A theory of planning aesthetics will be developed and discussed in relation to a portion of the university area of Newark consisting of N.J.I.T., Rutgers, Essex County College, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The site is just east of the campuses and contains the Newark Museum and the Newark Library.

The aesthetics of order will be covered at a community scale (the urban context) which will then be detailed as a study of the fractile portion of that entity (the building entity) relative to open spaces which give both entities character. Important in this work is three-dimensional perception, as opposed to traditional two-dimensional planning analysis. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania provide examples of criteria used elsewhere that may guide design in Newark's rebuilding. Order and randomness are the actors in aesthetics. Order is used in the classical tradition of the mathematical approach to proportioning and gridding systems. This merges into the randomness of chaos where alongside order there may be an appearance of confusion. Herein, the two are treated not as opposites but as two sides of the same coin. The criteria for using aesthetics in this way are developed in the thesis.

These objectives are to establish an aesthetic purpose, an aesthetic character and a positive physical identity in the re-development of Newark. There is an energetic vitality and tremendous potential for the city of Newark to reach great heights in aesthetic planning. The urban context available to Newark with its variety of developments, construction, building styles, and ample unused land contributes to the rise of planning aesthetics via scale, proportions, linkage, and space analysis.