The Emergence of Planning:

“Utopian” Visions and Future

“Smart” City Plans Around the
World

EDUARDO F BOBER JR
Special Industry Lecturer
TIP QC – Architecture Department
FLASHBACK
 Cities conditions (problems) all
over the world
 Impacts of overpopulation and
overconsumption
 Social, economic and
environmental problems on:
• Housing
• Education
• Social Welfare
• Employment
• Pollution
• Health
• Crimes (peace and order)
• Citizens’ psychological and
social behavior
• Energy and water shortage
• Infrastructure
• Climate Change
Utopian Visions
 Idealistic – modeled on or aiming for a state in which
everything is perfect.
Societies (genteel) attempt to preserve the beautiful and
restore health to decaying cities especially in Europe.
 Utopian Visionaries as Social Reformers to create
“utopia”
1 : having impossibly ideal conditions especially of
social organization.
2 : proposing or advocating impractically ideal
social and political schemes.
Evolved out of the pioneering and innovation in the USA.
Anglo American Tradition and European Tradition
Garden City_Ebenezer Howard
The most well-known
planning ideas by E.
Howard, American, short-
hand court employee.
BOOK: Tomorrow: A
Peaceful Path to Real
Reform (1898).
He envisioned a city of
between 25,000 to
32,000 inhabitants
surrounded by a green
belt.
Garden City_Ebenezer Howard
Garden City_Ebenezer Howard
Garden City_Ebenezer Howard
 The 3 magnets is an extremely
compressed and brilliant
statement of planning objectives.
Howard is saying that living in
the town (city) and the country
(rural) has a mixture of advantages
and disadvantages. Town and
Country (Garden City) which
Howard proposed is a hybrid
form with the advantages
without any of the
disadvantages.
 This can be achieved by
planned decentralization of
workers in their places of
employment, THUS transferring
the advantages of urban
agglomeration en bloc to the new
settlement.
1st GC_Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England
 Letchworth,
Hertfordshire,
England, (1903) was
created as the world's
first Garden City in
England from the
vision of Howard.
 Designed by Barry
Parker and Raymond
Unwin.
 Welwyn, Southern
Hertfordshire, England
(1920) was the 2nd
Garden City.
Developments prior to GC of EH
Robert Owen’s New
Lanark in Scotland (1800-
10) – a model community
for mills and mill’s
workers.
"What ideas individuals may
attach to the term "Millennium" I
know not; but I know that society
may be formed so as to exist
without crime, without poverty,
with health greatly improved, with
little, if any misery, and with
intelligence and happiness
increased a hundredfold; and no
obstacle whatsoever intervenes at
this moment except ignorance to
prevent such a state of society
from becoming universal.”
Developments prior to GC of EH
 George
Cadbury’s
Bourneville,
Birmingham
(1879-1895)
 Sir Titus Salt’s
Town, Saltaire
(1853-63) –
industrial village
for the spiritual,
physical and moral
welfare of the
workers.
 Other Significant Developments
Raymond Unwin (1863-  Clarence Perry (1872-1944)
1940) and Barry Parker developed the idea of a
(1867-1947) “neighborhood unit”.
 The principle was based on the
• Designers of the 1st GC at natural catchment area of
Letchworth, England and community facilities such as
later on built the schools, local shops and other
Hampstead Garden Suburb services. It was largely adopted
Golders Green, Northwest by British planners after WWII. It
London. It was a dormitory is not only a pragmatic device,
suburb experimenting in
the creation of a socially but a deliberate piece of
mixed community. social engineering which would
help people achieve a sense of
identity with the community
and the place.
The Neighborhood Unit_C. Perry
Critique to Perry’s idea was
Christopher Alexander. His
paper “A City is not a Tree”
in 1963 suggested that
sociologically the whole
idea is false: different
people had varied needs
for local services, and the
principle of choice was
paramount.
Radburn_Clarence Stein & H. Wright

 Clarence Stein (1882-

1975), architect planner
improved the
neighborhood concept.
He grasped the principle
that in local residential
areas the need above all
was to segregate the
pedestrian routes used
for local journey from the
routes used by car traffic.
 Together with Henry Wright they applied the principle in the new-town
development at Radburn, Northern New Jersey in 1933.

 is a place where community involvement can take place; where the

emphasis is on a program to meet the needs of children of all ages, as
well as adults; where there is open space (parks); where the main
thoroughfares are separated from the pedestrian walks; where the
property is small , but the common parks make up for the lack of yard
space.
H.AlkerTripp (1883-1954) published “Town Planning and
Traffic”. He asserted that cities should be reconstructed on
the basis of precincts. He argued for a hierarchy of roads
segregating arterial and sub-arterial roads, segregated from a
local street with only occasional access. High-capacity, free-
flow highway would define large blocks of the city.
Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), Scotch Biologist arrived at a
systematic study of the forces that were shaping growth and
change in modern cities which is now recognized as human
ecology: the relationship of man and his environment. His
visionary concept was captured his book published in 1915,
“Cities in Evolution”. Geddes contribution to planning was to
base it firmly on the study of reality, the close analysis of
settlement patterns and local economic environment. His
standard sequence of planning: survey–analyze-plan, gave
planning a logical structure.
• P. G. F. le Play, French Sociologist also stressed the intimate
and subtle relationships which existed between human
settlement and the land, through the nature of local
economy with the triad relationship of Place-Work-Play.
• Lewis Mumford wrote “The Culture of Cities” in 1938 that
became almost the Bible of the regional planning
movement.
• Patrick Abercrombie (1879-1957) prepared the Great
London Plan of 1944. The broad aim of the plan was
essentially Howard – decentralization of hundreds of
thousands of people from an overcrowded giant city and
their re-establishment in great series of new planned
communities which from the beginning would be self-
contained towns for living and working.
 Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (1869-1959) suggested the idea
to develop a completely dispersed–though planned-low density urban
spread which he called “Broadacre City” where each home would be
surrounded by an acre of land, enough to grow crops on, the homes
would be connected by super highways, giving easy and fast travel by car
in any direction. It is a plan of the future.
The Linear City_Arturo Soria Mata

 The Linear City (La Ciudad Lineal) – proposed by Mata in

1882 to be developed along an axis of high- speed, high
intensity transportation from an existing city. His argument
was that under the influence of new forms of mass-
transportation, cities were tending to assume such a linear
form. His ambitious proposal is running this linear city
across Europe from Cadiz in Spain to St. Petersburg in
Russia, a total distance of 1,800 miles.
 The Linear City_Arturo Soria Mata
The idea enjoyed some popularity
among planners on the grounds that it
has some good qualities:
 It corresponds to the need to exploit
costly investments in new lines of rapid
communication;
 it gives easy access to nearby open
countryside; and
 can respond automatically to the need
for further growth.

Tony Garnier (1869-1948), an

architect working mainly in the city of
Lyon, produced in 1898 – the same
year as Howard’s was published - a
design for an industrial city (Cite
Industrielle) which, like Howard’s
garden city was to be a self-contained
settlement with its own industries and
housing close by. The Cite Industrielle
was never built. The Industrial City_Tony Garnier
Ernst May (1886-1970), an architect and city planner developed a
series of satellite towns (Trabantenstadte) an open land outside the
built-up limits, and separated from the city proper by a green belt.
They were remarkable for their detailed design treatment, in which
May combined uncompromising use of the then new functional
style of architecture with free use of low-rise apartment blocks, all
set in a park landscape.
The Radiant City_Le Corbusier
 Charles Edouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), Swiss-born architect
popularly known as Le Corbusier. Among his notable designs
produced for city reconstruction or for new settlements are his
Unite d’Habitation (1946-52) at Marseilles in France, and his
grand project for the capital City of the Punjab at Chandigarh
(1950-7), which is being finished only after his death. His
central ideas on planning are contained in his important books,
The City of Tomorrow (1922) and The Radiant City (La Ville
radieuse, 1933).
 The Radiant City developed by Le Corbusier during the 1920’s
and 1930’s is an idea of a city with very high local
concentrations of population in tall buildings, which would
allow most of the ground spaces to be left open. The cruciform
tower blocks are designed to admit maximum light to the
apartments. Dense flows of traffic on the motorway-style
roads are handled by complex interchanges.
 Propositions based on Le Corbusier’s
ideas:
The traditional city has become functionally obsolete, due to
increasing size and increasing congestion at the center. As the
urban mass grew through concentric addition, more and more
strain was placed on the communications of the innermost
areas, above all the CBD, which had the greater accessibility
and where all businesses wanted to be.

The paradox that the congestion could be cured by increasing

the density. The key is that density was to be increased at one
scale of analysis, but decreased at another. Locally, there
would be very high densities in the form of massive, tall
structures; but around each of these a very high proportion of
the available ground space – Corbusier advocated 95 percent –
could and should be left open.
 Propositions based on Le Corbusier’s
ideas:

The distribution of densities within the city.

New urban forms could accommodate a new and highly

efficient urban transportation system, incorporating both rail
lines and completely segregated elevated motorways, running
above the ground level, though, of course, below the levels at
which most people lived.
Some of the Most
Futuristic &
Forward Thinking
Cities In the World
(SOURCE: www.bustle.com)

Dubai, UAE
 It’s concept of City

 95 percent of its
residents are non-
citizen workers or
expats with limited
rights.
Hong Kong, China
 It’s architecture
 more skyscrapers than any other city in the world.
The Jockey Club Innovation Tower
Curitiba, Brazil
 It’s Eco-friendliness and smart city planning
 Curitiba earned a Globe Award for sustainability, and
UNESCO has also honored the city, citings its efficient
transportation system as a model for developing regions.
Singapore
 It’s plan for growth
 foster greater population density and cut down on
vehicular congestion, among other spatial inefficiencies,
without diminishing quality of life.
Tokyo, Japan
 It’s architecture (…and everything else)
 advanced railway system, its sci-fi cuisine, the abundance
and originality of its shopping options, its seriously
strange museums, its next-level haute couture, inventive
apartment buildings, and glittering skyline.
The Tokyo Skytree
 At 2,080 feet, it’s the
tallest structure in
Japan, the tallest
tower in the world,
and the second-tallest
building, after Burj
Khalifa in Dubai.
 Brasilia, Brazil
 It’s design
 UNESCO, which
named Brasilia
a World
Heritage Site, a
“landmark in
the history of
town planning”.
 Urban planner Lucio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer
intended “that every element—from the layout of the
residential and administrative districts (often compared to
the shape of a bird in flight) to the symmetry of the buildings
themselves — should be in harmony with the city’s overall
design.”
 Even those who don’t appreciate the finer details of design
will dig the city’s spacey, futuristic feel.
Toronto, Canada
 It’s design
o The city boasts some seriously sleek architecture and a
booming art scene: both factors that add to its forward-
thinking appeal.
SOURCE: https://www.bustle.com/articles/24870-the-10-most-futuristic-and-forward-thinking-
cities-in-the-world
Helsinki, Finland
 It’s Data transparency!
• At the forefront of a growing municipal trend that involves cities
making their statistical data available on Internet. What this means is
that the slew of agendas, meetings, and decisions that cumulatively
form the city’s government life — and provide a glimpse of its future
— are transparent and visible to anyone who's interested.
• BlindSquare app, which helps blind people navigate the city.
• Among metropolises using tech to get citizens more involved in
government and create a higher quality of life for residents.
 Arcology
 The concept has
been primarily
popularized, &
the term itself
coined, by
Architect Paolo
Soleri.

 “architecture and ecology” –

a field of creating
architectural design
principles for very densely
populated, ecologically low-
impact human habitats.
 Massive vertical structure
which preserves more of the
natural environment
 Eko Atlantic, Nigeria
 New financial
hub for
Nigeria – to
bring in 150K
commuters
daily in 2020.

 Land
reclaimed
from the sea
to house 250K
people.

SOURCE: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/12/africa/africa-new-smart-cities/
Vision City, Rwanda
 The country’s
largest housing
project

Konza Technological
City, Kenya
 Satellite
“smart” city
 By 2030 – to
bring in 1B$
yearly and
create 100K jobs
 “Smart” City (sustainable;
 “Smart” City - a space for innovative) – relates to the use
of ICT to improve QOL and city
coexistence among people who,
services.
based on the available
 Encompasses everything
technologies, can thrive and
from public spaces with
develop, while taking into account
free WIFI, solar-powered
economic, social and
streetlights, automated-lift
environmental sustainability.
car parks
 3 main aspects of technology
 Many of the world’s most
applied in “Smart” Cities for
difficult environmental
assessment:
challenges can be addressed
 Mobility
and solved by cities.
 Energy efficiency
 Quality of life
 Cities should focus on smart
SOURCE: citizens as opposed to smart
http://www.mdpi.com/2079- cities.
8954/5/1/8
 What “smart” city really is?
 Urban renewal with The Notion of a “Smart” City
steroids!
Governance
 When you leverage Technology
(Decision Making)
technology in the • Internet • Evidence-based
governance of a city to • Hardware • Quick
achieve a set predetermined • Software • Error Free
goals (purposes), you get a Purpose
“smart” city
• Resilience
 “Green” City • Energy
• Low carbon transport efficiency
system • QOL
• Green industrial sector
• Energy efficient buildings
• Greening of the city itself
• Green, resilient infra SOURCE: www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-
• Intelligent system earth-smart-city-really-arvind-varshney/
  9, 450 hectares – half
the size of Metro
Manila – a planned
community in Capas,
Tarlac.

 Philippine’s new
growth center

FEATURES:
 Disaster resilience
 Proximity to connectivity
infrastructure
 Fiscal and non-fiscal
incentives
 Green and sustainable
development
 “Smart” development
 Socially inclusive
development
 The world could
have its first
ever floating city
by 2020

Does the future

thrill or terrify
you?

THANK YOU!