Editing City (section)

=== Urban planning ===
{{Main|Urban planning|Urban design}}
[[File:La Plata desde el aire.JPG|thumb|[[La Plata]] in Argentina is based on a perfect square with 5196-meter sides, and was designed in the 1880s as the new capital of [[Buenos Aires Province]].<ref>Alain Garnier, "[https://www.epfl.ch/labs/lasur/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GARNIER.pdf La Plata: la visionnaire trahie] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416094508/https://www.epfl.ch/labs/lasur/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GARNIER.pdf |date=16 April 2021 }}"; ''Architecture & Comportment'' 4(1), 1988, pp. 59–79.</ref>]]
[[Urban planning]], the application of forethought to city design, involves optimizing land use, transportation, utilities, and other basic systems in order to achieve [[Technical aspects of urban planning|certain objectives]]. Urban planners and scholars have proposed overlapping [[theories of urban planning|theories]] as ideals of how plans should be formed. Planning tools, beyond the original design of the city itself, include [[public capital]] investment in infrastructure and [[Land-use planning|land-use controls]] such as [[zoning]]. The continuous process of [[comprehensive planning]] involves identifying general objectives as well as collecting data to evaluate progress and inform future decisions.<ref>Levy (2017), pp. 193–235.</ref><ref name="McQuillin1987planning" />

Government is legally the final authority on planning but in practice, the process involves both public and private elements. The legal principle of [[eminent domain]] is used by the government to divest citizens of their property in cases where its use is required for a project.<ref name="McQuillin1987planning">McQuillin (1937/1987), §§1.75–179. "Zoning, a relatively recent development in the administration of local governmental units, concerns itself with the control of the use of land and structures, the size of buildings, and the use-intensity of building sites. Zoning being an exercise of the police power, it must be justified by such considerations as the protection of public health and safety, the preservation of taxable property values, and the enhancement of community welfare. [...] Municipal powers to implement and effectuate city plans are usually ample. Among these is the power of eminent domain, which has been used effectively in connection with slum clearance and the rehabilitation of blighted areas. Also available to cities in their implementation of planning objectives are municipal powers of zoning, subdivision control and the regulation of building, housing and sanitation principles."</ref> Planning often involves tradeoffs—decisions in which some stand to gain and some to lose—and thus is closely connected to the prevailing political situation.<ref>Levy (2017), p. 10. "Planning is a highly political activity. It is immersed in politics and inseparable from the law. [...] Planning decisions often involve large sums of money, both public and private. Even when little public expenditure is involved, planning decisions can deliver large benefits to some and large losses at others."</ref>

The [[history of urban planning]] dates back to some of the earliest known cities, especially in the Indus Valley and Mesoamerican civilizations, which built their cities on grids and apparently zoned different areas for different purposes.<ref name="Smith2002" /><ref>Jorge Hardoy, ''Urban Planning in Pre-Columbian America''; New York: George Braziller, 1968.</ref> The effects of planning, ubiquitous in today's world, can be seen most clearly in the layout of [[planned community|planned communities]], fully designed prior to construction, often with consideration for interlocking physical, economic, and cultural systems.