Art of shaping the metropolis: A metropolitan planning model

Art of shaping the metropolis book author is a visiting professor at Milan polytechnic where he teaches metropolitan management in the department of architecture and urban studies. A founder of IRU Madrid an urban planning consulting firm, and founder and director of the master’s program of urban studies at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid. Previously Pedro B. Ortiz was deputy mayor in charge of strategic planning and general director of urban and regional planning for the Madrid City region.

The book serves a wide audience. Geographers and historians who want to understand the new metropolitan planning model in terms of studying and analyzing the metropolitan fabric and form. Individuals specialized in politics on the effect of political rationales within the new metropolitan planning model in the decision-making process, dialogue presented in the model with various authorities levels in building the plan. Urban planners to identify the major differences between urban planning and metropolitan planning in various contexts EU, USA and a focus on the new metropolitan planning model. Urban designers to understand the required planning work in terms of graphical and presentation work in the metropolitan plan. Architects interested in metropolitan planning may get benefit from studying, analyzing, and providing a solution for various types of development in the metropolitan region.

The book theme is centered on the main idea of the relationship between the new metropolitan planning model (Reticular matrix model) and the balanced urban development (BUD). The four pillars of the new model are geography, history, geometry, and denial of the historic city and the metropolitan subsystems environment, transport, residential, social facilities, and production facilities. The balanced urban development characteristics in defining nuclei unite consisting of relationships between the location of many metropolitan functions like residential, public transport stations, social facilities, and urban centralities. This and other sub-ideas within the new metropolitan planning model like the types of dialogue between various government bodies and the decision-making process concerning political rationalities. Types of planning circular and rectangular and their effect on generating more development, how demand for land rules the market. How governance through physical policies balances socio-economic dichotomy. The positive planning result of combining the two types of planning within the new metropolitan planning model. Scales of spaces and timeline of a metropolitan plan that differs from urban planning plan. The technical principles of metropolitan planning are wide in scope (sectors involved), long in view (time frame of plan 40 years), and adaptable to changing circumstances.  

Pedro gives a clear message in the introduction about why he wrote this book. He presents a handbook for metropolitan planning on urbanization that looks into the informal settlement of the rapid urban growth. The negative effect of the automobile on cities. Describing the new metropolitan planning model by presenting the model, in brief, highlights its main concepts of it as how infrastructure destroyed valuable landscape and the decision-making process relations within the various authority levels.  

Since Pedro is a professor and a planner, his book includes many educational principles serving urban planning students of multiple levels from graduate to master. His book presents academic principles of the political hierarchy of decision-making, location theory within urban planning, negotiation, and dialogue in the planning model he presents. Adding to that the application of the metropolitan planning model in the development of Madrid since 1996 serves the professionals in planning practice.

The ideas of the book are not connected smoothly from the first chapter to the final considerations chapter. He repeats some of the ideas within multiple chapters like the effect of politics on decision-making, and negotiation between authorities within the metropolitan planning model building; he destructs the reader by presenting samples of maps from different countries in the world connected to a certain idea within the discussion of his chapters. Pedro develops this model and presents it as a chess game linking all the model activities to the chess rock’s roles and responsibilities within the game.

All the book chapters concentrate on the new metropolitan planning model and its relation to balanced urban development. The reader can realize the repeat of many ideas within all the chapters. Chapter 7 and 8 are slightly different from others because it presents the application of the model in Madrid and minor metropolitan planning principles. Most of the graphs, maps, and drawings lack connection to the book content because it is not referred properly. Most of the book ideas are circulated in the urban planning debate whether it’s in research or practice.

The book title does not give a clear reflection on the book content. The art of shaping the metropolis is not a good title for this book because metropolitan planning and the new model comprise rigid and scientific ideas very far from artistic work like transport planning, economic growth, political decision-making, and environmental problems.

The book index also is far away from declaring what the book theme is and how it is connected to the content. The index does not specify as the content of the book the main idea which is presenting the new metropolitan planning model ( Metro matrix model ) and it is not mentioned in the index.

Pedro provides the cited publications at the beginning of the book after the introduction. The references are related to urban planning and city planning, he provides some titles of UN publications related to the subject of the book.

I bought this book in 2015 and finished reading most of it the same year. The search for the answer to the question I raised “How do cities grow and change within the developed world?” The book develops the urban growth models to present this metropolitan planning model.