The Evolution of Urban Planning
QUESTION: How does Mesa evolve?
Some Clues for You >The Evolution of Urban Planning
Urban planning has changed a lot over the centuries. Early city layouts revolved around key elements such as prominent buildings (e.g. cathedrals, monuments) and fortification (e.g. city walls, castles).
As cities grew larger, they also became more unpleasant. Here are some key ideas from architects and planners who sought to tame the unruly urban beast.
These visualizations range from the Noli Map of 1748 - 40 years before the City of Mesa was founded by "The Pioneers" sent on a mission by Joseph Smith to indigenous lands and territory in the westward Manifest Destiny of the United States - to The Transact in 2000.
1903: Garden City >
Sounds a lot like right here in Mesa
". . . At the dawn of the 20th century, cities were experiencing big population growth.
The Garden City concept – devised by the English planner Ebenezer Howard – sought to solve urban overcrowding and poor quality of life by creating smaller, master-planned communities on the outskirts of the larger city.
The city would be structured around concentric circles of land use and include a sizeable park and greenbelt. Greenbelts were a revolutionary idea at the time and are still widely appreciated to this day.
Here are some more visualizations and Infographics:
Broadacre City
If there is a true antithesis for today’s urbanism, then the suburban brainchild of Frank Lloyd Wright is surely it. Broadacre City was a thought experiment that envisioned decentralized communities that would sprawl across a lush, bucolic landscape. That vision stood in stark contrast to frenetic, exhaust-choked cities of the 1940s, which resembled “fibrous tumor(s)” according to Wright.
Though Broadacre City was never built verbatim, Wright’s rejection of the American city came to life in the form of suburbs and strip malls from sea to shining sea.
The Megaregion
As cities within close proximity grow and merge together, finding a way to make them work as a connected economic and social unit is a key strategy for becoming more competitive on the global stage.
Jean Gottman, a French geographer, recognized this megaregion trend early on in the Northeast region of the United States. His seminal 1961 study, Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States, outlined the extraordinary dynamics that shaped America’s largest urban corridor.
The Transect
In North America, many cities have a stark divide between urban and suburban areas – a gap known as “the missing middle”. New urbanists seek to create more dense residential development, particularly in walkable, transit-accessible areas.
Please Note: This new form of city planning isn’t just cosmetic, it may help save cities from bloated infrastructure costs.
Recent research into the tax efficiency (property tax revenues vs. infrastructure maintenance costs) of a variety of American cities and found that walkable urban districts tended to be revenue-positive – in effect, subsidizing surrounding low-density areas.
Next Stop: Smart Cities
In the era of big data, the future of our physical spaces may be defined more by bytes than bricks.City governments have been collecting big picture data for planning in transportation and zoning for some time, but new technology allows for the capture of even more granular data. Cities can now measure everything from noise pollution to wastewater volume, and this can have a big impact on spending efficiency and overall quality of urban spaces
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It’s almost like a FitBit for the city.
– Stuart Cowan, chief scientist, Smart Cities Council
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A prominent section of waterfront in Toronto, Canada, is about to become a testing ground for this concept.
The partnership between a government agency and Sidewalk Labs, a division of Alphabet, will produce an urban district that fully integrates technology and data collection into its design.
If the project is successful, it may influence the way future “smart” neighborhoods are constructed.
