Review of the Development of Various Urban Planning Concepts and Models of Urban Agglomerations

Abstract

Urban agglomerations today are integral elements of modern urban planning in all countries of the world, are found everywhere and have a number of similar principles of functioning and prerequisites for education, and, therefore, are an urgent subject of research of modern urbanism and the basics of urban planning. The purpose of this study was to review the basic concepts and models of urban agglomerations and urban planning forms of urban clustering developed by foreign and Russian scholars at the turn of the XIX–XX century, including those applied in practice in a number of countries around the world. The research used empirical and theoretical methods, in particular, analysis and classification of the basic concepts and models of urban agglomerations and urban forms of urban clustering. As a result, we conducted a thorough review of the works of urban planners and urbanists done over several centuries, and described the experience of implementing their scientific research on the example of many real-life urban agglomerations. Thus, we studied the historical aspect of the emergence of the principles of urban agglomerations, rooted in the period of ancient civilizations and the formation of ancient settlements, cities and polises. We also analyzed a large array of concepts of urban agglomeration modeling that have emerged relatively recently, and have become a topic for research only at the end of the XIX century. The research revealed the lack of consensus in the modern research community regarding the definition of urban agglomeration as a whole, as well as the existence of the most optimal model of agglomeration, determined from the standpoint of the effectiveness of its functioning.