Ancient Cities


Mohenjo - Daro

  • Southern Pakistan’s Indus River Valley

  • 2500 BC

  • 35,000 residents

  • City is approx. 500 acres

  • Had houses, a granary, baths, assembly halls and towers

  • Extensive waterways

Ancient Babylonia

  • Nebuchadnezzar

  • Near East Iraq in Southern Mesopotamia in between Tigris and Euphrates Rives

  • 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Baghdad in modern-day Iraq,

  • 8000 sq. miles

  • 2000 BC - 500 BC

  • Well documented thru the Old testament of the Bible

  • Existent Culture, religion and military power

Greek Cities

  1. Hippodamus of Miletus (c. 498- c.408 BC)

    1. was an ancient Greek architect, urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher and is considered to be the “father” of urban planning, the namesake of Hippodamian plan of city layouts (grid plan)

    2. Harbor town of Piraeus – Athens’ Commercial port

    3. Olynthus, Priene and Miletus - Other planned towns he is associated with

    4. “the first [non-statesman] who made inquiries about the best form of government.”

    5. He envisioned the city as more than a place to live and work. He viewed it as something “democratic, dignified, and graceful.” And his designs reflected this philosophy without losing site of practicality.

    6. His ideals are geared towards recognizing that urban planning was about more than engineering a functional city.

    7. It was about creating an environment that expressed and nurtured the ideals of its citizens


  2. Hippodamian Plan

    1. Urban plan based on streets intersecting at right angles

    2. Urban plan based on streets intersecting at right angles

    3. “His plans of Greek cities were characterized by order and regularity in contrast to the intricacy and confusion common to cities of that period.”

    4. “He is seen as the originator of the idea that a town plan might formally embody and clarify a rational social order.”

  3. Miletus

    1. located on the Ionian coast or the western coast of modern Turkey

    2. Cooling Strategy – Planned buildings and Streets to allow optimal flow of winds cooling the town during hot summers

Roman Cities

  • Importance of transportation for commerce, communications and for maintaining peace and order

  • First regional planners

  • Military cities followed a master plan - square pattern dominated by civic bldgs. At the intersection of 2 main streets.

  1. Roman Camp at Timgad, Algeria

    1. An extremely rigid and orderly square divided into 4 quadrants by the primary roads and oriented to the cardinal directions.

    2. Used for temporary camps of the soldiers in new colonies, became the built form of those cities.

  2. Roman Colonization

    1. Efficient agriculture made possible the founding of towns inland. Technical innovations (aqueducts, sewers, roads) earned them the reputation as the greatest engineers of antiquity





Ancient Cities Contribution to the Pattern of Planning

Established a pattern of planning for cities built upon 4 bases:

  1. Physical base

    1. visible manifestations of roads, buildings, open spaces, and other features that give it form.

    2. Regular street patterns were imposed

    3. Center was dominated by buildings for worship, government, and business

    4. Power was at the core of the city while housing filled the remaining spaces

    5. Planners designed for the ruling parties/leaders and not for their own artistic pursuit

  2. Political base - essential for its meaning

  3. Economic base - provides a reason for its existence

  4. Social base - city life

Medieval Town

  • Irregular plan (organic design) in which bldgs. adapt themselves to the terrain.

  • Enclosing defensive walls – designed to exploit the natural advantages such as water courses and commanding slopes. Successive city walls produced a plan resembling a spider’s web (radial- concentric plan)

Middle Ages (5th-15th C.)

  • Dwellings which give shelter for livestock and as place of refuge from attackers

  • Towns as centers of trade, marketing as well as defense

  • Centered on the church

Renaissance Cities (14th – 17th Century)

  • Axis style of city design - the city centerline or axis was embellished to symbolize the radiance of monarchs and rulers

  • Formal piazzas, monumental designs for open spaces, boulevards, dwellings.

14th Century Onwards

  • Urban Planning as a Response

  • Development of capitalist society

  • 16th Century – The rise of centralized monarchies and transatlantic trade tended to concentrate growth around the royal court (seat of government) or the port as the focus of trade.

  • Capital cities and ports: Amsterdam, Rome, Lisbon, Antwerp, Seville, Palermo, Milan, Naples, Paris and London

The Origins: Urban Growth from 1800 to 1940

  • Development of new industrialized towns, i.e. Lancashire, Yorkshire, etc.

  • Industrial Revolution

    • Modern urban and regional planning has arisen in response to specific social and economic problems encountered as the Industrial Revolution came about

  • Effects of Industrial Revolution

    • Rapid growth of cities

    • Mechanization was centralized - “journey to work” became a phenomenon

    • Transportation facilities (railways, shipping lanes, canals, etc.) were imposed causing grave incompatibility in land use

    • Congestion, air and water pollution, new safety hazards

    • Massive migration of workers who lived in sheds, railroad yards, factory cellars, w/out sanitation facilities and water supply

  • Congestion, Lack of sanitation, Pollution, Negative effects on the Quality of Life

  • Deaths from cholera in the Soho district of London, 1854

    • Dr. John Snow’s map which established the connection bet. The cholera outbreak and a single polluted water pump in Broad Street.

    • Epidemic in Britain in 1832, 1848, & 1866

  • Policies passed to address problems

    • The Public Health Act of 1848 & 1875

    • Nuisance Removal Act of 1855

    • Sanitary Act of 1866

    • Torrens Act from 1868 onwards – control of bldg. Standards

    • Cross Acts from 1875 onwards – removalof slums

    • Municipal Corporations Act of 1882

    • Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894

    • Adoption of by-law housing