Basics Urban Analysis is a new addition to the module on city planning. Building on the elements of cities as described in the volume Basics Urban Building Blocks, it provides techniques for analyzing cities. As a basis for city planning and architectural design work, a solid understanding of the existing and surrounding urban structures is indispensable. This volume not only explains the possible approaches; it also describes in practical terms how to implement those approaches in the areas analyzed and how to evaluate the data one has collected.

As a basis for city planning and architectural design work, a solid understanding of the existing and surrounding urban structures is indispensable. This volume not only explains the possible approaches, but also describes how to implement those approaches in the areas analyzed and how to evaluate the data one has collected.

In most planning practice and research, planners work with quantitative data. By summarizing, analyzing, and presenting data, planners create stories and narratives that explain various planning issues. Particularly, in the era of big data and data mining, there is a stronger demand in planning practice and research to increase capacity for data-driven storytelling. Basic Quantitative Research Methods for Urban Planners provides readers with comprehensive knowledge and hands-on techniques for a variety of quantitative research studies, from descriptive statistics to commonly used inferential statistics. It covers statistical methods from chi-square through logistic regression and also quasi-experimental studies. At the same time, the book provides fundamental knowledge about research in general, such as planning data sources and uses, conceptual frameworks, and technical writing. The book presents relatively complex material in the simplest and clearest way possible, and through the use of real world planning examples, makes the theoretical and abstract content of each chapter as tangible as possible. It will be invaluable to students and novice researchers from planning programs, intermediate researchers who want to branch out methodologically, practicing planners who need to conduct basic analyses with planning data, and anyone who consumes the research of others and needs to judge its validity and reliability.

Much of the theoretical literature in planning and human geography at present is materialist in perspective. This offers a powerful critique but locates the dynamics of urban systems too specifically in just one basic social relationship. It fails to provide an intellectual base broad enough for constructive, detailed urban analysis, partly because it fails to do justice to the reflective awareness of the individual. The alternative humanist position redresses the balance in favour of the individual but again cannot serve the practical requirements of urban analysis since it so often ignores social or contextual analysis. Ian Cullen synthesizes these tow apparently inconsistent theoretical positions and to render the increasingly obscure debate between them accessible. This book was first published in 1984.

Updated in its 3rd edition, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning presents quickly applied methods for analyzing and resolving planning and policy issues at state, regional, and urban levels. Divided into two parts, Methods which presents quick methods in nine chapters and is organized around the steps in the policy analysis process, and Cases which presents seven policy cases, ranging in degree of complexity, the text provides readers with the resources they need for effective policy planning and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically combined to address policy dilemmas and urban planning problems. Readers and analysts utilizing this text gain comprehensive skills and background needed to impact public policy.

This important work brings together a range of perspectives in contemporary urban analysis. The field of urban analysis is characterized by the multiplicity of approaches, philosophies, and methodologies employed in the examination of urban structure and urban problems. This fragmentation of perspectives is not simply a reflection of the multifaceted and complex nature of the city as subject matter. Nor is it a function of the variety of disciplines such as geography, planning, economics, history, and sociology. Cross-cutting all of these issues and allegiances has been the emergence in recent years of a debate on fundamental issues of philosophy, ideology, and basic assumptions underlying the analysis of urban form and structure. The notion of urban analysis Robert W. Lake discusses focuses on the spatial structure of the city, its causes, and its consequences. At issue is the city as a spatial fact: a built environment with explicit characteristics and spatial dimensions, a spatial distribution of population and land uses, a nexus of locational decisions, an interconnected system of locational advantages and disadvantages, amenities and dis-amenities. Beginning with landmark articles in neo-classical and ecological theory, the reader covers the latest departures and developments. Separate sections cover political approaches to locational conflict, institutional influences on urban form, and recent Marxist approaches to urban analysis. Among the topics included are community strategies in locational conflict, the political economy of place, the role of government and the courts, institutional influences in the housing market, and the relationship between urban form and capitalist development. This is a valuable introductory text for courses in urban planning, urban geography, and urban sociology.