Planned Communities

By: Josh West

Alternative design developments and how developers incorporate passive and progressive strategies into a harmonious balance between humans, architecture, education and nature will improve the lives of the people in multiple ways. By understanding what the people want and need and not just what the city would like to see, can help fix all of the underlying problems a community has. Many major cities across the country and around the world are fighting with the great amount of economic, social and environmental issues, and coming to realization of not enough space. A development that can bring all these problems together, fix them and create a stronger city – Planned Communities. Planned Communities, or New Towns, are nothing new. Undeveloped areas, once started and left to never finish, are found everywhere around the world. These spaces are left sitting without a purpose, once knowing how much of an impact they could be, within their community. Planned Communities are a realistic option that can one, utilize the undeveloped areas around cities and two, push a development that can maximize growth and enhance the surrounding communities.

Planned Communities, or new towns, is defined as a newly developed or expanded urban center. These communities should be self-contained, self-sustaining, and balanced community, with a relatively independent economic base and minimal commuting patterns. A well balanced community should have a diversified mixture of residential, commercial and institutional uses to minimize commuting behaviors and within the community is a land-use pattern that should offer a variety of employment and housing to its residents. It should also be self-governed within its distinct physical boundaries and should preserve and enhance natural environments.

The urban quality of life is primarily linked to the social quality of the urban environment. The new town concept is directed toward providing an ideal social atmosphere through the careful consideration of all physical elements in terms of their social implications. From here, we try to understand the significance of satisfying human relationships. This is where the city decides if they develop for the people or just the area. Urbanization has resulted in far larger numbers of inhabitants per community and it has been virtually impossible to bring all these residents into a large-scale socialization. People have always been likely to socialize with others who are geographically near than with the great numbers of people in large urban centers (Golany, 1975).  One major discussion of any community concept is to have multiple uses within it to bring functions and people together. Many larger cities have been breaking their surrounding communities, encouraging total land use segregation, leading to the minimization of social interaction.