New town

A new town, planned community, or planned city is a kind of city that is designed by architects and engineers before it is built. Most cities and towns just develop over the years, without a clear plan, and urban planning is used only for later expansion.

Brasília, the capital city of Brazil, is a planned city

Planned communities are designed with separate districts of the city for parks, stores, homes, and offices. Many planned communities have a transportation system for commuters.

There are many examples of capital cities being planned throughout history like Baghdad, Iraq; Washington D.C., United States; New Delhi, India; Canberra, Australia; Brasília, Brazil; and Naypyidaw, Myanmar.

Pictures

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  The idea of planning a city is not new. This map shows that the ancient Greek city of Miletus (in Turkey today) had a grid plan, arranging its buildings in regular square blocks with streets in between.
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  Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate (758 CE–1258 CE) had a circular shape. Today, nothing survives of the "round city".
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  Canberra was designed by the architect Walter Burley Griffin in the early 20th century, to be a new capital for Australia.
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  Brasília was designed by architects Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer to be a new capital for Brazil. It was completed in 1960, and is shaped like an airplane or a bird.
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  In contrast, London was not planned. This map dates from around 1560.
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  It is easy to see the grid plan in Manhattan, in New York City. Central Park is the large rectangular green space. The plan was put into place in 1811.
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  When Barcelona, Spain expanded in the late 19th century, the architect Ildefons Cerdà created a plan. Older parts of the city do not follow the plan.
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  Nasr City, near Cairo, Egypt was built in the 1960s to a plan.
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  In contrast, older parts of Cairo were not planned. In the lower part of this picture, the smaller streets do not seem to follow any plan.

Related pages

• City
• Urban planning

Other websites

• The International New Town Institute, a research organization