Page "Urban design" Paragraph 27

The beginnings of modern urban design in Europe are indeed associated with the Renaissance but, especially, with the Age of Enlightenment.

Spanish colonial cities were often planned, as were some towns settled by other imperial cultures.

These sometimes embodied utopian ambitions as well as aims for functionality and good governance, as with James Oglethorpe's plan for Savannah, Georgia.

In the Baroque period the design approaches developed in French formal gardens such as Versailles were extended into urban development and redevelopment.

In this period, when modern professional specialisations did not exist, urban design was undertaken by people with skills in areas as diverse as sculpture, architecture, garden design, surveying, astronomy, and military engineering.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, urban design was perhaps most closely linked with surveyors ( engineers ) and architects.

The increase in urban populations brought with it problems of epidemic disease, the response to which was a focus on public health, the rise in the UK of municipal engineering and the inclusion in British legislation of provisions such as minimum widths of street in relation to heights of buildings in order to ensure adequate light and ventilation.