Many city planners’ new designs include setting up schools, markets and commercial places (like offices) in different areas of the city rather than placing them in a place. Do you think it will help the city dwellers? If so, how?
Sample Response
A planned city can be a blessing for the residents while an unplanned one can be quite the opposite. Though traditional cities separate residential areasdistinguish the residential area and group commercial and public-service buildings togetherinclude commercial and public service buildings altogether, many modern city plannersmany modern designers prefer to locate these commercial establishmentsprefer these commercial establishments to be located in different areasplaces and I am quite convinced that the new designs would bring more benefits to the city dwellers.
To begin with, though traditional cities are initially planned to have commercial buildings located in the centre of the city, to be away from the main residential area, in a few years, the structure of the city changes and it becomes a more unplanned city than ever. Naturally, parents would prefer to send their children to a nearby school while shoppers would love to shop nearbyshop from around the corner. As a consequence, residential areas gradually becomeresidential areas at a time become semi-commercial areas and traffic congestion wastes people's valuable timetraffic congestion kills people’s valuable time. In such cities, pollution increases and a small proportion of landlordsa few per cent of landlords receiveget higher commercial rents while others do not.
By contrastOn the contrary, if cities distribute commercial facilities across different areasif cities have saturated commercial settings, this can ensureit will assure a better balance between residential and commercial areasbalanced residential and commercial establishments and city dwellers would benefit greatlywould be greatly benefitted from this arrangementfrom it. Housing costsThe house rent would be fair and the traffic conditionstraffic condition on the roads would be far better. Furthermore, local authorities wouldthe authority would have control over the future expansion of the area and face fewer difficulties in providingface fewer difficulties to ensure the necessary facilities for the local people.
To conclude, modern city planning that supports locating commercial entities and public servicessupports the location of commercial entities and public services to be built in various areas of the city rather than having those altogether offers numerous advantages to the local authorities including better traffic conditions, more reliable public facilities, fair rent and better future expansion of the city.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response answers both questions with a clear positive view and a logically organised explanation of benefits such as reduced congestion, fairer rents, and easier urban expansion. The main limitation is that several claims remain general and some word choices are unnatural or ambiguous; the priority is to explain the cause-and-effect links more precisely while replacing awkward expressions with standard urban-planning vocabulary.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay gives a clear affirmative answer and develops several relevant ways in which distributing services and businesses could help residents.
Extend the strongest benefit with a concrete illustration and clarify exactly how decentralisation produces fairer rents and better facilities.
Coherence and Cohesion
The four-paragraph structure provides clear progression from the problems of centralisation to the benefits of a distributed design.
Use more exact logical transitions, particularly where “On the contrary” introduces the proposed alternative rather than a direct contradiction.
Lexical Resource
There is sufficient range for the topic, but phrases such as “saturated commercial settings” and “residential areas at a time” are imprecise or unnatural.
Choose standard collocations such as “mixed-use neighbourhoods,” “distributed services,” and “rental costs” to express planning concepts more accurately.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied complex sentences are generally controlled and meaning remains clear, despite occasional errors in articles, agreement, and clause construction.
Review long sentences for clean clause boundaries and check article and agreement choices before finalising the response.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Many city planners’ new designs include setting up schools, markets and commercial places (like offices) in different areas of the city rather than placing them in a place. Do you think it will help the city dwellers? If so, how?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.