Planning policies are basically concerned with the distribution of resources in general, and land-use in particular. Facilities, such as shelter, leisure amenities or transportation are coordinated within the framework of human settlements’ policies, and implemented in a variety of land-uses in rural, urban or metropolitan areas. Since the beginning of the 20th~century, various planning innovations such as garden cities, new towns, growth centres, action planning, have all been seen in their time as a panacea, roads to utopia. Each, with the relevant theories, has a vital contribution to make in the complex jigsaw of the ultimate pattern of human settlements.
In 1976, the Habitat Conference at Vancouver1 focussed attention on some specific problems of human settlements in developing countries. In 1980 the Brandt Report2 was concerned with major international development issues. It incorporated a specific brief, “How can these (developing) countries be ensured an economic environment in which they can cope with their own problems?“. The Report struck a note of realism. The needs of developing countries are to be dealt with primarily by the countries themselves. The Report is often criticised for totally ignoring human settlements and their development; local planners were faced with having to develop their own policies and strategies according to their circumstances. Was this a deliberate omission? The message was simple: to follow strategies of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Faced with the problems of shelter, the traditional strategies of self-help, aided self-help, or housing by the people scored a measure of success. In the metropolitan context, with multimillion populations, the problems tended to be more complex, and more difficult to resolve.
Fig. 7. Cairo Region with new satellire towns.