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Urban Planning

Dernière mise à jour le 15 June 2019

Urban planning requires a comprehensive vision for a particular territory, as well as of the prescriptive tools needed to develop it. It strives to make political decision-making more coherent. Urban planning is, in this way, closely tied to urban governance.

The most frequently cited urban planning tools include:

  • A statement of guiding principles: Given the greatest priority among urban planning documents, these principles should articulate an overarching vision of the territory’s future and how it should develop (in time and space).
  • Land arrangement planning: These are documents that define land usage rights through immediately applicable rules.
  • Zoning and land occupancy plans without specific land arrangement provisions. These are measures that go beyond the primary guidelines. They may pertain, for instance, to areas that are not situated in the territory covered by the guiding principles.

Different plans may be established for urban areas and  rural areas.

There are thus, on the one hand, strategic planning tools, which articulate a political goal, and, on the other, operational planning tools, which seek to implement particular strategic goals.

It is possible to be trained in urban planning methods. In Africa, CIFAL offers this kind of training, in collaboration with the United Nations. CIFAL’s website.

File translated by Michael C. Behrent – Assistant Professor – Department of History – Appalachian State University – Boone, NC  28608