I.

Planning

Planning is very important for successfulness and the effective performance of an

organisation not only for organisations but also for individuals. It is the most basic of
all the managerial functions. It involves selecting missions and objectives and the
actions to achieve them. Therefore every organisation gives a greater emphasis on
planning.

Planning as a process involves the determination of future course of action, that is

why an action, what action, how to take action, and when to take action. These are
related with different aspects of planning process.

Thus, Terry has defined planning in terms of future course of action i.e., “planning is
the selection and relating of facts and making and using of assumptions regarding
the future in the visualisation and formalisation of proposed activities believed
necessary to achieve desired result.”

McFarland has defined Planning as “a concept of executive action that embodies the
skills of anticipating, influencing and controlling the nature and direction of change.”

Peter Drucker defined as “planning is the continuous process of making present

entrepreneurial decisions systematically and with best possible knowledge their
futurity, organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions and
measuring the results of these decisions against the expectation through organised
systematic feedback.”

In the words of Koontz and O’Donnell, “planning is deciding in advance what to do,
how to do it, when to do it, and who is to do it. Planning bridges the gap from where
we are to here we want to go.”

According to Theo Haimann, “planning is the function that determines in advance

what should be done. It consists of selecting the enterprise objectives polices,
programmes, procedures and other means of achieving these objectives.”

Objectives are the ends toward which activity is aimed— they are the results to be
achieved. They represent not only the end point of planning but also the end toward
which organising, staffing, leading and controlling are aimed. Organisation can grow
without any difficulty if it has well-defined objectives.

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 II. Urban Planning

Urban planning, design and regulation of the uses of space that focus on the
physical form, economic functions, and social impacts of the urban environment and
on the location of different activities within it. Because urban planning draws
upon engineering, architectural, and social and political concerns, it is variously a
technical profession, an endeavour involving political will and public participation,
and an academic discipline. Urban planning concerns itself with both the
development of open land (“green fields sites”) and the revitalization of existing parts
of the city, thereby involving goal setting, data collection and analysis, forecasting,
design, strategic thinking, and public consultation. Increasingly, the technology of
geographic information systems (GIS) has been used to map the existing urban
system and to project the consequences of changes.

When people hear “urban planning,” they tend to associate it with architecture,
engineering, and design-driven fields. While these practices are closely related to
planning, the latter has its unique identity and profession, beyond pretty pictures and
buildings. In the Philippines, “environmental planning” is used as the name of the
profession. City planning, town and country planning, urban and regional planning,
however one might call it, all pertain to the planning process of a particular place,
which may be urban or rural, community level or at a metropolitan scale.

Why plan?

A place where human settlements locate naturally grows. Where humans thrive,
markets flourish, transportation and connectivity become a necessity, and resources
are used. But resources are limited. The natural environment is exchanged for
concrete, built-up environments in many urban areas. Land can become scarce, so
we have begun to build homes vertically.

The human population continues to grow through migration and reproduction, and
requires basic needs. We demand our cities to provide us with food, water, energy,
and jobs. Our governments create policies to guide growth, and the business sector
drives commerce and finance.

Urbanization has to be managed efficiently, and more importantly, sustainably.

Urban planning addresses this. It looks at the current state of a place, studies where
it needs to go, and creates ways to solve problems that may be encountered along

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the way. Urbanists are thinkers of the welfare of a place, looking far into the future to
ensure equity and sustainability.

Global cities

Those who have studied urban planning follow the beginning of settlements in the
early cities of Mesopotamia all the way to the present global cities. Centers of power
have moved from religion to governments, to markets, and presently, to technology.

Along the way, urbanists have contributed to the story of our cities in the form of grid
streets from Greece and Rome, mercantile practices of the Renaissance, styles of
grandeur and greenery of the British and Americans, the advent of the automobile,
until our present innovations that look into sky gardens, controlled climates, and
global cities.

Ideologies have also changed throughout time in city development, from

authoritarian planning to citizen-led movements, or radical planning. Planners have
addressed discrimination and racism, urban justice, gender, and informalities, among
other issues, in the practice of urban planning.

An art, science, advocacy

Urban planning is a diverse, multi-disciplinary field. It is a science, because it follows

a process and science-based assessments. It is also an art, because of how
planners use their creativity to draw nodes and strategies on a map, or how cultural
aspects of a place are integrated into development programs.

Today, planners have many different branches of specialization. There are those
who practice land use and environmental management. Some practice policy related
issues—transport planning; estate management; resilient cities; cities with an eye-
level perspective; and place-making.

On an end note, urban planning is not only for licensed professionals and local
governments, but for every citizen, who has the power and right to shape his or her
own city.

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 III. Urban Area

An urban area is the region surrounding a city. Most inhabitants of urban areas have
nonagricultural jobs. Urban areas are very developed, meaning there is a density of
human structures such as houses, commercial buildings, roads, bridges, and
railways.

"Urban area" can refer to towns, cities, and suburbs. An urban area includes the city
itself, as well as the surrounding areas. Many urban areas are called metropolitan
areas, or "greater," as in Greater New York or Greater London.

When two or more metropolitan areas grow until they combine, the result may be
known as a megalopolis. In the United States, the urban area of Boston,
Massachusetts, eventually spread as far south as Washington, D.C., creating the
megalopolis of BosWash, or the Northeast Corridor.

IV. Rural Area

Rural areas are the opposite of urban areas. Rural areas, often called "the country,"
have low population density and large amounts of undeveloped land. Usually, the
difference between a rural area and an urban area is clear. But in developed
countries with large populations, such as Japan, the difference is becoming less
clear. In the United States, settlements with 2,500 inhabitants or more are defined as
urban. In Japan, which is far more densely populated than the U.S., only settlements
with 30,000 people or more are considered urban.

Throughout the world, the dominant pattern of migration within countries has been
from rural to urban areas. This is partly because improved technology has decreased
the need for agricultural workers and partly because cities are seen as offering
greater economic opportunities. Most of the world’s people, however, still live in rural
areas.

Difference between Rural and Urban Areas

Human settlements are classified as rural or urban depending on the density of

human-created structures and resident people in a particular area. Urban areas can
include town and cities while rural areas include villages and hamlets.

While rural areas may develop randomly on the basis of natural vegetation and
fauna available in a region, urban settlements are proper, planned settlements built

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up according to a process called urbanization. Many times, rural areas are focused
upon by governments and development agencies and turned into urban areas.

Unlike rural areas, urban settlements are defined by their advanced civic amenities,
opportunities for education, facilities for transport, business and social interaction
and overall better standard of living. Socio-cultural statistics are usually based on an
urban population.

While rural settlements are based more on natural resources and events, the urban
population receives the benefits of man’s advancements in the areas of science and
technology and is not nature-dependent for its day to day functions. Businesses stay
open late into the evenings in urban areas while, sunset in rural areas means the
day is virtually over.

The flip side of this is that rural areas do not have pollution or traffic problems that
beset regular urban areas. Many governments, though focusing on the development
of rural areas, have also tried to ‘protect’ these areas as preservation of their
country’s basic culture and traditions.

Urban areas are also classified according to land use and density of population. But
this can vary from developed countries to developing countries. For example, in
Australia, urban cities must include at least a 1,000 residents with 200 or more
people per square kilometer while in Canada, an urban area is defined with a density
of 400 people per square kilometer In China, the density requirement for an urban
area is about 1,500 people per square kilometer Statistically, two urban areas with
less than two kilometers between them are considered one urban zone.

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 V. Physical Planning

Physical planning is a design exercise that uses the land use plan as a framework to
propose the optimal physical infrastructure for a settlement or area, including
infrastructure for public services, transport, economic activities, recreation, and
environmental protection. A physical plan may be prepared for an urban area or a
rural area. A physical plan for an urban region can have both rural and urban
components, although the latter usually predominates. A physical plan at a regional
scale can also deal with the provision of specific regional infrastructure.

VI. Urbanization

Urbanization is the movement of people from the country to towns and cities. The
term also refers to the expansion of cities, i.e., growth of urban areas. Urbanization
has occurred many times in the past in different civilizations. However, the current
migration is occurring on a global scale. Today’s shift from urban areas to cities and
towns started in the industrial revolution.

In the world’s advanced economies, more people live in urban than rural areas. In
fact, according to the United Nations, more than half of the world’s population today
lives in towns and cities. At the beginning of the twentieth century, just fifteen percent
of the world’s population lived in urban areas.

Urbanization – reasons

People move from the country to the city because they believe they will enjoy a
better standard of living. In most parts of the world, there are more services in urban
than rural areas. This is especially so in developing and emerging economies.
Therefore, people migrate to the cities for better jobs, education, healthcare, and
other services.

Conserve Energy Future says the following regarding urbanization:

“Majority of people move to cities and towns because they view rural areas as places
with hardship and backward/primitive lifestyle.”

“Therefore, as populations move to more developed areas (towns and cities) the
immediate outcome is urbanization.” Most advanced economies subsidize
agricultural production. Although this protects their farmers, it results in unfair

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competition globally. In other words, agricultural subsidies in the advanced
economies undermine farming elsewhere in the world.

Subsequently, farmers and their families in Latin America, Africa, and Asia move
from the country to the city. Some of them even migrate to other countries. Extreme
weather events can force people to migrate. Droughts or floods, for example, can
trigger a mass exodus of people from the country to the city.

Urbanization – effects

It is fashionable to think that urbanization is bad. Some of it is bad, but some of it is

good. If governments can control urbanization, i.e., it happens within appropriate
limits, it can yield many positive effects.

Advantages

 It leads to new employment opportunities.

 Technology and infrastructure make advances.
 Transportation and communication usually improve.
 Educational and medical services are better.
 Overall, the person who migrated enjoys a better standard of living.
 GDP growth tends to go hand-in-hand with urbanization. GDP stands
for Gross Domestic Product. The term refers to all the goods and services that
a country produces within a set period.

However, these advantages are more likely to occur if the urbanization occurs under
the government’s supervision and control.

Disadvantages

 Housing problems: when many people move to urban areas, cities grow. As
more people move in, housing gradually becomes scarcer. If the urbanization
is chaotic or informal, there can be serious housing shortages.
 Overcrowding: in many cities, especially in developing nations, overcrowding
is a serious problem. If too many people migrate to the city over a short
period, there is a risk overcrowding.
 Unemployment: urban areas have the highest rate of joblessness in most
countries across the world. More than fifty percent of unemployed young

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 people globally live in towns and cities. If rural-urban migration happens too
quickly, unemployment is much more likely.
 Slums: if rural-urban migration is on a large scale, existing slums expand, and
new ones appear. This is especially the case in expensive cities, i.e., where
rents are high.
 Poor sanitation and disease spread: overpopulation, slums, and poor
sanitation create an ideal environment for germs to spread. In other words,
there is a serious risk of disease. Dirty drinking water and insufficient running
water lead to poor health and the spread of diseases. Inadequate sewage
facilities also raise the risk of disease. Every country that has experienced
rapid urbanization has also reported serious rises in the number of people
with asthma.
 Traffic: as cities grow, traffic congestion usually gets worse. If the authorities
cannot back up population growth with more roads and public transport, traffic
congestion can become unbearable. Traffic congestion does not only slow
down everything, but it also leads to high pollution levels. Pollution is bad for
human health. In some cities, such as Mexico City, studies have shown that
pollution can reduce life expectancy. Life expectancy refers to estimates of
people’s lifespans.
 Crime: overpopulation, growing slums, and unemployment go hand-in-hand
with rising crime.

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 VII. Regional Planning

Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-

use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than
an individual city or town. Regional planning is a sub-field of urban planning as it
relates land use practices on a broader scale. It also includes formulating laws that
will guide the efficient planning and management of such said regions.

Regions require various land uses; protection of farmland, cities, industrial

space, transportation hubs and infrastructure, military bases, and wilderness.
Regional planning is the science of efficient placement of infrastructure and zoning
for the sustainable growth of a region. Advocates for regional planning such as new
urbanist Peter Calthorpe, promote the approach because it can address region-wide
environmental, social, and economic issues which may necessarily require a
regional focus.

A ‘region’ in planning terms can be administrative or at least partially functional, and

is likely to include a network of settlements and character areas. In most European
countries, regional and national plans are ‘spatial’ directing certain levels
of development to specific cities and towns in order to support and manage the
region depending on specific needs, for example supporting or
resisting polycentrism.

VIII. Region

Region, in the social sciences, a cohesive area that is homogeneous in selected

defining criteria and is distinguished from neighbouring areas or regions by those
criteria. It is an intellectual construct created by the selection of features relevant to a
particular problem and the disregard of other features considered to be irrelevant. A
region is distinguished from an area, which is usually a broader concept designating
a portion of the surface of the Earth. Area boundaries are arbitrary, established for
convenience. Regional boundaries are determined by the homogeneity and
cohesiveness of the section. The concept of region is currently used in analysis,
planning, and administration of many national and international public
programs. Regionalism, or regional consciousness, the ideological correlate of the
concept that develops from a sense of identity within the region, is important in many
historical, political, and sociological analyses.

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 IX. City

A city is a large human settlement. Cities generally have extensive systems

for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication. Their
density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations and
businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process.

Historically, city-dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but

following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, roughly half of
the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for
global sustainability. Present-day cities usually form the core of larger metropolitan
areas and urban areas—creating numerous commuters traveling towards city
centers for employment, entertainment, and edification. However, in a world of
intensifying globalization, all cities are in different degree also connected globally
beyond these regions.

X. Municipality

Municipality is usually a single urban administrative division having corporate status

and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and state laws
to which it is subordinate. It is to be distinguished (usually) from the county, which
may encompass rural territory or numerous small communities such
as towns, villages and hamlets.

The term municipality may also mean the governing or ruling body of a given
municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as
opposed to a special-purpose district.

The term is derived

from French municipalité and Latin municipalis. The English word municipality derive
s from the Latin social contract municipium (derived from a word meaning "duty
holders"), referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in
exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman
citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own
local governments (a limited autonomy).

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 XI. Planning Sector

A planning sector is a long-range plan for a specific geographic area of at least

15,000 acres in one or more local governmental jurisdictions. Local governments—or
combinations of local governments—may adopt Sector Plans into their
Comprehensive Plans.

A planning sector aim to:

•Promote and encourage long-term planning (50 years) for future land uses to meet
conservation, economic development and agricultural needs

•Emphasize regionally significant resources, such as water and wildlife, and public
facilities

XII. Design

Design (as a verb: to design) is the intentional creation of a plan or specification for
the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or
process. Design (as a noun: a design) can refer to such a plan or specification (e.g.
a drawing or other document) or to the created object, etc., and features of it such as
aesthetic, functional, economic or socio-political. The process of creating a design
can be brief (a quick sketch) or lengthy and complicated, involving considerable
research, negotiation, reflection, modelling, interactive adjustment and re-design. In
some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan (such
as in craftwork and some engineering, coding, and graphic design) is also
considered to be a design activity.

Urban design is the process of designing and shaping the physical features of
cities, towns and villages and planning for the provision of municipal services to
residents and visitors. In contrast to architecture, this focuses on the design of
individual buildings, urban design deals with the larger scale of groups of buildings,
streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, with
the goal of making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.

Urban design is an inter-disciplinary field that utilizes elements of many built

environment professions, including landscape architecture, urban
planning, architecture, civil engineering and municipal engineering. It is common for
professionals in all these disciplines to practice urban design. In more recent times

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different sub-subfields of urban design have emerged such as strategic urban
design, landscape urbanism, water-sensitive urban design, and sustainable
urbanism.

Urban design demands an understanding of a wide range of subjects from physical

geography to social science, and an appreciation for disciplines, such as real estate
development, urban economics, political economy and social theory.

XIII. Project

The word project comes from the Latin word projectum from the Latin verb proicere,
"before an action" which in turn comes from pro-, which denotes precedence,
something that comes before something else in time (paralleling the Greek πρό)
and iacere, "to do". The word "project" thus originally meant "before an action".

When the English language initially adopted the word, it referred to a plan of
something, not to the act of actually carrying this plan out. Something performed in
accordance with a project became known as an "object". Every project has certain
phases of development.

All places have strong symbolic dimensions and hold specific values for individuals
as well as for the collectivity. The urban project, which modifies the built environment
or the existing functions of the place in which it intervenes, can transform the
meaning of that place especially for those who live there. Such planning projects
often attract the opposition of a significant faction of people.

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