Cities can’t just build themselves! Behind every city is an artist: an urban design planner who carefully calculates, designs, and creates buildings and infrastructure that make up the city you live in today. Despite the engineering skills necessary to comprise these magnificent blueprints, how can artists benefit the community and the lives of city residents?
What is Urban Planning and How Did It Originate?
Urban planning–sometimes known as city planning–focuses on the management of the physical, economic, and social functions that surround an area. Urban planning establishes intricate and thoughtful designs & styles through careful consideration of the “ideal use of land” in order to efficiently create and promote urbanization within an area.
Although this concept might sound modern, urban planning has actually been around for over a millennia. Dating back to the first civilizations of Greece and Pre-Columbia, concepts of urban planning have been seen through the thoughtful placement of infrastructure including the development of carefully placed roads and buildings alongside sewage and water systems. Both of these civilizations showed early signs of urbanization by prioritizing infrastructure development that would help to not only increase the quality of life for its civilians but encourage population growth as well.
Despite these actions taken towards advancing early civilizations, urban planning was only officially introduced during the 1900s in partnership with universities; Harvard College, for example, was recognized for releasing the first urban planning course titled “The Principles of City Planning” in 1909, paving the way for many future urban planning courses to follow.
Why is Urban Planning Essential For a Community?
One of the beauties of urban planning is that its goal is to improve the quality of life for its inhabitants. Actions such as implementing parks, creating accessible public transit, and establishing buildings and corporations for education and retail are just some of the multitude of ways in which urban planning is used in cities to better the lives of the people in it.
By growing a physical community that balances a healthy and safe working, educational, and recreational environment, urban planning works to ensure that the inhabitants of a community will have an abundance of opportunities to create bright futures.
Should Urban Planners Work With Artists?
Urban planning includes a variety of different assignments such as zoning, predicting population trends, and understanding transportation & water lines, there are many creative aspects that are used in the planning process as well.
Many urban planners focus on the engineering and technical skills that go into developing communities. Whether it’s collecting data on expected population growth or conducting quantitative analysis on the number of sewage passages in a community-you name it-urban planning requires a keen sense of precision and skill in data analysis.
Despite these technical skills, urban planning surely cannot survive on just hard data. In fact, by bringing in artists or urban planners who have artistic backgrounds, communities can be designed creatively and include voices that can reflect more of the community’s needs rather than simply relying on the voices of corporations. For decades, artists and urban planners have worked hand in hand. While urban planners utilize their skills of conducting data analysis experiments, artists help to create that qualitative sense of community. They help to bring a sense of creativity to a city by adding sites that reflect culture, exploration, learning, and even aesthetic.
Every day, artists create intricate designs, shape new architecture, and develop plans to make unique communities that not only include a variety of creativity but also enhance the quality of life for its residents.
References
- “Urban Planning | Definition, History, Examples, Importance, & Facts | Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/urban-planning. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.
- Ghisleni, Camilla. “What Is Urban Planning?” ArchDaily, 5 July 2022, www.archdaily.com/984049/what-is-urban-planning. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.
- ACB Consulting Services. “ACB Consulting Services LLC.” ACB Consulting Services, 24 Nov. 2021, www.acbconsultingservices.com/sustainable-construction-project-management/how-is-urban-planning-improving-the-quality-of-life-of-communities/#:~:text=Urban%20planning%20offers%20benefits%20to,to%20reduce%20overcrowding%20and%20pollution. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.
- Wikipedia Contributors. “Urban Planning.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Apr. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning#:~:text=Urban%20planning%20includes%20techniques%20such,the%20impact%20of%20land%20use. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.
- https://www.pbssocal.org/people/james-rojas. “Why Urban Planners Should Work with Artists.” PBS SoCal, 7 Apr. 2015, www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/why-urban-planners-should-work-with-artists#:~:text=Through%20artistic%20practice%2C%20we%20can,and%20actively%20design%20better%20communities. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.
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