Urban planning (urban, city, and town planning) is a technical and political process concerned with the control of the use of land and design of the urban environment, including transportation networks, to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities. It concerns itself with research and analysis, strategic thinking, architecture, urban design, public consultation, policy recommendations, implementation and management.
A plan can take a variety of forms including strategic plans, comprehensive plans, neighborhood plans, regulatory and incentive strategies, or historic preservation plans. Planners are often also responsible for enforcing the chosen policies.
The modern origins of urban planning lie in the movement for urban reform that arose as a reaction against the disorder of the industrial city in the mid-19th century. Urban planning can include urban renewal, by adapting urban planning methods to existing cities suffering from decline. In the late-20th century, the term sustainable development has come to represent an ideal outcome in the sum of all planning goals.
Read more about Urban Planning: History, Sustainable Development and Sustainability, Theories of Planning, Process, Dark Side of Planning
Famous quotes containing the words urban and/or planning:
“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.”
—James A. Garfield (1831–1881)