In the 1920s and '30s, with a better understanding of evolutionary geography, planners produced master plans, zoning plans and land use plans, showing the 'parts of the body' as separate compartments. Despite Geddes, much less attention was given to the biology of the environment than to its physics. The key elements in high-modern planning were written documents and two dimensional plans, known as 'zoning plans', 'land use plans' or just 'town plans'. High-modern planning went beyond architecture and aimed to produce land use plans which would prevent, for example, houses being built beside factories or on valuable agricultural land. This led to a conception of planning, focused on land use plans, density regulations and lines of communication. Cities were seen as nodes, with definable land use zones, axial communication lines and density gradients from centre to the periphery [Fig 1.11].
With the advent of high-modern planning, the planning profession was engulfed by practitioners from a social science background who knew about geography, politics, economics and statistics. The goals of the profession then became so wide, and went so far beyond architecture, that planning became 'government writ small' instead of 'architecture writ large'. Physical planning and design became neglected arts.
