Urban Planning Agents and Urbanization Processes

Urban Planning Agents and Urbanization

Urbanization and Urbanism

The set of processes by which the city grows in number, population and surface is called urbanization; one of its characteristics is the expansion and generalization of urban lifestyles. The discipline that studies these phenomena is urbanism.

The Urban Planning

Urban planning is the process of planning how activities should be organized and how urban areas should develop; it concerns the particular life and activities that take place there. It is necessary to regulate activity and the influence of different stakeholders who participate in generating urban space. Land is classified into three types:

• Center soils: We can intervene where the land is immersed in a process of integration into the urban fabric.
• Developable soils: Land that municipal urban plans must regulate as necessary and appropriate to ensure population growth and economic activity.
• Non-developable soils: Land that is protected by special law.

Actors in the City

In the formation of urban space, a number of people, corporations or institutions with conflicting interests are involved; these are called urban agents. They act as agents:

• Landowners: Important agents who try to have new urban spaces created on land they own.
• Developers, real estate and financial companies: They focus on construction, sale and rental to obtain returns on their capital or that of their clients.
• Industrial company owners: Agents of urban transformation when they decide to relocate their factories from old industrial spaces inside the city to new estates.
• Citizens: Citizens can influence urban decisions, as they often exert pressure for land uses that meet collective needs such as housing, education, health, transportation or leisure.
• Public bodies: Actors in urban development; as representatives of the city or country, they have the responsibility to decide which land uses occur and what guidance should govern urban growth.