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.

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