What do town planners do?
The modern profession of town planning mainly arose in reponse to the urban problems caused by rapid industrialisation from the late 19th century. The rapid growth of towns ‘shook contemporary habits and concepts’ (Benevolo, 1967). Social reformers recognised the need for corrective intervention to deal with the growth forces unleashed by modernisation. Pioneering professionals often worked first in another built environment area like architecture, surveying, engineering or landscape architecture. Planning was a chance to exercise a distinctive overall spatial and social vision that drew on specialised inputs. Town planners could either design entirely new urban areas (such as suburbs and garden cities), or develop ways to reform and reorder existing ones to provide plenty of space and light, clean water and adequate drainage (through urban renewal). Early town plans concentrated on securing adequate provision for key urban needs: • housing • commercial and industrial uses • railways a
