The Brazilian capital city “Brasilia” was designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Brasilia is a city designed in the style of modern architecture.

Urban environments that are inspired by postmodern architecture tend to incorporate more aesthetically pleasing buildings than those inspired by modern architecture. Postmodern architecture decries the modern architectural emphasis on efficiency and industry; instead postmodern architecture tries to design buildings that are visually pleasing to human beings and provide modern humans with a link to their past.

The American City Beautiful movement emerged from the “Beaux arts movement” of nineteenth-century Europe. The “Beaux arts movement” emphasized wide-open spaces and national monuments and was particularly influential in Paris. The American City Beautiful movement was an American adaptation of this European ideal.

Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, is a city that very much fits the style of the prototypical Medieval city. It has ornate cathedrals and lavish churches, narrow and winding streets, imposing buildings and architecture, and remnants of defensive fortifications. In terms of it's urban planning and it's aesthetic design features Prague perfectly fits the mould of a European Medieval city.

An “action space” is the area of a city in which an individual, or a group of individuals, move about within any given day. In a large city this might include where the individual lives, where they work, where they stop to pick up coffee, the subway station they take to get home, and so on.

The urban planning movement “new urbanism” emerged in the late twentieth century in opposition to the negative effects of suburbanization on human interaction and the environment. Proponents of “new urbanism” contend that suburbanization causes humans to be too dependent on their cars and that it creates a society with loose community bonds.

The Great Chicago Fire took place in 1871 and destroyed a large portion of the city. The city was rebuilt in the image of the American City Beautiful movement.

The urban planning movement “new urbanism” seeks to discourage surbanization. “New urbanism” seeks to encourage local community development and sustainable growth in an urban area. Advocates of “new urbanism” would argue for greater accessibility for pedestrians in cities and a reduced dependency on cars and highways.

Kevin Lynch wrote his seminal work Image of the City in the late 1950s based on a series of studies he conducted on Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles. The book is primarily concerned with how an individual creates a mental perception of the city they live in and what factors individuals consider when rating how happy, comfortable, and safe they feel in a city.

The “Beaux arts movement” was prominent in European urban architecture in the nineteenth century. Particularly in Paris, and other cities greatly influenced by French culture. A city whose design was inspired by this movement would feature expansive recreational areas, prominent national monuments, and wide-open streets and avenues.