The Efficacy of Long-Range Physical Planning

Abstract

The long-range general plan has long been a foundation of city planning in North America, but its usefulness and purposes are much debated and comprehensive physical plans are not considered a dynamic, central part of city planning today. This article looks at the comprehensive physical plan prepared in the late 1920s by Harland Bartholomew and the local Town Planning Commission for Vancouver, British Columbia—a city known for its livability—and analyzes how the plan contributed to and is reflected in the city's public realm. It explores how key public realm proposals of the plan have continued to inform planning policy over the years. In the end, conclusions are reached regarding the power of simple yet visionary long-range ideas for a city's public realm, the value of building on good ideas, and the identity-building possibilities of building a public realm responsive to its unique natural context.