page_title: Plymouth
section_title: Urban form
hierarchical_section_title: Plymouth / Geography / Urban form
caption_attribution_description: English: Armada Way, Plymouth. Armada Way is the city centre's main thoroughfare. It stretches from Royal Parade to the North Cross Roundabout on the northern boundary of the square. Plymouth city centre underwent major rebuilding to a grid plan of wide streets and rectangular blocks of imposing shops and offices after the Second World War. Dingle's department store is on the right. This photograph was taken from the top of the large ferris wheel on Royal Parade.
context_page_description: Plymouth is a port city situated on the south coast of Devon, England, approximately 37 miles south-west of Exeter and 190 miles west-south-west of London. Enclosing the city are the mouths of the river Plym and river Tamar, which are naturally incorporated into Plymouth Sound to form a boundary with Cornwall.
  Plymouth's early history extends to the Bronze Age when a first settlement emerged at Mount Batten. This settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the more prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century, now called Plymouth. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New World and established Plymouth Colony, the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War, the town was held by the Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646.
  Throughout the Industrial Revolution, Plymouth grew as a commercial shipping port, handling imports and passengers from the Americas, and exporting local minerals. The neighbouring town of Devonport became strategically important to the Royal Navy for its shipyards and dockyards.
context_section_description: On 27 April 1944 Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Plan for Plymouth to rebuild the bomb-damaged city was published; it called for demolition of the few remaining pre-War buildings in the city centre to make way for their replacement with wide, parallel, modern boulevards aligned east–west linked by a north–south avenue (Armada Way) linking the railway station with the vista of Plymouth Hoe.
  A peripheral road system connecting the historic Barbican on the east and Union Street to the west determines the principal form of the city centre, even following pedestrianisation of the shopping centre in the late 1980s, and continues to inform the present 'Vision for Plymouth' developed by a team led by Barcelona-based architect David MacKay in 2003 which calls for revivification of the city centre with mixed-use and residential.
  In suburban areas, post-War prefabs had already begun to appear by 1946, and over 1,000 permanent council houses were built each year from 1951 to 1957 according to the Modernist zoned low-density garden city model advocated by Abercrombie. By 1964 over 20,000 new homes had been built, more than 13,500 of them permanent council homes and 853 built by the Admiralty.
  Plymouth is home to 28 parks with an average size of 45,638 square metres (491,240 sq ft). Its largest park is Central Park, with other sizeable green spaces including Victoria Park, Freedom Fields Park, Alexandra Park, Devonport Park and the Hoe. Central Park is the home of Plymouth Argyle Football Club and a number of other leisure facilities.
  The Plymouth Plan 2019–2034 was published May 2019 and sets the direction for future development with a new spatial strategy which reinforces links with the wider region in west Devon and east Cornwall in its Joint Local Plan and identifies three development areas within the city: the City centre and waterfront; a 'northern corridor' including Derriford and the vacant airfield site at Roborough; and an 'eastern corridor' including major new settlements at Sherford and Langage.
caption: Armada Way looking north
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