An Urban Planner’s Take on Real Estate

mcmillanplan1901 McMillan Plan for the District of Columbia

A successful real estate market is dependent on growth.  Growth of the city, growth of jobs, growth of population, and growth of the economy.  To ensure future growth, plans need to be put in place to keep our cities on track.  That is where urban planning comes into play.  Urban planning and regional planning is one of the most important innovations, allowing our communities to not only increase their senses of connectivity, but also to help share a common environmental, economic, political, social, and cultural sense of our nation.

Disregarding regional planning in our modern society would lead to inevitable adverse consequences to our cities.  Creating and implementing a plan in any sense allows one to execute their strategy efficiently and successfully; the same goes for regional planning.  By designing and implementing a regional plan, we are able to research and solve current problems, and possible future ones, by having distinct objectives and strategies in place.

Unfortunately, with any great idea, there is always a caveat.  Regionalism raises the issues of ‘wicked problems’ such as fixing urban sprawl, resolving environmental degradation, and changing the narrow-mindedness of our community’s vision of urban planning.  With these, it is close to impossible to solve all of them at once.  Three major figures in urban planning, Ian McHarg, Oliver Gillham, and Gary Hack, all serve to address these wicked problems and promote solutions to the public.

cornelius-urban-growth-boundaryThe city of Cornelius, OR is located just inside the Portland metro area’s urban growth boundary
Photo credit: Google Maps

Gillham believes that in order to fix urban sprawl, one must understand contemporary regionalism strategies.  These include regional growth control, transportation and land use, and sharing of resources.  He stresses the idea of the urban growth boundary, citing Portland, Oregon as his example.  Not only did this boundary limit the outward extension of growth, but it also provided a solution to urban sprawl.

McHarg’s idea of regionalism focuses more on natural ecology and the environment.  He addresses the wicked problem of environmental degradation.  He emphasizes not only how to separate a region into appropriate uses while promoting sustainability, but also the importance of all planners to understand hydrology, ecology, and humans’ impact on nature before designing a regional plan.

Lastly, Hack addresses the issue of our nation’s narrow-mindedness about urban planning solutions.  He argues that when thinking about our cities’ future, it is detrimental to visualize a city surrounded by a circle of suburbanization.  He stresses that our society uses terms, such as ‘city’ and ‘suburb’ too frequently and that the only way to change our urban patterns is to give a new name to our urban spaces.  He emphasizes terms such as ‘mega-regions,’ ‘metropolis,’ and ‘edgeless cities’.  By changing these terms, we are able to change our perspective on how we view an urban space.

potomacSuburban sprawl in Loudoun County, VA on the west side of the Potomac river (left on photo) and Agricultural Reserve in Montgomery County, MD on the east side of the river
Photo credit: Dan Reed

This juxtaposition between authors is important because it emphasizes that as planners, we need to have a sense of judgment about the area.  There are no right or wrong arguments between these authors; instead, there are just different types of problem solving strategies available to help solve a variety of city and regional planning issues.  It is evident that regionalism raises issues for cities; however, through ideas by Mcharg, Gillham, and Hack, we are not only able to find new solutions to these problems, but we are also able to realize the significance of regional planning. Every city has its own problems and unique solutions, these three authors just help bring important ideas to the forefront allowing us as citizens, to make future changes and build a stronger real estate market in our communities.

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