area.

Internationally, the word "urban agglomeration" is frequently used to express a connotation

Geddes and the constellation concept –

Patrick Geddes also came up with the term Constellation Theory, which states that “four or more cities
that are not economically, politically, or socially equal join together to build a complete region.” This
idea is mostly employed for administrative purposes in all countries across the world. This idea is most
commonly utilized since planning cities in a specific form pattern is no longer viable in today's world.

A case study of Maharashtra –

Mumbai is the economic and capital city; Nasik is the religious city; Aurangabad is the administrative
city; Nagpur is the political city, and Pune is the educationally significant city.

Because all five variables required for an area's growth are split into five distinct locations, the
administration of that region has a slow progressive route, because a specific region does not have
Despite being created in the early 1960s, Maharashtra has grown in importance for the country in the
previous few decades, providing 15% of the country's industrial production and 13.3% of GDP.
Production, Manufacturing, Automobile, and Thermal Electricity projects have all played an active role in
the state's prosperity. The distance between cities in Maharashtra is typically between 100 and 300
kilometers, allowing transportation, connection, and interdependence to thrive within the state.

Maharashtra is split into six revenue divisions, which are further subdivided into 35 districts. In
Maharashtra, these thirty-five districts are further subdivided into 109 district sub-divisions and 357
Talukas. Amravati Division, Aurangabad Division, Konkan Division, Nagpur Division, Nashik Division, and
Pune Division are the six administrative divisions of Maharashtra state. The administrative element of
Maharashtra is extremely unusual in that six divisions are built up as a network that works together to
produce a well-efficient and functional governance.

Relevance of theories given by Geddes in today’s times –

Sir Patrick Geddes stressed the need for transdisciplinary education as a tool for cultural transformation.
He pushed for environmentally and socially responsible methods, emphasizing the importance of
integrating human settlements and livelihoods into the natural circumstances of their specific location.
According to Geddes, effective local action necessitates global awareness and international
collaboration. Globalization, climate change, resource depletion, and national and international inequity
are all complicated and linked issues that necessitate such comprehensive design solutions. His theories
are liable to us as the construction of a sustainable human society is the core problem for design in the
twenty-first century.

Geddes viewed adaptation as a two-way street. Regional cultures, on the one hand, modify their
regional environment to meet human needs, but the limitations of such adaptations are defined by the
social and ecological constraints of their specific environment. Local cultural adaptation to specific
ecological circumstances is thus an equally essential complementary process to ecosystem adaptation
by its people. Nature and culture are indistinguishable and mutually beneficial in a healthy system. This
is the key lesson mankind must learn at a worldwide and local level to bring about the end of
environmental over usage and must have the reintegration of humans into natural processes in today's
world.
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