Extensive planning took place during World War II and after the war also. The devastated cities of Europe were rebuilt through extensive rebuilding programmes. The principle was modernist—several high profile architects provided the guiding principle : one of them was the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

The need was to produce large-scale relatively inexpensive projects and the architects’ preference and technologies that could be replicated universally. It was during this time that London was re-built. The Greater London plan was one such plan where a green-belt existed and construction of new towns beyond the greenbelt—lowering population density in the inner city, and the building of circumferential highways to divert traffic from the core.²