Problem
Continuous sprawling urbanization destroys life, and makes cities unbearable. But the sheer size of cities is also valuable and potent.
Solution
Keep interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land, even at the center of the metropolis. The urban fingers should never be more than 1 mile wide, while the farmland fingers should never be less than 1 mile wide.
Related Patterns
… the distribution of towns required to make a balanced region — The Distribution of Towns (2) — can be further helped by controlling the balance of urban land and open countryside within the towns and cities themselves.
Whenever land is hilly, keep the country fingers in the valleys and the city fingers on the upper slopes of the hillsides — Agricultural Valleys (4). Break the city fingers into hundreds of distinct self-governing subcultures — Mosaic of Subcultures (8), and run the major roads and railways down the middle of these fingers — Web of Public Transport (16), Ring Roads (17) …
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 21.