WORDS BY: KAT DARUAY
MAP IMAGE FROM GOOGLE EARTH
October 20, 2009 | 2973 views
Who are involved?
Urban planning takes a lot of work and a whole lot of people are involved in the process. Stakeholders (those are the people who will be affected by the plans that are to be implemented), urban planners (the people who will be making and creating the plans),
consultants for the different sectors (environmental, economic, and social to name a few) and the government will all be involved in coming up with the best possible plan for their city. Put them all together and you have a salsa of varied emotions and ideas that all want to be given value. This is when the fun stuff starts for the people who are involved in getting the work done.
Where is urban planning needed?
Urban planning focuses on cities while regional planning focuses on provinces which are larger in scale and a little bit more difficult to do compare to urban planning. The Philippines has existing laws that states that all cities should have their respective comprehensive land use plans. The plan basically is a proposal guiding the city into further development and growth. Now, whether the local governments do follow them is the question.
How is it done?
The process usually takes around six to nine months to do. That’s the whole nitty-gritty already of doing the dirty research work, gathering of data, surveys, and writing of the whole report, presentation of data and then the re-writing yet again. Should there be no problems in terms of politics; a plan should be done in an average of six months.
Urban planning has always been around. In fact, we’ve had it since the early 1940s. Architects and urban planners alike took it seriously back then which is why the old Escolta was such a great place to go on a date with a hot babe with.
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