This is a pragmatic examination of the physical planning issues facing a city expanding rapidly toward metropolitan status under a program of comprehensive development. A number of simple procedures are developed from existing transportation study techniques to provide an array of planning tools to compare the performance of eight plans for one million population. These are all on the theme of a constellation of sub-regional units about a metropolitan center, but radically different in their degrees of subcentralization, urban form, distribution of activities, and transport networks. Diagnosis of the problems produced in retailing and travel patterns, along with those of congestion, limited capacity to grow, insecure demand for major facilities, leads to the identification of a set of practical planning principles. These are in terms of the urban form, degree of centralization, structural balance, configuration of the transport system and growth strategies, which when taken together form a general conceptual plan.
Abstract