Planning Cities for People

The document argues that high-density cities cannot be designed around the car and must instead prioritize public transport, walking, and bicycling. It proposes eight principles for sustainable urbanization: developing walkable neighborhoods, prioritizing bicycle networks, creating dense street networks, supporting high-quality transit, zoning for mixed-use, matching density to transit capacity, creating compact regions, and regulating parking and road use. The guide provides specific metrics for implementation, such as limiting block lengths to 150 meters and ensuring housing is within 400 meters of local transit. It highlights the redesign of Chenggong as a model for applying these principles to avoid the pitfalls of superblock patterns.

• High-density urban environments are incompatible with car-centric design, necessitating a shift in priority toward public transport, walking, and bicycling to avoid gridlock and pollution.
• To promote walkability, cities should implement specific design constraints: limiting average block length to 150 meters, restricting through-traffic street width to 45 meters, and keeping residential buildings within 5 meters of the sidewalk.
• Bicycle networks should be integrated into the city grid with dedicated lanes at least 3 meters wide in each direction and car-free corridors spaced no more than 800 meters apart.
• Efficient traffic flow is better achieved through a dense network of narrower streets rather than wide arterials; the guide recommends a minimum of 50 intersections per square kilometer.
• Transit success depends on accessibility and frequency, with the goal that all housing and job centers be located within 400 meters of a local transit station and 800 meters of regional service.
• Mixed-use zoning should ensure that essential services, including schools and parks, are located within 400 to 500 meters of housing to reduce auto dependence.
• Regional sprawl can be mitigated by creating compact sub-centers adjacent to existing cities and decentralizing job centers to limit commutes to approximately 5 kilometers or 15 minutes.
• Congestion can be managed by limiting parking ratios in employment areas to 0.2 stalls per worker and implementing road-use charges, as seen in Singapore and London.

APA

Energy Innovation (n.d.). Planning Cities for People. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Planning-Cities-for-People-1.pdf

Chicago

Energy Innovation. Planning Cities for People. n.d. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Planning-Cities-for-People-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Energy Innovation |title=Planning Cities for People |url=https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Planning-Cities-for-People-1.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{energyinnovationndplanning, author = {{Energy Innovation}}, title = {{Planning Cities for People}}, institution = {Energy Innovation}, url = {https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Planning-Cities-for-People-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }