Module 2

Sir Patrick Geddes:

• He was a well known town planner, sociologist of Scotland.

• He gave his expert advice for the improvement of about eighteen major towns in India to the then Governor of Madras
named Lord Pentland.

• He laid emphasis on ‘Survey before Plan’ that is, diagnosis before treatment to make a correct diagnosis of various ills from
which the town suffers and then prescribe the correct remedies for its cure.

• Before coming to India, he had successfully overcomed the problem of Edinborough slums.

Principles of planning as stated by Sir Patrick Geddes:

1. He stated that town planning primarily meant establishing relationship among ‘Folk, Place and Work’ which
corresponds to triad (Geddesian Triad) Function and Environment, Folk (social aspect); Place (physical aspect);
Work (economical aspect). Accordingly the city came to be looked upon, as a physical utility, for collective living and a living
entity which like all other living creatures, is governed by definite laws of growth and where Environment played a great
part.

2. The city is no longer a mere physical structure but it is now meant the people, their families and communities they formed,
their places to live, to work and to play. Hence, here human needs are most important than any other needs
Sir Ebenezer Howard:

• He was a well known sociologist, who after studying the industrial evils in Britain gave the concept of ‘Garden City’.

• He mentioned his ideas through a book named ‘ Garden City of Tomorrow’, He explained his idea of ‘ Garden City’ by an
impressive diagram of ‘The Three Magnets’ namely the Town magnet, Country magnet, Town and Country magnet.

• Naturally people preferred the third one namely Town and Country magnet which later Sir Ebenezer Howard named as
Garden city, which made a deep impression in the field of town planning.

• Letchworth, Welwyn and many other cities were planned on this principle.

The main features of Garden City principles are:

1. The dwellings for all classes of people should be distributed about a large central court in which the public buildings would be
located.

2. The shopping center to be located on the edge of the town.

3. The employment facilities for all the people to be provided by starting a variety of industries.

4. The industries to be located on the outskirts of the town.

6. The city should be surrounded by a permanent belt of agricultural land of three to five thousand acres.

7. The city should have the advantage of both rural life such as fresh air, gardens, playfields, cottages etc. and amenities of urban
life such as schools, theatres, hospitals, recreation centers etc.

8. To eliminate the private ownership and whole of the land to be brought under co-operative basis or held in trust for the
community in order to have the control on finance and the profit gained thereby be utilized for uplifting the community itself.
Clarence Stein:

• He was an American architect and planner.

• He was influenced by the concept of Garden City of Sir Ebenezer Howard, he alongwith Henry Wright, also an American
architect and town planner, prepared the town plan for a city Radburn in New Jersey in 1928.

The principles of planning advocated by Stein are as below:

1. No grid-iron road pattern be provided in the road system, according to him, it is the greatest enemy of traffic and road users.

2. Planning not in term of single block, sector etc. but overall planning of the whole neighbourly area or ‘super block’.

3. The super blocks to be enclosed by main roads which in turn enclose the narrow lanes.

4. Expressway or parkway for high speed traffic with limited access from and to neighbourhoods. The footpath for pedestrians
should be safe and segregated from other vehicular traffic.

5. Usually the roads and back of the houses are not kept clean, for this reason the working areas like store, kitchen, bath should
Face the front roads whereas living areas like drawing, dining, bed rooms should be on the rearside of the roads. This is known as
‘Radburn idea’, which earned the name “ The Town for the Motor Age”.
Clarence Stein:

6. A community park spreading on whole of the area of the town instead of providing one big park at some distance which may
not be used by all. The park should be well balanced and spread throughout the town.

7. Dead end streets provided to not to allow through traffic to go to the houses.
Sir Patrick Abercrombie:

• He worked as Head of the Town Planning Department in London University. He is the planner of many cities like
Greater London, Bristol etc.

Town Planning principles of Sir Patrick Abercrombie:

1. ‘Civic Survey’ to be carried out before planning that is, diagnosis before treatment.

2. Planning not to be done on piece-meal basis, instead the town shall be considered asa whole unit with respect to the
entire region.

3. Uncontrolled growth of cities should be stopped.

4. Industries should be located on the outer areas of the town.

• According to Le Corbusier, a city is a living entity

• He says that towns are a biological phenomenon, such as head, heart, limbs, lungs and arteries, Govt. buildings like High
court, Legislative Assembly, Secretariat, Raj Bhavan constitute the head; city center with commercial buildings and shops
represent heart; Industries and educational institutions represents limbs; parks, green belt are the lungs; Roads footpaths are
arteries’’.

Le Corbusier advocated the following principles of town planning:

1. Core of the city should be decongested and the excess population should be inhabited at the outer countryside in satellite
towns which are linked to the main city.

2. Provision of speedy transportation.

3. Provision of plenty of open spaces in the form of gardens, parks etc. round the tall buildings throughout the length and
breadth of the city.

4. Population control. Population density must be reduced.

1.A planner must have knowledge of urban spatial structure or physical design and the way in which cities work.

[Link] to analyze trends in population, employment and health.

[Link] possess knowledge of plan making and project evaluation.

[Link] posess mastery in involving wide range of persons in the process of decision making.

[Link] of understanding local, state and central government programs and processes.

6. Understanding of the social and environmental impact of planning decisions in communities.

7. Ability to work with the public and must be good at expressing ideas (articulate) and planning issues to a wide variety of
public.

8. Must be able to function as a mediator and facilitator when the community interest conflict occur.

9. Understanding all the legalities involved in land use regulation.

10. Ability of understanding of the interaction among the economy, transportation, health and human services and land use
regulation.

11. Must be technically sound and competent.

12. Ability of envisioning alternatives to the physical and social environments in which we live.

13. Must have mastery in GIS(Geographic Information System) software and must possess good presentation skills.
• Present status of town planning in India

• In India because of specific approach of town planning we have few cities such as New Delhi, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar,
Durgapur, Bangalore may be called as planned cities.

• For the purpose of looking after the planning and execution of new cities or new parts within metro centers, various
organisations such as DDA (Delhi Development Authority), CIDCO, CMPO(Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organization),
HUDCO are set up by the government.

• Such authorities are given the following powers:

1. To prepare development plans for the urban development area.

2. To prepare town planning schemes.

3. To guide, direct and assist the local authority or authorities and other statutory authorities functioning in the urban
development area in matters pertaining to the planning, development and use of urban land.

4. To control the development activities in accordance with the development plan in the urban development area.
• Present status of town planning in India

5. To check whether the development activities are in accordance with the development plan.

6. To acquire, hold, manage and dispose off property movable or immovable.

7. To enter into contracts, agreements, or arrangements with any local authority, persons or organizations.

8. To carry out any development work in the urban development area as may be assigned to it by the state government from
time to time.

9. To exercise such other powers and perform such other functions as are supplemental, incidental or consequential to any of
the foregoing powers and functions as may be directed by state government.
Integrated Area Planning in India

•This is an important measure for reducing regional disparities in India.

A few integrated plans are as under:

[Link] Area Development Programme:

Initiated in hilly areas of Uttarakhand, Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

The main objects of this was:

•To exploit local resources of the hill areas.

•Starting primary activities such as horticulture, forestry, animal husbandry.

•To began suitable village industries.

•For imitating the conservation measures.

This programme has been taken in the areas of that of M.P., Chattisgarh, Orissa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh,

Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

3. Drought Prone Area Programme:

The aim was to provide employment to the rural people in drought-prone areas, to introduce relief operations.

4. Metropolitan Regional Planning:

Urban master plans were prepared for capital and port cities to reduce the problem of rapid urbanization and to control large
scale

immigration from rural to urban. A master plan was prepared for Delhi in 1955 to develop the satellite towns around Delhi.
Distribution and Sizes of Settlements

There are four types of settlements in India and they are namely as follows:

[Link] settlement.

[Link]-Compact settlement.

[Link] settlement.

[Link] settlements.
[Link] Settlements:

If the number of villages equals the number of hamlets in an area unit, the settlement is designated as compact. Such
settlements are found in the Narmada valley, large parts of Rajasthan, paddy lands in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Vindhyan plateau
and several other cultivated parts of India.

•In such villages all the dwellings are concentrated in one central site. Villagers enjoy the benefits of community life.

•Their size varies from 500 to 2500 persons in sparsely populated parts like Rajasthan to more than 10000 in the Ganga plain.

2. Semi-Compact settlements:

•If the number of villages equals more than half of the hamlets, it is semi-compact settlement. These are found both in plains
and plateaus depending upon the environmental conditions prevailing there.

•The dwellings in such settlements are not very closely knitted and are huddled together at one common site.

•It covers more area than the compact settlements; the hamlets occupy new sites near the periphery of the village boundary.
[Link] settlements:

•If the number of villages is equal to half of hamlet number, it is a hamlet settlement.

•Hamlets are spread over the area with intervening fields and the main or central settlement is either absent or has feeble
influence upon others.

•Original site is not easily distinguishable and the morphological diversity is rarely noticed.

•Such settlements are found in West Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and coastal plains.

4. Dispersed settlements:

•If the number of villages is less than half the number of hamlets, the settlement is regarded as dispersed.

•The inhabitants of dispersed settlements live in isolated dwellings scattered in the cultivated fields.

•Individualism, sentiments of living freely, are conducive to such settlements.

•These dwellings are deprived of neighbourhood, communal interdependence and social interaction.
4. Dispersed settlements:

•Dispersed settlements are found in tribal areas covering central part of India, eastern and southern Rajasthan, Himalayan
slopes and land with dissected and uneven topography.

•These are found in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh.

• All the residential units are now planned on neighbourhood principle.

• It is a small unit which serves the local community and encourages them to foster a neighbourhood spirit or relationship
which seems to have been lost in the modern city life.

• It should possess the best qualities of small town to facilitate the acquaintance and neighbourly relations and also be broad
enough to accommodate sufficient people to enable each individual to come in contact with people of different strata of
society and compatible tastes. (Unity in Diversity).
Principles of Neighbourhood planning

1) Size:

• The town is divided into self-contained units or sectors of 10000 population and this is further divided into smaller units
called neighbourhood unit with 2000 to 5000 population based on the requirement of one primary school.

• The size of the unit is therefore limited to about 1 to 1.5 sq. km i.e. within walkable distance of 10 to 15 minutes.

2) Boundaries:

• The unit should be bounded on all its sides by main road, wide enough for through traffic.

3) Protective Strips:

• These are necessary to protect the neighbourhood from annoyance of through traffic and to provide suitable facilities
for developing parks, playgrounds and road widening scheme in future. These are called “Minor Green Belts”.
4) Internal Streets:

• The internal streets are designed to ensure safety to the people and the school going children in particular since the
mothers are anxious every day till the safe return of the child.

• The internal streets should circulate throughout the unit with easy access to shops and community centers. No through traffic
is allowed here.

5) Layout of buildings:

• To encourage neighbourhood relation and secure social stability and balance.

• Houses to suit different family groups such as single family houses, double family houses, cottages, flats etc. must be
provided.

6) Shopping Centres:

• Each shop should be located on the circumference of the unit, preferably at traffic junctions and adjacent to the
neighbourhood units.
7) Community Centres:

• Each community will have its centre with social, cultural and recreational amenities.

8) Facilities:

• All public facilities required for the family for their comfort and convenience should be within easy reach.

• These include the primary school, temple, club, retail shop, sport centre etc.

• These should be located within 1 km in the central place so as to form a nucleus to develop social life of the unit.
Question bank for Module 2:

[Link] note on work done by the following town planners of modern era:
I. Sir Patrick Geddes.
II. Sir Ebenezer Howard.
[Link] Stein.
[Link] Patrick Abercrombie.
V. Le Corbusier.

Q2. What are the skills that are expected to be possessed by a town planner ?

Q3. Describe the present status of town planning in India.

Q4. Write a note on Integrated area planning in India.

Q5. What are different types of settlements ? Explain its distribution and sizes.

Q6. Explain the concept of Neighbourhood unit Planning.