S p rin g 2 0 2 3 - 2024

URBAN DEVELOPMENT ARC 487

Developing for Community Lecture 3

ARCHITECTURAL DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING,
ALEXANDRIA UNIVERSITY Assis. Prof. Rania Raslan
Urban Development

Lecture 3 A CITY AS A SYSTEM

A CITY AS A
SYSTEM
Urban Development Urban Development

A CITY AS A SYSTEM DR. RANIA RASLAN

 URBAN HIERARCHY OF STRUCTURE & CONTENT

The size and distance of urban

centers are according to their:
Urban Development

role,
location,
specialization and
contingencies.

W· Christaller's Theory of Central

Places defines the importance and
size of a city according to its
centrality in dispensing types
and levels of services to
others.
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These services are either

• daily,
• weekly,
Urban Development

• monthly or, perhaps,

• seasonal.

For example, small clusters of villages which include only

daily services (lowest level) are thus proximate and need
not be greatly separated,
• 'The higher the level and type of service the city offers, the
greater is its size and corresponding influence and,
consequently, similar large cities are farther apart.
DR. RANIA RASLAN
 DEFINITIONS
Urban Hierarchy
Urban Development

There is a hierarchy of urban centers and a parallel hierarchy of influences and

levels of services and importance.
• Major cities control and service their galaxies;
• smaller towns in turn service humble villages, which are the local centers of
specific agricultural domain.
 Urban Development

URBAN HIERARCHY
Structure and Content
Urban Development

Physical planners recognize the following generalized progression of

sizes:
LEVEL I
village: 2000-5000 people;
town : (as a center of a group of villages):
30,000-100,000 people
large city : has more than 100,000 inhabitants.

DR. RANIA RASLAN

 Urban Development

NEIGHBORHOOD ‫المجاورة السكنية‬

A neighborhood is a geographically localized community within a larger city.

Neighborhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members.
Administrative districts ‫ األحياء‬are typically larger than neighborhoods and their boundaries may cut across
neighborhoods.
In some pre-industrial urban traditions, basic public functions such as protection, social regulation of births and
marriages, cleaning and upkeep are handled informally by neighborhoods and not by urban governments; this
pattern is well documented for historical Islamic cities.
Neighborhoods in preindustrial cities often had some degree of social specialization or differentiation.

Ethnic neighborhoods were important in many past cities and remain common in cities today.

Economic specialists, including craft producers, merchants, and others, could be concentrated in neighborhoods.

DR. RANIA RASLAN

 Urban Development

DR. RANIA RASLAN

 Theory of Housing

NEIGHBORHOOD CHARACTERISTICS

Neighborhood residents generally have similar

incomes, as well as similar social characteristics
such as education level, housing preference, and
sense of public order. Sometimes, the dominant
ethnicity in a neighborhood defines its character.
 Urban Development

URBAN HIERARCHY
Structure and Content
Urban Development

LEVEL II
- The metropolis & the metropolitan area constitutes a large city with satellites
accommodating a total of more than one million people;

- the megalopolis caters to twenty million people and is a relatively new

phenomenon in urban physical organization.
It exists only when the urban structure in developing regions is almost continuous,
with nuclei of metropolises pulsating along its economically coherent system.

DR. RANIA RASLAN

Urban Development
 Urban Development

METROPOLIS ‫مدينة كبيرة أو عاصمة‬

A metropolis is a big city, in most cases with around a • A metropolis is usually a significant economical,
million inhabitants in the city proper, and with a population political and cultural center for some country or
of at least one million living in its urban areas. region, and an important hub for regional or
Tokyo, London, Cairo international connections and communications

New York has garnered the nickname Metropolis to describe

Dr. Rania Raslan the city in the daytime in popular culture,
PROF. DR. DINA NASSAR, DR. RANIA RASLAN
contrasting with Gotham, sometimes used to describe New York at night
 Urban Development

Central Business District ‫مركز المدينة التجاري‬ Characteristics

• the CBD is characterized by a concentration of

retail and commercial buildings.

• The shape and type of a CBD almost always

closely reflect the city's history.

• Central Business Districts usually have very

small resident populations.

• In North America it is called a "Downtown“.

City center differs from down-town in that the latter can be

geographically located anywhere in a city, while a city center is
generally located near the geographic heart of the city. London
has three city centers, the City of London, the medieval City of
Westminster and Canary Wharf.

Dr. Rania Raslan

 Urban
Theory
Development
of Housing

DOWNTOWN ‫وسط المدينة‬

The typical North American downtown has certain unique characteristics.

During the postwar economic boom in the 1950s, the

residential population of most downtowns crashed. This
has been attributed to reasons such as slum clearance,
construction of the Interstate Highway System, and white
flight from the urban core to the rapidly expanding
suburbs. Due to urban revitalization projects, downtowns
eventually came to be dominated by high-rise office
buildings in which commuters from the suburbs filled
jobs. By the 1990s, even office-oriented businesses began
to abandon the old downtowns for the suburbs because
of overcrowding, resulting in what are called "edge
cities".

Dr. Rania Raslan

 Urban Development

UPTOWN ‫الجزء خارج مركز المدينة‬ the upper part of a town or city

• UPTOWN ‫الجزء خارج مركز المدينة‬

• The term uptown often refers to a specific
portion of a city in contrast with the local
downtown area.
• The uptown neighborhoods, separated from
the city's central business district, may often
be residential.
• Such uptown areas may not necessarily be
located to the north of or at a higher
elevation than the downtown.

Dr. Rania Raslan

Prof. Dr. Dina Nassar, Dr. Rania Raslan
 Urban Development

SUBURB ‫الضواحي‬

• Suburbs, usually referring to a residential area.

• They are defined in different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or
separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city.

• Most suburbs have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods.

• Modern suburbs grew in the 20th century as a result of improved road and rail transport and an increase
in commuting.

• Suburbs tend to reproduce around cities which ideally have an plenty of adjacent flat land.

• In some cases suburbs of cities outside of North America are economically distressed areas, inhabited by
higher proportions of recent immigrants with social problems.

Dr. Rania Raslan

 For nearly a century, the areas of
urban sprawl where every single-
family home has its own yard,
garage, and white picket fence
represented the peak of life
aspiration. Homeownership and
the idea of claiming space away
from the hustle and bustle of the
city core was once considered the
ideal lifestyle and the pinnacle of
the American Dream. But as time
went on, and socio-economic
conditions shifted, cities that were
once filled with these single-family
homes realized that perhaps these
zoning regulations were outdated,
and new solutions needed to be
created to prevent the current
housing crisis from growing even
more out of control.
Prof. Dr. Dina Nassar, Dr. Rania Raslan
 Urban Development

Discussion

• This isn’t a problem that is only based in the United States- around the world, cities
are facing the effects of low supply and high demand that causes even the smallest
of homes to be unaffordable.
• Consider Hong Kong, whose zoning codes only allow for 7% of land to be regulated
for housing. In one of the densest cities in the world, where land is scarce/ rare,
urban sprawl is impossible, and housing comes at a premium, many people are
forced to live in coffin housing, or small “cages” that are packed into apartments
where they can store only a small mattress and a few personal belongings.
• Even zoning regulations in London have had an impact, with unused garages being
transformed into single-family homes just to accommodate the growing population
while still complying with these outdated laws.

Dr. Rania Raslan

 Urban Development

URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY ‫حدود النمو الحضري‬

• An urban growth boundary UGB is a regional
boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl
• This is done by authorizing that; the area inside the
boundary be used for higher density urban development
and the area outside be used for lower density
development.
• But by limiting the supply of developable land, UGBs
increase the price of existing developable and already-
developed land.
• As a result, housing on that land becomes more
expensive.

Dr. Rania Raslan

 Theory of Housing

GATED COMMUNITIES ‫المجتمعات العمرانية المغلقة‬

• A gated communityis a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly

controlled entrances, and closed walls and fences.
• Gated communities usually consist of small residential streets and include various facilities.
• Gated communities provide genuine security to the upper class.
• Some gated communities or, retirement villages usually called guard-gated communities, are staffed
by private security guards and are often home to high-value properties.
• Some gated communities are secure enough to resemble fortresses.

• They are more likely to have negative contributions to the overall social capital of the broader
community outside the gated community.
• They do not mesh well with the greater community. Some are isolated, with only one entrance.
• Being commuter towns, they serve no more purpose for the greater community than other
specialized settlements do.

Prof. Dr. Dina Nassar, Dr. Rania Raslan

Prof. Dr. Dina Nassar, Dr. Rania Raslan
Prof. Dr. Dina Nassar, Dr. Rania Raslan
End of Lecture
Thank you