The Importance Of Urban Planning

This year marks the 54th anniversary of the publication of not one, but three seminal treatises on urban design: first, Death and Life of Great American Cities, a social observation of the city by Jane Jacobs and second, Kevin Lynch’s scientific inquiry, Image of the City; both still considered as the primer in Urban Design and Planning 101. But it is the third that inspires a whole generation of architects. Townscape, unlike any other book of its milieu, is narrated through the eyes of its author, Gordon Cullen and for the first time as a young architectural student who grew up knowing nothing, I saw the serial unraveling of medieval, faraway places and marveled at his cartoon and thumbnail analyses. It felt, and still does, like a dumbed-down

Period. And contrary to popular beliefs, it has neither the physical dimension of town planning nor is it architecture on a bigger scale. It is a discipline in its own right with its own theories and methodology.
Urban planning plans among others for land use, density, infrastructure, transport and distribution of resources through technical and political processes, so physical development can be regulated through the machinations of a master plan, or a structure plan or a local plan etc. The late 20th Century saw a growing concern for sustainable development planning because otherwise, we will have nothing to plan as there is, hmmm, no future. OK.
While all this is fine more often than not, through these formulations of structured, well- written goals and policies, urban planning overlooks the three-dimensional aspects of the built environment as represented by the other tectonic discipline fondly known as, well, architecture. Planning concerns itself with the science of setbacks and zoning and land use policies but overlooks the art of weaving the urban fabric into a meaningful composition; of seeing a city as simply a complicated relationship of streets, squares and blocks; as paths and nodes, landmarks and districts, permeability and presence, all symphonically coming together. Urban planning however, does not see the city as a composition, rather as a system of land-use distribution and

“What we lack in the physical planning of Malaysia is not the dearth of urban planners or architects or a distinct legacy of our own urban typology. The dire problem lies in the understanding and the appreciation of urban design as a significant factor in determining the character and quality of our towns and cities. Even the best people in the best places still perceive urban design as facets of street enhancement or worse, landscaping projects.” A prolific writer on Urban Design, she was quick to point out that the old parts of Malayan town centres have “stronger identity compared to the newer additions of the town centres, as reflected by her Doctoral Thesis on the “Identity of Place in Malaysia”. Physical structures and urban spaces play an important role in helping residents to identify the town centres.” This identity however is fast diminishing.
Rapid urbanisation and development rate usually becomes easy targets for naysayers but as architects, planners and professionals, do we really understand this need for phenomenology, this weave of intricate physical relationship we call urban design and put it to good practice? While it is true much good design has ensued in the course of our nation building, but have all these been compromised due to our lack of understanding and good practices in urban