ABSTRACT
The development of modern urban and regional planning arose in response to specific social and economic problems, which in turn were triggered off by the Industrial Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. Modern urban and regional planning did not create cities. The earliest of the new inventions in textiles or in iron-making, developed in England between 1700 and 1780, seemed rather to be dispersing industry out of the towns and into the open countryside. The impact on urban growth was profound, as can clearly be seen in the series of maps for London at different dates. The precise impact of this sort of development upon the urban structure can be well seen by comparing the maps of London, in 1914 and 1939, respectively. The isochrones were in 1914 very irregular; they fingered out a long way along the rail lines. The same process was repeated around the provincial cities too.
