Edinburgh Civic Survey

Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead’s A Civic Survey & Plan for the City & Royal Burgh of Edinburgh, prepared fo...

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Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead’s A Civic Survey & Plan for the City & Royal Burgh of Edinburgh, prepared for the Town Council and published by Oliver and Boyd in 1949, examined the post-war city in remarkable detail before proposing how it should change. Its colour maps survey land use plot by plot in the central area, Leith and Portobello, and chart population, housing conditions, traffic, schools, open spaces and historic buildings. The proposals that follow set out a green belt and park system, new roads and railways, industrial zoning and a city centre plan that would have rebuilt Princes Street as a single harmonious composition, roofed over the railway with garden terraces and restored the Canongate. Facsimiles of earlier maps, including Edgar’s Edinburgh of 1742, complete a portrait of the Scottish capital at a turning point in its history.

Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead’s A Civic Survey & Plan for the City & Royal Burgh of Edinburgh, prepared for the Town Council and published by Oliver and Boyd in 1949, examined the post-war city in remarkable detail before proposing how it should change. Its colour maps survey land use plot by plot in the central area, Leith and Portobello, and chart population, housing conditions, traffic, schools, open spaces and historic buildings. The proposals that follow set out a green belt and park system, new roads and railways, industrial zoning and a city centre plan that would have rebuilt Princes Street as a single harmonious composition, roofed over the railway with garden terraces and restored the Canongate. Facsimiles of earlier maps, including Edgar’s Edinburgh of 1742, complete a portrait of the Scottish capital at a turning point in its history.

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