Certain sociological aspects of town planning

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The unprecedented growth of cities in the Western world since the Industrial Revolution hasforced urban planners to give more recognition to the urban sociological aspects of planning. Until the late nineteenth century urban planning was physically orientated, with engineers and architects as the first planners. Governments and local authorities were incapable of handling the new urban situation successfully. The first initiative in the search,for better livability in the city came from philanthropic industrialists like Owen, Salt and Lever. Their attempts, although individually successful, could not form the basis fir a national solution, however. A significant step in the direction of the increased recognition of sociology in planning, came from Howard with the publication in 1898 of his book “Tomorrow”. This lead to the experiments with New Towns in Britain. At present these towns are built all over the world and seem to be generally successful. The sociologist, as member of the urban planning team, can be of significant value regarding ecological studies. There are several undesirable urban growth forms, such as unlimited sprawl, which the planner can hardly understand or explain without the knowledge and research methods of the sociologist. Neighbourhood development and urban renewal are also branches of urban planning where the sociologist's vision is imperative. In the U.S.A., where the “bull-dozer”-approach was characteristic of the implementation of renewal proposals, Fried, Glcucher. Seelv and Gans. inter alia. did valuable work to emphasise the need for a sociological approach to the problem. During the 1950's, the wider recognition of sociology in urban planning enjoyed the attention of academics in most Western countries. This was followed by the actual incorporation thereof in planning considerations during the last decade. In South Africa the period of discussion on1y began recently, while the deliberate incorporation of sociology in planning is still the exception rather than the rule.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: