“Free cities and regions”—Patrick Geddes’s theory of planning

By Robert F. Young, UTA

Shruthi Andru
2016uar1717
This paper elucidates Geddes’s theory of planning and its relevance to contemporary issues. It
draws upon Geddes’s original work as well as historical and recent secondary literatures. Geddes’s
principles are often cited in various fields like geography, architecture history, sociology and
education. His ideas concerning the struggle for social evolution, they argue, are product of a
particular historical context whose relevance has passed.
Geddes introduced several concepts that connect ecological regeneration and economic and
cultural rebirth namely :
1) Technics: The culture of production of technology, materials and energy resourses,
which include the social and ecological implications of their use. He broadly divided
them 4 periods ; ‘Paleotechnic’ , ‘Neotechnic’, ‘Geotechnic’ and ‘Biotecnic’.
i) ‘Paleotechnic age’ includes the industrial age ie. Coal, steam, iron and rail
whereas the neotechnic period included oil electricity , lighter alloys , flexible
manufacturing and vast transportation systems.
ii) He believed that eventually the destructive technologies that emerged from
the Industrial Revolution and led to a progressive subjugation of human beings
and the environment to the machine would give way to a new ʻgeotechnologyʼ
that was to meet human needs within the limits of the planetary biosphere.
Geddes talked about a shift from the ʻpaleotechnic ageʼ where life as a whole
was threatened to the ʻneotechnic ageʼ which he also called as the ʻeutechnic
ageʼ when life would resurge.
iii) According to Geddes, it was through the notion of right livelihood that
humanity could begin to integrate into natural process rather than continue to
dominate and exploit nature through ever more destructive technologies.
iv) Geddes categorized ‘geotechnics’ as integrating ecosystems with regional
production and culture . He believed that cotemporary green infrastructure
projects wi]ould illustrate this approach. He wanted to “to inform UTC goals,
prioritize locations for tree planting efforts, establish urban forestry master
plans, understand patterns of environmental justice, inform sustainability plans
and justify budget increases for urban forestry programs”. He believed that this
would further advance urban evolution.
2) Civics
i) Geddes believed that civics was more that town citizenship, he believed that it
embodies a synthesis of humans and their regions and production of daily life.
He believed that a citizen participation in regional and civic surveys yielded a
first hand scientific knowledge of unity , attributes and protentional of a space.
 3) Reconstruction
i) Geddes believed that the foundation of new age is constructive unity between
society and ecology. By positively connecting people in their occupations and
communities with real. geographical places this union could become the basis
of planning a heathier, more democratic society.
ii) He believed in using regional and civic surveys to foster this connection ;
regional surveys for encompassing hinterlands and civic for urban areas.
Geddes theory not condemned economic exploitation but also talks about a platform from which
a wide range of proactive ecological and social activism can embark. Projects such as renewable
energy, green infrastructure and design, zero waste , urban agriculture , alternative transportation
aimed at social as well as ecological equity draws straight from Geddes theory on technics , civic
and reconstruction.