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Every Urban Planning Styles Explained In 8 Minutes
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Every Urban Planning Styles Explained In 8 Minutes



A quick overview over the major urban planning styles.
Which style is your city? Let me know in the comments down below 👇

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00:00 Grid
00:37 Organic Medieval
01:15 Baroque
01:52 Garden City
02:34 Radiant City
03:08 Superblock
03:44 TOD
04:20 New Urbanism
04:56 Car-Oriented Surburbia
05:32 Eco
06:04 Megablock
06:37 Informal
07:12 Linear
07:47 Polycentric

Grid. Straight grids draw cities like checkerboards. The idea dates to ancient Greece and 
became famous with New York’s 1811 plan. Blocks share one shape, so land is easy to sell, 
utilities repeat, and addresses stay simple. Fire crews know every corner. Long lines, however, trap heat and speed traffic,   so many towns now break the grid with pocket 
parks, bike lanes, and slow-street zones. Extra shade trees cool the hot paving in summer   and keep the map clear for 
drivers and walkers alike. Organic Medieval. Old quarters in Fez, Kyoto, or York formed 
a lane at a time with no central map. Paths twist around wells, markets, and 
slopes, making a shaded maze that stays cool. Hidden courtyards appear without warning; 
cars fit poorly, but foot trade thrives. Tourists enjoy getting pleasantly lost. Upgrades add street numbers, LED 
lamps, and fiber under the stones. Roof gutters feed cisterns to water plants,   so the living history keeps growing while 
basic services reach each tiny door. Baroque. Baroque plans fire grand avenues 
from a hub like wheel spokes. Paris, Washington DC, and Karlsruhe 
line these axes with palaces,   museums, or statues at every vista. Round plazas handle many roads at once, 
and twin rows of trees give shade. Building such drama costs more than a 
grid, and traffic can clog the centre,   so modern fixes add light-rail 
rings and bike bypasses. Lawns between the spokes host festivals and 
marches without closing cross-town travel. Garden City. Ebenezer Howard’s 1898 Garden City rings 
homes, jobs, and farms with a green belt. Letchworth and Canberra still show 
tree-lined streets, small centres,   and parks five minutes from any door. The belt blocks sprawl yet 
lets farmers sell local food. Later car suburbs copied only the 
lawns and lost the walking links. New eco-towns restore the full idea,   using solar roofs, light rail, and 
bike lanes to keep the belt intact. Ideal size is about fifty-thousand people. Big enough for schools yet crossable on foot. Radiant City. Le Corbusier pictured tall slabs in 
open lawns with fast roads below. Brasília and Chandigarh proved the 
concept: sun and breeze reach each flat,   but a corner shop may sit twenty minutes 
away and streets feel empty at night. Pilotis raise homes for airflow yet 
leave blank ground that draws graffiti. Cities now weave cafés, bike lanes, 
and mixed uses under the towers,   softening the concrete while keeping good 
light and daily fresh air for residents. Superblock. Barcelona’s new superblocks, Vauban in Germany,   and parts of Copenhagen group nine 
normal blocks into one big zone. Cars circle outside; inside streets 
belong to walkers and bikes. Noise and fumes fall, and kids play safely. Deliveries still reach doors, but at slow speed. Critics fear edge roads will jam, yet early 
tests show cleaner air and rising shop sales. Pocket gardens fill former parking bays, proving 
calm streets can also boost local business. Transit-Oriented Development. Hong Kong, Singapore, and 
Arlington, VA pack homes,   shops, and offices within 
a short walk of rail stops. High density funds the trains and slashes car use. Active shopfronts keep streets busy day and night. Clear lifts, ramps, and signs 
let older people move easily. Rents can spike if supply is tight, so 
new rules set aside mixed-income units. When land stays open for new towers,   the station core grows without 
pushing out long-time residents. New Urbanism. Seaside, Florida, and Poundbury revive small 
blocks, front porches, and mixed-use main streets. Narrow roads slow cars; sidewalks and 
corner stores pull neighbours outside. Houses sit close to the curb, 
making eyes on the street. Critics call some projects stage-set perfect 
and note commuters still drive far for work,   yet surveys show high resident pride and 
strong foot traffic in lively public squares. Many suburbs now retrofit these village tricks. Car-Oriented Suburbia. Post-war suburbs from Los Angeles 
to Mississauga grew around the car. Curved streets, cul-de-sacs, and big parking 
lots make driving easy but walking hard. Homes sit on wide lawns, and single-use 
zoning separates houses from shops and jobs. Commutes grow long, and buses 
struggle with low density. Towns now add bike trails, bus lanes, 
and corner cafés to cut traffic and   give streets some life, but retrofitting 
can cost more than early mixed planning. Eco. Hammarby Sjöstad and Bishan-Ang Mo Kio 
Park fold green tech into daily life. Wetland beds clean runoff; 
porous paths drink storms;   solar roofs power lamps; 
and waste heat warms homes. Boards show live data on litres 
cleaned and carbon saved. School trips log frog calls with phone 
apps, turning a play day into science. By hiding pipes under lawns and slides,   the city becomes a working climate 
lab that families can touch. Megablock. Shenzhen’s OCT Loft and Singapore’s 
Pinnacle@Duxton place housing on   giant podiums that hide parking and shops. Lifts open onto roof decks with jogging 
tracks, playgrounds, and breezy views. Fewer street crossings mean safer walks, 
but blank podium walls can deaden sidewalks. Designers now install art, cafés, and 
trees at ground level to keep streets   active while residents enjoy 
garden space forty storeys up. Informal. Dharavi in Mumbai and Rocinha in 
Rio rose fast without formal plans. Families add rooms as money 
allows, using brick, tin, or wood. Lanes are narrow, but street trade booms 
and dense life supports clinics and schools. Water lines, sewers, and legal titles lag behind. NGOs help lay pipes and lights 
while mapping each alley. Though living conditions can be tough,   strong social ties and micro-businesses keep 
these areas vibrant parts of the wider city. Linear. From Spain’s 1882 corridor plan 
to Saudi Arabia’s new NEOM Line,   planners sometimes stretch 
the city into one long ribbon. Rail or highway runs the length, with 
layered homes, jobs, and parks beside it. Using less land and cutting trip times sound good,   but critics question daylight, 
escape routes, and huge costs. Only short examples, like Vilanova’s Rambla,   work today, yet the idea still sparks 
debate about how slim a city can safely be. Polycentric. Stockholm’s post-war “ABC” suburbs 
and China’s Pearl River Delta link   many self-contained towns 
around a main core by rail. Each satellite offers housing (A), jobs (B),   and a centre (C) so daily life stays 
local while trains connect the region. The spread eases downtown 
crowding and shares growth,   but it needs frequent rail service; 
if trains are late to open,   satellites turn into long-drive dormitory 
towns instead of balanced mini-cities. Thanks for watching this video! Got some ideas for upcoming videos? Let me know in the comments down below. Also, be sure to like, subscribe and hit the bell. It really helps pushing the videos out.

29 Comments

  2. @Emblematicify

    Are you saying Kyoto has :43 a organic medieval layout? It's one of the oldest grid cities in the world, founded in 794, still existing to this day. It's based on the ancient capital of Xian in China.

  3. @GBA811

    3:10 I disagree with using the term "Superblock" relating to Barcelona. In Brasilia (and by extend Chandigard) the residential neighborhoods are based on the "Superquadra" concept (lit. Superblock) self-contained neighboorhoods consolidating the modernist vision on urban planning (Athens Charter). Each Superquadra has a main street with shops, a kindergarden, leisure and recreation equipaments surroend by 5-story apartment blocks on raised pillars with free ground floor and every four Superquadras share a secondary school, all of this inserted in a city-park context. In theory everything for your daily life, except your job, is in a walking distance. No wonder those who have never bothered to read urban theory consider it Brasilia to have communist urban planning.

    This stands in contrast to Barcelona’s "Supermanzanas", the original term, which prioritize traffic reduction and repurposing roadways for pedestrian use. While both concepts aim to improve urban living, the Superquadra embodies a holistic, self-contained neighborhood model rooted in modernist planning. Same translation, different contexts.

  11. @Theoreme.de.Gudule

    My experience of many cities throughout Europe is that the virtues or flaws that you can attribute to all those types of planning can become irrelevant according to the type of population. That is, what you deemed good according to town planning criteria only can become a little hell with certain inhabitants, and what you deemed bad can become a little paradise (relatively) with other inhabitants.

  12. @dr.damian

    as a stockholmer i'd like to add to the bit about polycentric ABC-planning. These suburbs are nowadays considered unsuccessful as they were very car-centric, no mixed zoning, poor coverage by public transit and they have made Stockholm a very spread out city which makes public transport and biking in Stockholm much worse than it would otherwise be

  13. @rigor_ii-i

    BONIFACIO GLOBAL CITY, TAGUIG, PHILIPPINES at the end of the video. They are currently working on a subway station system in that area opening in 2028-2030. It’s currently under construction

  16. @skagenrora1236

    It’s a little misleading clumping Fez in the Middle East together with European medieval towns. European towns show themselves outward, the houses are decorated for bypassers and the valuable areas of the cities are along the main streets and squares. However Arabic medieval architecture focuses inward. Many streets are dead ends and buildings are not showing off towards the streets. Instead houses are decorated towards the inside, private gardens and backyards is where the decorations and ornaments are. Therefor these two types of city are very different to each other and follow very different urban philosophy’s reflecting historical culture and religion.

  18. @cuentafalsa256

    Why people has forgotten the urban planning of ancient (NOT european) cities? Incas urban planning is interesting too. Why cant we use these ancient not-old-world designs and renevue them?

  21. @hugod9131

    The spaniards did grids way back in 1500s during the planning of new cities in the spanish territories

  24. @habemus-möwe

    das mittelalterliche ist das beste, es ist vielleicht die frĂŒhere form des informellen, das mittelalterliche zusammen mit dem ökologischen wĂ€re fantastisch

  28. @Slapbattler666

    I used to live in a car oriented suburb, it kinda sucked, I couldn’t go anywhere past the cul-de-sac and when I played on that I was always scared of cars coming.

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