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25 Years of Towns and Cities: A Summary of some of the Changes

Source: Derek Lyddon in Cities, November 1989.

The concept of urban planning has changed considerably over the last 25 years. It reflects on the increasingly complex urban environmental and developmental vhallenges, that has consequently altered on the way in which we practice urban planning ...

From:
"Garden City"
To:
"Inner City"
From:
"Expansion of New Development"
To:
"Conservation and renewal"
From:
"Population and employment increase"
To:
"Stability, changes in social structure and our understanding of the future of work"
From:
"Simplistic notion of planning as enlarged architecture"
To:
"The understanding of the city as a social and economic system"
From:
"Creating and controlling whole environments"
To:
"Accepting diversity and the 'happy accident'"
From:
"The 'end state' master plan"
To:
"Flexible policy plan"
From:
"'Top-down' planning"
To:
"Encouraging self-help initiatives"
From:
"Planning product according to design rules"
To:
"Planning process as a result of participation"
From:
"Control by 'plot ratio'"
To:
"Urban impact analysis"
From:
"Separation of land uses for health reasons"
To:
"A mixture of uses for social diversity"
From:
"Confidence in the computer and quantitative methods"
To:
"Mistrust of model-based planning"
From:
"Quantitative methods"
To:
"Qualitative methods"
From:
"The planner as the only discipine involved in planning"
To:
"Corporate view and product from a wide range of discipines"
From:
"The pursuit of exciting but simplistic new images"
To:
"The discovery of order in existing diversity"
From:
"Industrial technology"
To:
"Electronic technology"
From:
"Cheap energy"
To:
"Expensive technology"
From:
"Central systems"
To:
"Quest for decentralization"
From:
"Consensus and agreed definitions"
To:
"Roles of experts questioned"
From:
"Municipality provides services"
To:
"Municipality acts as civic enterpreneurer"
From:
"Urban governance: worst first"
To:
"Municipal marketing: invest in success"
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Contact: Hari Srinivas - hsrinivas@gdrc.org