Global dynamic changes in urban design: a critical review of theoretical evolution and emerging paradigms

Abstract

Urban design theory has evolved through successive paradigm shifts since the early twentieth century, each driven by the failure of existing frameworks to address specific urban crises. This review examines three questions: what mechanism produces paradigm shifts; what different urbanisation conditions contribute to the theoretical archive; and what the discipline’s current theoretical diversity means for cities facing compound global challenges. This critical narrative review draws on a semi-systematic reconnaissance of 135 foundational texts and peer-reviewed articles identified through targeted searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and key disciplinary databases. Inclusion criteria required that works shifted the discipline’s conceptual framework or provided empirical grounding for theoretical claims; works of primarily technical or region-specific character were excluded. Four successive paradigm shifts are traced through modernist, humanistic, ecological, and critical-digital frameworks, each arising from the material failure of its predecessor. East Asian urbanism, including Metabolist philosophy, ecological urbanism in Singapore, vertical urbanism in Hong Kong, and human settlements science, constitutes an original theoretical knowledge base rather than a regional application of canonical frameworks. Six contemporary frontiers are mapped where shared global pressures drive simultaneous theoretical innovation. Crisis is the primary accelerant of paradigm change, though endogenous development and cross-disciplinary borrowing also contribute. Three arguments are advanced: crisis is a primary (though not exclusive) driver of paradigm shifts; different urbanisation conditions generate insights situated in origin but universal in relevance; and current challenges require theoretical complementarity, the capacity to deploy diverse analytical frameworks for diverse problems, rather than dominance of any single tradition.