Unit 3 - THEORISING AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF URBAN DESIGN

To understand urban design thru reading and illustrations. Ideas of Image ability and townscape: Cullen,
Lynch- place and genius loci - collective memory historic reading of the city and its artifacts: Rossi- social
aspects of urban space: life on streets and between buildings, lifestyle, gender and class, Jane Jacobs,
William Whyte. Contemporary theories in Urbanism, New Urbanism concepts

TOWNSCAPE – GORDON CULLEN

Gordon Cullen (1914-1994) was an English architect,.

Ø an urban designer who carried on the of the Townscape movement theme.
Ø he wrote and published the “Townscape” book in 1961.

Gordon Cullen defined urban design as The Art of Relationship.

§ The goal was to manipulate groups of buildings and physical town elements so as to achieve visual
impact and drama.
§ In other words, cities should be designed from the point of view of the moving person.
§ Cities come alive through the drama of juxtaposition.
Summary - Gordon Cullen’s view on urban design.
Ø Firstly, cities should not be too chaotic or too ordered. In that case, pedestrians will never get bored
walking along the streets. Urban planners should always take both order and variety into
consideration.
Ø Secondly, cities should be designed with visible life. It’s fascinating to see what people are up to.
A city should be full of people doing things that we can see through the window. Visible life makes
city more energetic.

Defnition
Ø Serial Vision - Serial Vision is to walk from one end of the plan to another, at a uniform pace, will
provide a sequence of revelations. A serial vision is a series of sketches that represent the changes
and contrasts in the character of the built environment that one experiences when moving around
the city. The sketches should be shown along with a map identifying the ‘journey’ and the
viewpoints from which the sketches are drawn.
Ø Place - Place description is in a world of black and white the roads are for movement and the
buildings for social and business purposes.
Ø Content - Content concerned with the intrinsic quality of the various subdivisions of the
environment, and start with the great landscape categories of metropolis, town, arcadia, park,
industrial, arable and wild nature.

Principle of Townscape

Ø Focal Point Focal point is the idea of the town as a place of assembly, of social intercourse, of
meeting, was taken for granted throughout the whole of human civilization up to the twentieth
century.
Ø Closure Closure, may be differentiated from Enclosure, by contrasting ‘travel’ with ‘arrival’.
Closure is the cutting up of the linear town system (streets, passages, etc.) into visually digestible
and coherent amounts whilst retaining the sense of progression. Enclosure on the other hand
provides a complete private world which is inward looking, static and self-sufficient.
Ø Street Lighting Here we are concerned with the impact of a modern public lighting installation on
towns and not, primarily, with the design of fittings. Naturally it is impossible to disassociate the
two since, as in all townscape, we are concerned with two aspects: first, intrinsic design and second,
the relationship or putting together of things designed.
 Ø Outdoor Publicity One contribution to modern townscape, startlingly conspicuous everywhere
you look, but almost entirely ignored by the town planner, is street outdoor publicity. This is the
most characteristic, and, potentially, the most valuable, contribution of the twentieth century to
urban scenery. At night it has created a new landscape of a kind never before seen in history.
Ø Here and There The practical result of so articulating the town into identifiable parts is that no
sooner do we create a HERE than we have to admit a THERE, and it is precisely in the manipulation
of these two spatial concepts that a large part of urban drama arises.
Ø Man-made enclosure, if only of the simplest kind, divides the environment into HERE and THERE.
On this side of the arch, in Ludlow, we are in the present, uncomplicated and direct world, our
world. The other side is different, having in some small way a life of its own (a with-holding).

IMAGE OF THE CITY – KEVIN LYNCH

Introduction:
The theory of Imageability from Kevin Lynch widened the scope of urban design and planning practice by
considering qualities of main urban elements that are paths, nodes, edges, landmarks and districts. Lynch’s
theory of imageability put emphasis on the component of ‘identity’ and ‘structure’ of the urban elements
as two important factors in affecting environmental image, before ‘meaning’. Lynch put less emphasis on
the factor of ‘meaning’ because it bears an un-fixed and relatively definitions based on the reader’s
categorization in society and culture.

Kevin Lynch’s Theory Of Imageability:

Lynch’s theory of imageability is discussing the quality of cities according to the legibility factor of the
elements that are perceived by the observers. The term ‘visible’, which he calls as ‘legible’, is a visual
quality that can be understood through studying mental images as a result of people’s memories and
meanings.

The urban elements are read or analyzed into three categories: identity, structure, and meaning. His study
focuses on the two most communicable dimension of the conversation of observer and environment, which
are identity and structure.

§ Identity means a distinction from other objects;

§ Structure means a relationship to larger pattern of other elements, and
§ Meaning means a practical and emotional value for the observer.

It requires first the identification of the elements from others, second the relationship to others, and the last
is its meaning. The first and second are the most legible/visible of the physical elements in cities, while the
third is very relative in cultures.

Lynch highlights the five major elements in cities that enhance the imageability, which are paths, edges,
districts, nodes, and landmarks.

‘The five elements paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks must be considered simply as convenient
empirical categories, within and around which it has been possible to group a mass of information’. The
description of each element is as follows: -

Paths; it is the most legible element in the city image. The observer walks along the linear form, such as
streets, walkways, canals or railroads. Observers experience the city while moving through it. The path
element creates a relation arrangement and relation among other elements.

Edges; these create a boundary between two or more close regions or districts, linear breaks in continuity.
It could be shores, railroad cuts, and walls. The element is not as strong as paths, but for observers it is an
important character in organizing features.

Districts; are groups of urban landscapes that have a similar or common character, which observers could
mentally experience ‘inside of’. The observer always identifies from the inside with exterior reference from
the outside

Nodes; are points; they can be intersections or junctions between paths where observers can enter the points,
for example, an enclosed square. It is a break in movement transportation.
Landmarks; are points of reference that simply defined a physical object: signs, buildings, mountains, or
shops. Some elements can be seen at a distance, but some are very simple objects that are familiar to the
observers.

These elements must be patterned together as nets of paths, clusters of landmarks, or mosaics of districts
with sometimes overlapped and interrelated elements. Each element is only a raw material of a city form.
In the urban context, all elements operate together. Images may differ from time to time, season-to-season
and day-to-day.

PLACE AND GENIUS LOCI: Christian Norberg-Schulz

a genius loci was referred to by the Romans as a protective spirit of a place in the classical period. Can be
defined as the cognition of one’s surroundings, often used in relation to the characteristics that make an
area unique.

It also relates to the authenticity of human attachment and belonging to a space. The Romans believed that
there was a geist, that would protect a place, and this spirit has certain characteristics or a singular
characteristic.

Architecturally the genius loci is a distinctive atmosphere or characteristic of a place. Certain places draw
many onlookers and observers while others may be desolate and empty.

But both situations may contain a genius loci that is it’s own distinctive characteristic, that could be
completely unrelated to its physical location. Light, sounds, form, or usage; the possibilities of the
distinctive atmosphere could be endless and as complex or simple as you could define.

Each city has a unique ‘spirit of place,’ or a distinctive atmosphere, that goes beyond the built
environment. This urban context reflects how a city functions in ‘real time’ as people move through time
and space.

The architecture and physical infrastructure of a city give way to the rhythms of the passing of the day
and transition of the seasons. This provides the ‘temporal spectacles’ that define a city.

This context of a city is more formally known as ‘genius loci,’ or the genetic footprint of a place. One
could logically apply 'sense of place' to an urban high street; noting the architecture, the width of the
roads and pavements, the plantings, the style of the shop-fronts, the street furniture

Norberg-Schulz argues that understanding the spirit of place is fundamental to comprehending how people
relate to their surroundings. Places are not just physical spaces but are imbued with qualities that influence
emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. The spirit of place profoundly impacts how individuals experience life,
often shaping their sense of belonging, history, and personal identity. The author introduces a
phenomenological approach to architecture to delve into the essence of places. Phenomenology, as a
philosophical movement, focuses on the direct and subjective experience of phenomena. When applied to
architecture, this approach emphasizes the importance of human experience and perception in the design
and interpretation of spaces. It suggests that buildings and landscapes should be designed not merely with
functional considerations in mind but also to enhance the lived experience of their users
 THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY – ALDO ROSSI

Rossi is primarily concerned with the form of a city which is the summary of its architecture. Two different
hypotheses are taken here to mean the architecture of the city. Firstly Rossi finds city as a manmade object,
a work of engineering and architecture. Second, certain more limited but still crucial aspects of the city,
such as urban artefacts, which like the city itself are characterized by their own history and thus by their
own form.

Urban Artefact as a work of Art:

Rossi’s direct rejection of function shows his preferences to explain the city form as an object of art. He
emphasizes here that functions are dominated by form and this forms determine the individuality of every
urban artefacts. The urban artefacts such as a building, a street, a district are considered as a work of art,
which are the manifestations of social and religious life.
He stated that there is something in the nature of urban artefacts that renders them very similar and not only
metaphorically - to a work of art. Urban artefacts are material constructions,
To him urban artefacts and the city itself can be considered as an art for their link to their quality, their
uniqueness, their analysis etc. It also appeared difficult to him to explain the underlying principles of their
variety.

Rossi argues that ‘since every function can be articulated through a form, and forms in turn contain the
potential to exist as urban artefacts, so forms tend to allow themselves to be articulated as urban elements.
It is precisely a form that persists through a set of transformations which constitute an urban artefact per
excellence. He thinks function cannot be indicated as a principal issue in relation to cities like individuality,
locus, memory, design itself.
His study is a denial of the explanation of the urban artefact in terms of function. He rejects the concept of
functionalism, which is dictated by an ingenious empiricism that holds ‘functions bring form together’. So
he thinks urban artefacts even the city itself is free from rigid rules of functions, on the other hand, all their
forms are capable to incorporate function with some alternations and transformations if required.

Theory of Permanence:
Rossi’s ideas support the theory of permanence as proposed by Lavendan (1926).
This theory is related to Rossi’s hypothesis of the city as a giant man-made object produced in the process
of time. Thus evolves Rossi’s ‘Concept of Permanence’, which affects collective and individual artefacts in
the city in different ways. Rossi thinks ‘urban history’ is the most useful way to study urban structure. The
persistence of the city is revealed through ‘monuments’ as well as through the city’s basic layout and the
plans. Cities tried to retain their axis of development by maintaining the position of their original layout
and growing according to the direction and meaning of their older artefacts. However permanence may be
‘propelling’ or ‘Pathological’. Artefacts help to perceive the city in totality or may appear as an isolated
element as a part of urban system. A monument becomes propelling when it survives precisely because of
their form which accommodates different functions over time. When an artefact stands virtually isolated in
the city and adds nothing, it is pathological. However, in both cases, the urban artefacts are a part of the
city.

City as a spatial system:

City is conceived as a spatial system composed of many parts. Residential area is one of such elements in
the total form of the city. It is closely attached to nature and evolution of a city, and constitutes the city’s
image. According to Rossi this part and whole character of a city challenge an aspect of functionalist theory
i.e. zoning. He considers the specialized zones are characteristics of a city and may have their autonomous
parts. Their distribution in the city is determined by the entire historical process but not on function.

Primary Element and their dynamics:

One of the important concepts derived by Rossi is the identification of the ‘Primary Elements’ of a city. The
urban elements those function as nuclei of aggregation and are dominant in nature are primary elements.
These are capable of accelerating the process of urbanization in a city and they also characterize the process
of spatial transformation in an area larger than the city. These elements play a permanent role in the
evolution of the city overtime and constitute the physical structure of the city. Many eminent cities started
to grow centred on an urban artefact, like monument. Over time these generating artefacts become
transformed and their functions altered. Such elements have meta-economic character and also become
works of art.

History and the Collective Memory:

The history is the ‘collective memory’ of people of the city and it has an important influence on the city
itself. expresses itself through the monuments. Sometimes myth precedes the history of a city and thus
become important. Athens is the first clear example of the science of urban architecture and its development
through history which is initiated by a myth. According to Rossi Rome reveals total contrasts and
contradictions of the modern city; but Athens remains the purest experience of humanity, the embodiment
of condition that can never recur. Rossi believes in the dominant role of politics played in the evolution of
cities. Political decisions settle on the image of the city if not the city itself. Thus city becomes the reflection
of the collective will.

Rossi thinks that ‘urban history’ is most useful to study urban structure. The continuity and therefore the
history are important aspects underlying his theories. Urban aesthetics constitute a science founded in
meaning inherent in the pre-existing building stock of the city. Through collective memory the intellect is
engaged to discover their meaning and beauty. He does not distinguish between continuity and history.
Rossi’s ‘past’ was not overwhelmed by the ancients. Rather he emphases on the cultural stability and
inspires its further development in all the ages.
He sees building of cities as part of culture. To him people had civilized nature and brought it under control
by discovering the secrets of her materials and with them made constructions for the collective purpose.
This demands organized systems of division of labour and commands, and the technical advancement to
refine tools for the task.
 JAN GEHL, LIFE BETWEEN BUILDINGS,

Ultimately, urban design is more about the dynamic activities occurring within the public realm that it is
about the built quality of the space (buildings, physical amenities, etc.). “Inevitably,” writes Jan Gehl, “life
between buildings is richer, more stimulating, and more rewarding than any combination of architectural
ideas.” That is not to say architecture cannot contribute to the experiential, cultural, and social value of an
urban environment – merely that quality urban life trumps quality urban infrastructure amongst a sensitive
designer’s priorities. Of course, there is a relationship between good design and good urban life – in
America; this is most commonly demonstrated negatively, such as when bad design engenders bad urbanism
(by squandering the potential for good urban life).

To ensure an urban space retains the capacity for quality urbanism, Gehl would have the designer take steps
to avoid precluding it. His concept of “soft edges” involves providing certain architectural layers and
complexities that enable certain types of activities, leading to a desirably active and rich urban environment
and society. Specifically, he stresses designing to promote stationary activities that are more prolonged and
entrench people deeper into the urban setting (in contrast to coming and going activities, which are more
frequent but fleeting in duration). “Of course it is important that conditions for walking to and from
buildings are good and comfortable, but for the scope and character of life between buildings, the conditions
offered for long-lasting outdoor activities play the decisive role.”

“Soft edges” are what really foster public-realm occupation and interaction.
These are spaces that flank and/or permeate buildings where people can settle, work, eat, and otherwise sit
and meld into the urban place. Ideally, Gehl writes, soft edges “link indoors and outdoors – functionally
and psychologically.” He demonstrates this connection with dense, single-story, single-family housing
examples (namely by a lucid sociological link between the shrouded innards of the house, the semi-public
porch and yard, and the entirely public street) but contends the concept holds true across urban topologies:
“everywhere people walk to and from city functions, or where the functions stay outdoors, the establishment
of good connections between indoors and outdoors combined with good resting places in front of the
buildings must be a matter of course.” Extant soft edges shall be documented and then evaluated according
to their frequency (hard edge to soft edge ratio), depth (degree to which inside and outside connect/merge),
vitality (observed activation), and flexibility (range of stationary activities and their relationship to
adjacent/integrated coming-and-going activities).

One of the largest pedestrianized street in the world called, Copenhagen’s Strøget carfree zone is a
result of Gehl’s advocacy for public spaces.
 THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SMALL URBAN SPACES – WILLIAM H WHYTE

To foster social interactivity, an urban space needs the physical infrastructure necessary to accommodate
actors in the first place. Put simply: an urban space cannot become sociable if it doesn’t have the facilities
about which to socialize – people won’t sit and talk to each other if there’s nowhere to sit! Informed by a
career of first-hand observation and measurement, William Whyte developed strategies for evaluating and
improving such interactivity-enabling infrastructure.

There are three phases to Whyte’s process: assess the visibility, accessibility, and variety of sitting places;
measure the dimensional suitability of each seat; and observe the seating ensemble’s actual usage to
determine overall interactivity-fostering success.
It is most immediately important that sitting places be visible to passersby. As Whyte writes, “if people do
not see a space, they will not use it.” Obviously, the seats must not only be in view but also in reach of
potential sitters: less accessible facilities find themselves less used. Accessibility also involves the perceived
(and actual) publicness of the sitting place - the more private a surface seems (or is), the less welcoming it
effectively becomes. Finally, seat types need to vary across the site to provide for the public’s varied wants
and needs. Variables include size (big enough for one person, two people, and bigger group), climate
(sun/shade, windy/calm), aesthetics (shape, style, and material), functionality (static, movable/adjustable)
and public exposure (along thoroughfare, tucked out of the way).

Whyte offers a few dimensional and mathematical rules of thumb to assess sittability amongst seats. People
tend to avoid seats shorter than one foot or taller than three. Double-sided seats should be a full “two
backsides deep” to ensure both sides are simultaneously usable. There should be about one linear foot of
sitting space per thirty square feet of plaza area.
In addition to compiling the above quantifications, the space should be observed to ascertain exactly how
the public actually uses its seats. Because each space is unique, generalized rules of thumb alone cannot
fully predict particular sittability and associated interactivity – locally specific factors also hold a strong
hand. In total, assessing a place’s sittability involves, first, urbanistically characterizing and dimensionally
inventorying available seats and, second, observing and documenting how people use the seats and how the
seats facilitate social interactivity. Quantifiably, seat plenitude ensures everyone who wants to sit and
socialize can; seat-type heterogeneity supports more diverse breeds of seated socialization.

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES – JANE JACOBS

§ attack on “orthodox” modern city planning and city architectural design .

§ Looking into how cities actually work, rather than how they should work according to urban
designers and planners
§ describes the real factors affecting cities,
§ recommends strategies to enhance actual city performance
Introduction
§ In this book Jacobs briefly explains influential ideas in orthodox planning,
§ Howard’s Garden city, indeed a set of self-sufficient small towns, ideal for all but those with a plan
for their own lives.
§ City Beautiful was developed to sort out the monuments from the rest of the city, and assemble
them in a unit.
§ Le Corbusier devised the Radiant City, composed of skyscrapers within a park.
§ Jacobs argues that all these are irrelevant to how cities work, and therefore moves on to explain
workings of cities in the first part of the book.
§
Three primary uses of sidewalks: safety, contact, and assimilating children
 § Street safety is promoted by pavements clearly marking a public/private separation, and by
spontaneous protection with the eyes of both pedestrians and those watching the continual flow of
pedestrians from buildings.
§ To make this eye protection effective at enhancing safety, there should be “an unconscious
assumption of general street support” when necessary, or an element of “trust”.
§ As the main contact venue, pavements contribute to building trust among neighbors over time.
§ Moreover, self-appointed public characters such as storekeepers enhance the social structure of
sidewalk life by learning the news at retail and spreading it.
§ Jacobs argues that such trust cannot be built in artificial public places such as a game room in a
housing project.
§ Sidewalk contact and safety, together, thwart segregation and racial discrimination.

A final function of sidewalks is to provide a non-matriarchy environment for children to play. This is not
achieved in the presumably “safe” city parks - an assumption that Jacobs seriously challenges due to the
lack of surveillance mechanisms in parks. Successful, functional parks are those under intense use by a
diverse set of companies and residents.
Such parks usually possess four common characteristics: intricacy, centering, sun, and enclosure.
§ Intricacy is the variety of reasons people use parks,
§ among them centering or the fact that parks have a place known as their centers.
§ Sun, shaded in the summer, should be present in parks,
§ as well as buildings to enclose parks.

Jacobs then explores a city neighborhood, tricky to define for while it is an organ of self-governance, it is
not self-contained.
§ Three levels of city neighborhoods; city, districts, and streets, can be identified.
§ Streets should be able to effectively ask for help when enormous problems arise.
§ Effective districts should therefore exist to represent streets to the city.
§ City is the source of most public money – from federal or state coffers.

Conditions for city diversity

§ First, districts must serve more than one primary function to ensure presence of people using the
same common facilities at different times.
§ Second, blocks should be short, to increase path options between points of departure and
destinations, and therefore enhance social and as a result economic development.
§ Third, buildings should be at varying ages, accommodating different people and businesses which
can afford different levels of rents.
§ Fourth, there should be a dense concentration of people, including residents, to promote visible city
life.
It is important that all of these four conditions are necessary to generate diversity, and absence of each one
would result in homogeneity and ultimately dullness.

Jacobs refutes the myths about disadvantages of diversity presented in orthodox planning.

First she argues that diversity does not innately diminish visual order. Conversely, homogeneity or
superficially diverse-looking homogeneous areas lack beauty. Moreover, diversity is not the root cause of
traffic congestion, which is caused by vehicles and not people in themselves. Lively, diverse areas
encourage walking. Diversity is not permissive to ruinous uses- if defined correctly- either. A category of
uses contributing nothing to a district’s general convenience, such as junk yards, grow in unsuccessful spots.
In fact, to make these areas successful and thereby dispose of such ruinous uses, diversity should be
enhanced.
A second category of conceived ruinous uses such as bars and theaters are a threat in grey areas, but not
harmful in diverse city districts.
The final category includes parking lots, large or heavy truck depots, gas stations, gigantic outdoor
advertising and enterprises harmful due to their wrong scale in certain streets. Jacobs suggests that exerting
controls on the scale of street frontage permitted to a use would alleviate such a use.

NEW URBANISM

New Urbanism - largely established by architects Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk through their
work and their co-founding of the CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM (CNU) in 1993.

LEON KRIER - served as an intellectual precursor and influential critic of modernism, paving the way for
the New Urbanist movement to emerge in the late 20th century disinvestment in central cities, the spread
of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of
agricultural lands and wilderness, erosion of society’s built heritage as one interrelated community-building
challenge.

New Urbanism movement is the idea of reshaping our urban fabric to create sustainable and connected
neighborhoods. It’s an urban planning approach that prioritizes walkability, human-scaled architecture, and
the integration of different functions within neighborhoods. The goal is not just to create aesthetically
pleasing residential and commercial areas but to foster walkable, interconnected communities that enhance
residents’ quality of life by improving urban design and increasing transit usage.

The principles of New Urbanism were first created in the 1980s as an alternative to the suburban sprawl
that was characterized by low-density zoning, and single-use buildings and homes that had become popular
after the end of World War II. New Urbanism reflects on historical precedents and seeks to return to a more
traditional planning strategy as seen in places like Charleston, South Carolina, and Georgetown in
Washington, D.C. Beyond the pedestrian-friendly zones, the idea is that these neighborhoods would be
packed with a combination of multi-family housing buildings, flourishing businesses, and commercial sites
that line a gridded street system. All of this space would then be bisected with a “Main Street”, where all
of the town activities would come together in a central location.

10 Principles of New Urbanism

1. Walkability
Most needs are within a 10-minute walk of home and work. Street design is friendly to pedestrians, because
buildings are close to the street and have porches, windows, and doors. Streets have lots of trees and on-
street parking, with parking lots and garages placed behind buildings and houses, often connected to alleys.
Streets are narrow, which slows traffic dramatically.
2. Connectivity
An interconnected street grid disperses traffic and encourages walking.
3. Mixed-Use and Diversity
Neighborhoods, blocks, and buildings offer a mix of shops, offices, apartments, and [Link]
neighborhoods welcome people of all ages, income levels, cultures, and races.
4. Mixed Housing
Zoning allows the close proximity of a wide range of housing types, sizes, and prices.
5. Quality Architecture and Urban Design
Buildings emphasize beauty, aesthetics, and comfort and establish a sense of place; public spaces function
as civic art, establishing an attractive, quality public realm.
6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure
Neighborhoods have definite centers and edges, with public spaces near the center. Each neighborhood
contains a range of uses and densities within a 10-minute walk.
7. Increased Density
Buildings, residences, shops, and services are close together to make walking more convenient, services
and resources more efficient, and living areas more enjoyable.
8. Smart Transportation
A network of high-quality public transit connects cities, towns, and neighborhoods, while pedestrian-
friendly design encourages more use of bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, and walking as daily transportation.
9. Sustainability
The community uses respect for natural systems and eco-friendly technologies like energy efficiency to
minimize effects on the environment. The community connects strongly with surrounding farmland,
encouraging land preservation and local food consumption.
10. Quality of Life
These design principles produce a life that is well worth living by providing places that enrich, uplift, and
inspire the human spirit.

Example:
New Urbanism Strategies and their offshoots like the 15 Minute City, Most notable project is the Stapleton
neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. It was rezoned to become one of the largest mixes of residential and
commercial areas in Denver, with an emphasis on public parks. concerns with how these cities are planned
from a density perspective. If they are so dense, how will residents experience a level of privacy? Some of
the proposed towns also feel like more of a movie set, with their heavily manicured designs, and don’t
reflect the way in which cities naturally grow.