Thursday, March 22, 2007

Urban Planning: An Overview of the Process

Urban planning refers to the process of thought and planning that goes into building a new community. This includes not only the layout and the architectural design, but also the other factors such as the economic growth of the area. Urban planners must take many factors into consideration, and will often spend years planning a community that will flourish. The job of an urban planner is very difficult, and consists of many different things that must be considered. Here are some of the main things that an urban planner takes into consideration when creating a new community.

First, the urban planner concerns himself over whether people will be attracted to move into the neighborhood, and what sort of demographics will be most likely to move in. This is usually affected by not just the cost of the house and the look of the neighborhood, but also the surrounding neighborhoods and nearby businesses. The urban planner will take these things into account when creating a community, and will change the price and quality of the houses accordingly, based on what kind of people will be living there.

If the urban planner is starting a new city from scratch, he or she won’t be able to make choices based on these things. Usually he will want the economy to be as strong as possible, and will often bring businesses in to boost the economy. This can be accomplished through getting the government to pay subsidiary funds to attract people to open up shop. When people moving in to the new community see that there are lots of new and thriving businesses, they will be more likely to pick it as a place to live.

An urban planner will also have to deal with things such as infrastructure. Once he is able to create a plan for the community that looks like it will be able to succeed and thrive as a city, he will present these plans to government officials and get tax money to be able to pay for the infrastructure such as roads and sidewalks. All of these things sound like an awful lot to handle, but urban planners are masters at setting up new and successful communities. They know how to pay attention to every little detail in order to maximize the success of the area.

What Exactly do Urban Planners Do?

Many people don’t quite understand what an urban planner does. If a community is already built, what else could there possibly be to do? Well, an urban planner does everything in his or her power to encourage the growth of the community. This includes improving its image to encourage new people to move in, or getting people to set up shop in order to create more local retail features. Their services are extremely valuable to communities of any type, and the more you understand what they do, the more you will be able to appreciate the effects on your community when an urban planner comes in and works some magic.

There are few aspects of a community that couldn’t stand to be improved. Usually plenty of thought and planning is put in to creating new towns, but sometimes these plans prove to be less than thorough. This results in people moving out at a fast rate, or a completely stagnant level of new people moving in to the city. This is never healthy for the city, even if the people living there are pleased as punch. When new people move in, it encourages the growth of businesses, and makes it more possible for large and lucrative corporations to spring up.

So when an urban planner wants to get cash flowing in the local economy, he will probably do this in the most basic way possible: by creating more opportunities for the people to earn money. If there are no local jobs available, no new people will be moving in. The people that live there will not have any options when it comes to career, and they will probably not have opportunities to move up in the company. So urban planners will write proposals to businesses in an effort to get them to come in and create more jobs in the area.

Often, a dying town can be quickly resurrected with a swift kick. Urban planners are trained in giving this swift kick. They know exactly how to attract the right people to the town to get the economy started up again, and to get everyone to have a lot more confidence in the direction that the town is going. So if a town is suffering like this, they should definitely call in the help of an urban planner who will do everything it takes to get the town alive again.

Different Aspects of Urban Housing

Urban housing is something that has been undergoing much criticism in recent years. It seems that none of the industry analysts are happy with how things are going currently. Urban housing is usually centered towards one class or one ethnic group, and isn’t particularly fair for all of those who would like a place to live. But it also has many positive sides, as you can find urban housing almost everywhere you go. But many feel that this is just showing an overdevelopment of housing units, and that too many houses are being constructed. The statistics are certainly hefty, and you can make the decision for yourself whether urban housing development has gone overboard.

Every day, there are new urban communities being planned all across the country. These are the regular American neighborhoods that are so familiar, with the houses that all look strangely similar to each other. These houses are being built at an insane rate, and new ones go on sale regularly. But the people that move in to these houses had to come from somewhere. Many of the older, undesirable neighborhoods are being abandoned in favor of the new ones. This leaves hundreds of houses for sale, and nobody seems to be moving in to them. But the rate of new buildings is not declining, despite the excess in houses already.

When these older houses are abandoned for new ones, they often become the cheapest places to live. This leaves the neighborhoods open to those who don’t have much of an income for whatever reasons. The neighborhoods often turn into the bad side of town, with crime rates skyrocketing. But it would seem that there is no solution to this. However, if home builders were able to focus their attention on keeping all neighborhoods as desirable places to live, then everywhere would have a closer level of equality and much more crime could be avoided.

Ultimately, it is up to the companies that build the homes to decide what they will do. They are not likely to stop building homes, since it seems to be a favorable business. Someone will buy the home, but this usually means that they are leaving another one behind. The level of quality will descend down a ladder as the homes are handed down.

How Authorities Encourage Urban Growth

It is unfortunate when a community fails to take off economically. The money invested in development can seem wasted, and the area becomes undesirable to live in. But there are professional people known as urban planners who know exactly what to do to jumpstart an area. They can use various techniques to inject adrenaline into the economy and get everything back how it should be. These urban planners are very skilled at what they do, and will get a neighborhood up and running again. There are several things that are very common techniques with urban planners, and work most of the time.

The main thing that causes a community to fail is poor planning on part of those who have started it. It is very important that neighborhoods are built appropriately. If they are in an area with lots of manual labor jobs and factory jobs, they will probably be appealing to a demographic with less money. Therefore if the houses are ridiculously expensive, the houses will probably fail to sell very well. So when urban growth needs to occur in an area, authorities will do everything they can to appeal to the people who will be buying the most houses or spending the most time in the area.

Urban growth can also be encouraged through the creation of new jobs. The government will sometimes lend money to boost local economies, through the process of giving money to businesses to allow them to get started. If a factory can be set up locally, it will create hundreds of jobs, and more people will have more money. It may also encourage people to move into the town in search of a job. They will hear about how the town has been making improvements and offering more opportunities, and won’t hesitate to move in.

As you can see, urban growth is a very complicated phenomenon, and must be carefully planned out before anything can be done to encourage it. There are many ways that urban growth can happen, from attracting new people to encouraging the old ones to stay. If a team of people can sit down and brainstorm about a specific area and develop a plan of attack when trying to figure out how to jumpstart the town, they will be able to combine their collective abilities and think of the best way to get the town back in gear.

Economic and Constructional Urban Development

The administration of a town will put a lot of thought into how they can facilitate the further development of a city or town. This includes encouraging the creation of new houses, inviting new businesses in to come and stimulate the local economy, or planning events to bring the community together. An urban planner can go into an underdeveloped city with a struggling economy, and do a few things to get the city back on their feet and start developing towards the goal of being a very advanced city. There are many techniques that the urban planners use, and here are a few of the main ones.

An underdeveloped city is one that displays any number of characteristics. These include high crime rates, low amounts of spending, high rates of unemployment, or any other things that make the place an unpleasant place to be. If an urban developer wants to take care of these things, he will address each problem individually. For high crime rates, it is logical to build another police station, or instate a curfew to keep people off of the streets at night. These problems are easier to deal with compared to some of the economic problems that are even more crippling to a growing town.

If the economy is the area is suffering, there are many things that can be done by urban developers in order to get things started strongly again. These will get people to start earning more money, and therefore spend more. The more money that can be circulated into the local economy, the healthier the town will be. If the planners are trying to get unemployment rates to go down, they may pay subsidiaries to businesses to come in and create new franchises to create more jobs. Often these are paid to big corporations such as Wal-Mart or Target.

Urban planners try to solve problems indirectly by bringing changes to the city. Often these are very well planed and orchestrated to take care of not only the main problems, but all of the small issues that are plaguing the city. If somewhere has become the undesirable or unfashionable place to live, an urban developer can give it what it needs to start becoming a better place.