Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.
In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.
Traffic calming uses physical design and other measures to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. It has become a tool to combat speeding and other unsafe behaviours of drivers in the neighbourhoods. It aims to encourage safer, more responsible driving and potentially reduce traffic flow. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming, including narrowed roads and speed humps. Such measures are common in Australia and Europe, but less so in North America. Traffic calming is a calque of the German word Verkehrsberuhigung – the term's first published use in English was in 1985 by Carmen Hass-Klau.
Urban studies is the diverse range of disciplines and approaches to the study of all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. This includes among others: urban economics, urban planning, urban ecology, urban transportation systems, urban politics, sociology and urban social relations. This can be contrasted with the study of rural areas and rural lifestyles.
A dead end, also known as a cul-de-sac, no through road or no exit road, is a street with only one inlet or outlet.
In economics, induced demand – related to latent demand and generated demand – is the phenomenon whereby an increase in supply results in a decline in price and an increase in consumption. In other words, as a good or service becomes more readily available and mass produced, its price goes down and consumers are more likely to buy it, meaning that quantity demanded subsequently increases. This is consistent with the economic theory of supply and demand.
A living street is a street designed with the interests of pedestrians and cyclists in mind by providing enriching and experiential spaces. Living streets also act as social spaces, allowing children to play and encouraging social interactions on a human scale, safely and legally. Living streets consider all pedestrians granting equal access to elders and those who are disabled. These roads are still available for use by motor vehicles; however, their design aims to reduce both the speed and dominance of motorized transport. The reduction of motor vehicle dominance creates more opportunities for public transportation. Living Streets achieve these strategies by implementing the shared space approach. Reducing demarcations between vehicle traffic and pedestrians create a cohesive space without segregating different modes of transportation. Vehicle parking may also be restricted to designated bays. These street design principles first became popularized in the Netherlands during the 1970s, and the Dutch word woonerf is often used as a synonym for living street.
The street hierarchy is an urban planning technique for laying out road networks that exclude automobile through-traffic from developed areas. It is conceived as a hierarchy of roads that embeds the link importance of each road type in the network topology. Street hierarchy restricts or eliminates direct connections between certain types of links, for example residential streets and arterial roads, and allows connections between similar order streets or between street types that are separated by one level in the hierarchy By contrast, in many regular, traditional grid plans, as laid out, higher order roads are connected by through streets of both lower order levels An ordering of roads and their classification can include several levels and finer distinctions as, for example, major and minor arterials or collectors.
Complete streets is a transportation policy and design approach that requires streets to be planned, designed, operated and maintained to enable safe, convenient and comfortable travel and access for users of all ages and abilities regardless of their mode of transportation. Complete Streets allow for safe travel by those walking, cycling, driving automobiles, riding public transportation, or delivering goods.
Urban, city, or town planning is the discipline of planning which explores several aspects of the built and social environments of municipalities and communities:
In urban planning, walkability is the accessibility of amenities by foot. It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport corridors designed for maximum vehicle throughput. Instead, it should be relatively complete livable spaces that serve a variety of uses, users, and transportation modes and reduce the need for cars for travel.
Shiba Prasad Chatterjee was a Professor of Geography at the University of Calcutta, India. He served as President of the International Geographical Union from 1964 until 1968, Chatterjee received a Murchison Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 1959, and a Padma Bhushan from the Government of India in 1985. He coined the name 'Meghalaya' for one of India's states.
SPUR is a nonprofit public policy organization focused on regional planning, housing, transportation, sustainability and resilience, economic justice, good government, and food and agriculture in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its full name is the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association.
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) is a non-governmental non-profit organization that focuses on developing bus rapid transit (BRT) systems, promoting biking, walking, and non-motorized transport, and improving private bus operators margins. Other programs include parking reform, traffic demand management, and global climate and transport policy. According to its mission statement, ITDP is committed to "promoting sustainable and equitable transportation worldwide."
Donald Sidney Appleyard was an English-American urban designer and theorist, teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks and their accessibility. Many professional practitioners of urban planning, especially practitioners with the title "urban planner" study urban planning education, while some paraprofessional practitioners are educated in urban studies; others study and work in urban policy - the aspect of public policy used in the public administration subfield of political science that is most aligned with urban planning. Traditionally, urban planning followed a top-down approach in master planning the physical layout of human settlements. The primary concern was the public welfare, which included considerations of efficiency, sanitation, protection and use of the environment, as well as effects of the master plans on the social and economic activities. Over time, urban planning has adopted a focus on the social and environmental bottom-lines that focus on planning as a tool to improve the health and well-being of people while maintaining sustainability standards. Sustainable development was added as one of the main goals of all planning endeavors in the late 20th century when the detrimental economic and the environmental impacts of the previous models of planning had become apparent. Similarly, in the early 21st century, Jane Jacobs's writings on legal and political perspectives to emphasize the interests of residents, businesses and communities effectively influenced urban planners to take into broader consideration of resident experiences and needs while planning.
William Warren Riggs or "Billy" Riggs is an author, city planner, entrepreneur and professor of Management at University of San Francisco, and an international expert in the areas of sustainable transport, technology, urban development and the future of cities. He is the author of the book, End of the Road: Reimagining the Street as the Heart of the City and Disruptive Transport: Driverless Cars, Transport Innovation and the Sustainable City of Tomorrow. He has worked as a professional planner, in venture capital for Just Business and a strategic consultant for various technology firms and startups. He also has experience as a successful recording artist and music producer, having worked on award-winning projects with Frances England, Gabriel Riggs and Carlos Villarreal.
Martin Wachs (1941–2021) was an American professor emeritus of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles and of City and Regional Planning and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He began his career in university teaching in 1968 and retired from teaching in 2006, to work at the Rand Corporation until 2010.
Robert Cervero is an author, consultant, and educator in sustainable transportation policy and planning. During his years as a faculty member in city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, he gained recognition for his work in the sphere of urban transportation and land-use planning. His research has spanned the topics of induced demand, transit-oriented development (TOD), transit villages, paratransit, car sharing, and suburban growth.
A walking city is a type of city that is created to avoid internal transportation, and therefore be small enough that a person can use walking to navigate the city. It is characterized by narrow, often winding streets. Its transport system is inherently egalitarian, with no one being disadvantaged by a lack of transport, unlike modern automotive cities. Walkability within areas positively impacts equity, sustainability, health, social benefits, less demand on other modes, economic development, and enjoyment.
