Urban Pattern

Economic factors are fundamental in determining urban structure. Cities can be seen as a form

This chapter helps to define some elements that may represent a city. For example, when

Rowe in Collage City wrote a very condensed summary of the ideas developed within the Urban Design studio he taught at Cornell. He wrote about an autonomous apparatus containing formal strategies of typology,

The city is a nexus of social interaction. Humans originating from various locations all tangle together in the city. Louis Mumford characterizes the city as “a theater of social action,” where “man's more purposive activities are focused and work out…into more significant culminations.” The social actions occurring in a city connect and gradually culminate into a something that contributes to the fabric of the city. The interactions between people are no longer discrete events in isolation. Instead they come together to contribute something to the city, whether in the form of politics, architecture, or entertainment. The city provides a theater or playground for social action, and subsequently becomes a stage where the results of the social actions can be clearly viewed.

To define sprawl we have to understand the characteristics that make up sprawl. Low density is most commonly defined as that of single family homes on larger lots in areas constituted as suburban, buildings are smaller (having less stories) and are spaced further apart. The Transportation Research Board (1998) states that low density development “is one of the cardinal defining characteristics of sprawl.” Single use zoning is also a common characteristic of sprawl. Single use zoning is

In this part Lynch argues that people in urban situations orient themselves by means of mental maps. To un-derstand the role of these mental maps in our urban lives, he conducted a field research of the visual qualities of the cities of Los Angeles, Boston and Jersey in the previous chapter, and deduced that these visual qualities can conveniently be classified into 5 types of elements: Paths, edges, districts and nodes.

The book Concepts of Urban Design by David Gosling and Barry Maitland has stated that, “History provides a large number of traditional urban forms which have survived the passage of time and which work to a greater or lesser degree. (Gosling & Maitland, 1984).” This statement provides some evidence to show that even professionals in the planning world recognise and base some urban designs on ‘traditional urban forms’. Examples of this range from

An urban area is the region surrounding a city. It is very developed and has a higher density and multi-disciplinary activity of shaping and managing the urban environment. It consists of mostly manmade structures such as houses, commercial buildings, roads, bridges, and railways. The design of an urban area is about making the connection between people and spaces. It is also the relationships between the different types of buildings, streets, squares, parks and other places. In contrast a suburban area refers to the suburbs of a metropolitan area. It can be a residential area or a mixed use area, existing as part of a city or urban area.

Following contains the model that was first brought to use by Harris and Ullman in 1945, their hypothesis was that there are a series of nuclei of patterns that develop as the demand is there. However, it was clear that modern cities did not fit in the mould of the sector and the concentric model; they are developing at a rate that could not be predicted. Parts of the suburbs are developing to function as smaller business districts. These smaller business districts acted as nodes/nuclei that different land use patterns are being formed.

Geodemography refers to the data collection of small areas, usually neighborhoods, based on the assumption that people with similar wants and needs tend to live close together (Solomon, 2011). I live in a small, rural town on the Tennesse River. An analysis of my neighborhood will show that each neighbor owns at least twenty acres of land, possesses a tractor, has acquired a four wheeler or side by side, and each household owns at least one gun. Geodemographic classifications are more highly dimensional than the examples I have given and include anywhere from a dozen to several hundred empirically derived characteristics (Singleton & Spielman, 2014).

They provide regions of residential development at various indicated building and population densities. These zones are expected to compromise an assortment of housing types and to support the arrangement of housing for all residents. Prevalent automobile ownership and mid-century government policies made low density suburban development possibility. This development frame, generally called sprawl, has turned into the default design for a great deal of development.

Burgess’s concentric zone theory was presented in 1924. He presented a descriptive urban land use model that divided cities in a set of concentric circles expanding from downtown to the suburbs. His representation came from Burgess’ observations of various American cities, especially Chicago. Burgess model assumes a relationship between the socio-economic status of households and the distance from the Central Business District. The further from the district, the better the quality of housing, but the longer the commuting time. Making this Accessing better housing is done at the expense of longer commuting times and costs as well. According to Burgess, urban growth is a process of expansion and reconversion of land uses, with a tendency of each inner zone to expand in the outer zone. According to Burgess’ theory, a large city is divided in six concentric zones, Burgess’s model has its cons according to critics. It is said to be a product of its time. That is, it won’t work the same with present cities. The model was developed when American cities were growing very fast and when motorized transportation was still uncommon as most people used public transit. Thus the concept cannot be applied to those from the second half to the twentieth century where highways have enabled urban development to escape the reconversion process and to take place directly in the suburbs. The model in this case was developed for American cities and is limited elsewhere.

New Urbanism, a burgeoning genre of architecture and city planning, is a movement that has come about only in the past decade. This movement is a response to the proliferation of conventional suburban development (CSD), the most popular form of suburban expansion that has taken place since World War II. Wrote Robert Steuteville, "Lacking a town center or pedestrian scale, CSD spreads out to consume large areas of countryside even as population grows relatively slowly. Automobile use per capita has soared, because a motor vehicle is required for nearly all human transportation"1. New Urbanism, therefore, represents the converse of this planning ideology. It stresses traditional planning, including multi-purpose zoning,

Just as every society needs organization of government to function properly, cities and towns need to have an organization of their building plans and placements. This organization can be influenced by several different factors, such as the land terrain, the traditional building practices, and the history of the area. These were all things I had to keep in mind while observing and comparing the city plans of three different areas: Bristol, RI, Newtown, CT, and Birmingham, AL. It was surprising how much of it I normally take for granted.

First of all, to start building a city an urban pattern has to be established, this will make the city look much more organized and well thought. A pattern can be chosen from a whole list of working patterns for a city. Establishing a grid is a common way of equally distributing the city. However, we want to keep in mind, that important buildings, such as businesses, and government buildings must be accessible to the public, but separated from the rest of the city. We have great examples of grids such as New York City, in New York, United States, or Mississauga City, in Toronto ,Canada. Although, when building from scratch it is not possible to leave aside what has already been built, a city indeed has to adapt to what is already existing, as well as to the new global economy, social and political trends, and new issues that arise in the new era, this also changes the structure and tradition of building and forming urban patterns. Using the existing patterns, combined with new ones, both patterns can collide and make new forms in city blocks. Results vary from city to city, but the essence is the same in all of them; old and new patterns coming together to create unplanned shapes, a new form of Urbanism, based on new and old patterns, aiming to satisfy the needs of the modern world. A great example is New York