Amity School of Architecture and Planning
B.Arch Programme, IX Semester
Theory of Urban Design
ARCH503
Amity School of Architecture and Planning
Functional Descriptive theories
Contents
Contents
Amity School of Architecture and Planning
Learning Objectives
By end of this session you will be learn about
types of Functional urban theories/models
Learning Objectives
Amity School of Architecture and Planning
Functional Descriptive Theories:
These are founded on the following characteristics:
• Urban history: the city is regarded as a unique historic process... explaining cities as
derivative of their own culture (ref Sjoberg, Rapoport).
• Urban Ecology: city is regarded as an ecology of people, each social group
occupying space according to economic position and class. (Ref. Burgess
[concentric model], Weber, Simmel and Spengler)
• City economy: regards the city as an economic engine in which space, unlike in
the previous category, is both a resource and an additional cost imposed on the
economy for production or consumption….location of cities an optimization of raw
materials, labour and market locations (ref. Isard,Von Thunen,Christaller)
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Functional Descriptive Theories:
• Urban Communication: regards the city as a field of forces, a communications
network of particles which attract and repel each other much as they do in
physics.
• Sub-sets of these ideas include population potential maps, gravity models,
communications flows, and various topological models.
• Urban Politics/Governance: understanding the city as a system of linked
decisions...affluence, imminent domain, citizen participation in a democratic
city; the game theory, in which people interact together according to fixed rules
and produce agreed-upon outcomes
• Urban Chaos: rejects previous theories of competition and posits the city as an
arena of conflict, in which the city's form is the residue and sign of struggle, and
also something which is shaped and used to wage it. (Castells, Harvey. Lefebvre,
Gordon)
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Central Place Theory:
• Developed by Walter Chrystaller in 1933
• Assumptions:
• Humans will always purchase goods from the closest place
• Unbounded isotropic, homogeneous and limitless surface
• Evenly distributed population
• All settlements are equidistant and exist in a triangular lattice pattern
• Evenly distributed resources
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Central Place Theory:
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Public Place Theory:
• Developed by Paul Peterson in 1981 in his book, City Limits
• States that urban politicians and governing regimes are subordinate to
the overall economic principles that force cities to compete to capture
new investment and capital
• The competitive nature of cities encourages the business elite and
politicians to favour new development
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Grid Model/Hippodamian Model:
• Proposed by Hippodamums of Miletus , ‘Father of Rational City
Planning’
• Center of city contains the public place and private rooms surround the
city’s public arenas
• The plan can be laid out uniformly over any kind of terrain since it is
based on angles and measurements
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Grid Model/Hippodamian Model:
Priene City
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Concentric Zone Model:
• Proposed by sociologist Earnest Burgess in 1920
• Also known as Burgess Model, Bull’s Eye Model
• The model portrays how the social groups in cities are spatially
arranged in a series of rings
• The size of the rings may vary but the order remains the same
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Concentric Zone Model:
• Central Business District
• A non-residential area where businesses are located.
Also called ‘Downtown’, it houses government institutions, skyscrapers,
stadiums and other public spaces
• Zone of Transition
• It contains industry and has poorer quality of housing
• Zone of Working Class
• It contains modest houses occupied by stable, working class families. A large
percentage of people in this area rent
• Zone of better residence
• Contains newer and spacious houses for the middle class
• Commuters zone
• Located beyond the build up area of the city. Mostly upper class residents
live here
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Concentric Zone Model:
Shortcomings:
• It assumes an isotropic plain
• Land may restrict growth of
certain sectors
• Does not fill polycentric cities
• Describes peculiar American
geography, the converse may
be prevalent elsewhere
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Sector Model:
• Developed by land economist Homer Hoyt in 1939
• Model of the internal structure of cities
• Social groups are arranged around a series of sectors or wedges
radiating out from CBD and centred on major transportation lines
• Low income households near rail-road lines and commercial
establishments to be along business thoroughfares
• Stresses the importance of transportation corridors
• Sees growth of various urban activities as expanding along roads, rivers
or train routes
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Sector Model:
Amity School of Architecture and Planning
Mann’s Concentric
Circles and
Sector Model
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Sector Model:
Shortcomings
• Applies well to limited settlements
• Does not take into account
transportation due to cars, which
makes commerce and commutation
easier
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Multiple Nuclei Model:
• Ecological model created by Harris and Ullmann in 1945
• City grows from several independent points rather than one CBD
• As they expand, they merge to form a single urban area
• Ports, universities, parks and airports also act as nodes
• Based on the idea that people have greater movement due to car
ownership
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Multiple Nuclei Model:
1. Central business district
2. Wholesale, light manufacturing
3. Low-class residential
4. Medium-class residential
5. High-class residential
6. Heavy Manufacturing
7. Outlying business district
8. Residential suburb
9. Industrial suburb
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Multiple Nuclei Model:
Shortcomings
• Treats land as isotropic entity
• Assumes even distribution of resources, people and transportation costs
• Each zone displays a significant degree of heterogeneity and not
homogeneity
• No consideration of the influence of physical relief and government
policy
• Not applicable to oriental cities with different cultural, political and
economic backgrounds
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Urban Realms Model:
• Developed by James E Vance Jr in 1960s
• Each realm is a separate economic, social and political entity that is
linked together to form a larger metro framework
• Suburbs are within the sphere of influence of the central city and
metropolitan CBD
• Eg Francisco Bay Area
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Urban Realms Model:
Urban realm depends upon:
• Overall size of metropolitan region
• Amount of economic activity in each realm
• Topography and major land features
• Internal accessibility of each realm
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Core Frame Model:
• Shows the urban structure of CBD of a town or city
• Includes an inner core where land is expensive and used intensively
• Outer core and frame have lower land values and are less intensively
developed
• Various land uses are linked to Bid Rent Theory
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Core Frame Model:
Amity School of Architecture and Planning
Bid Rent Theory/Model:
• Geographical economic theory that refers to how the demand for land
price and demand changes as the distance from CBD increases
• Based on the idea that retail establishments wish to maximize their
profitability so they are willing to pay much more for land close to CBD
for less land further away from the area
• The amount they are willing to pay is called ‘bid rent’
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Bid Rent Theory/Model:
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Bid Rent Theory/Model:
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Irregular Pattern Model:
• Arrangement of public space that characterizes the stage of
‘transition from village to city’, especially in the third world
• Includes blocks with no fixed order or permanent and temporary
structures
• Structures are not related to urban centres near the place
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Three Magnet Theory/Model:
• Ebenezer Howard, 1898
• Contrasting rural and urban life
• Best of urban and rural could be incorporated in
a Garden City
• Eg Letchworth and Welwyn
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References;
1. http://
epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/epgpdata/uploads/epgp_content/S000017GE/P001696/M020263/ET/149
6059488UrbanGeog-CentralPlaceTheory-Final-Azka.pdf
2. Sennett Richard 1969, Classical Essays on the Culture of Cities, Prentice Hall, New Jersey
3. The American City: What Works and What Doesn't
by Alexander Garvin (1995)
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Thank You
