Bringing together leading planning and urban scholars, and including fascinating international case studies, this unique book investigates urban planning across the world and in different cultures.

Bringing together an interdisciplinary team from across the EU, this book connects elements of cultural and planning theories to explain differences and peculiarities among EU member states. A 'culturized planning model' is introduced to consider the 'rules of the game': how culture affects planning practices not only on an explicit 'surface' but also on a 'hidden' implicit level. The model consists of three analytical dimensions: 'planning artifacts', 'planning environment' and 'societal environment'. This book adopts these dimensions to compare planning cultures of different European countries. This sheds light not only on the organizational or institutional structure of planning, but also the influence of deeper cultural values and layers on planning and implementation processes.

This book addresses the influences of planning cultures and histories on the temporal evolution of planning systems and spatial development. As well as providing an international comparative perspective on these issues, the contributions to the book also engage in a search for new conceptual frameworks and alternative points of view to better understand and explain these differences. The book makes three main academic contributions. First, it catalogues some of the key changes in planning systems and the impact on spatial development patterns. Second, it examines the interrelationship between planning cultures and histories from a path-dependency perspective. Third, it discusses the variations in physical development patterns resulting from different planning cultures and histories. Chapters from different parts of the European continent present evidence at different scales to illustrate these aspects. In all cases, the specific combinations of political, ideological, social, economic and technological factors are important determinants of urban and regional planning trajectories as well as spatial development patterns. This book was previously published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

Throughout the world, city planners and governments grapple with the challenges of urban planning using remarkably similar land use regimes. Yet the realisation is increasing that real urban problems – crime, decay, drug abuse, inequality, depression and alienation – are not easily solved by the classic devices of a strategic plan and a zoning map. Planning regimes are therefore in constant flux, as planners and governments adjust and experiment to address these problems, often with little awareness as to what they are trying to accomplish. In Comparative Urban Land Use Planning: Best Practice, Leslie A. Stein digs deeper, drawing on examples from around the world to discover the best practice responses to the critical issues of planning and urban social problems. Although every city has its own cultural and political milieu, patterns of change and levels of success can be discerned and universal lessons learned. By comparing different urban planning approaches and considering their underlying ideologies and assumptions, he proposes a more insightful approach to the role of land use planning. This book is both scholarly and emotional, expressing a great love of cities and calling for a more clear-eyed approach for their care.

This book is a useful reference in the field of urbanism. It explains how the contemporary city and landscape have been shaped by certain twentieth century visions that have carried over into the twenty-first century. Aimed at both students and professionals, this collection of essays on diverse subjects and cases does not attempt to establish universal interpretations; it rather highlights some outstanding episodes that help us understand why the planning culture has given way to other forms of urbanism, from urban design to strategic urbanism or landscape urbanism. Compared with global interpretations of urbanism based on socioeconomic history or architectural historiography, Urban Visions. From Planning Culture to Landscape Urbanism, aims to present the discipline couched in international contemporary debate and adopt a historic and comparative perspective. The book’s contents pertain equally to other related disciplines, such as architecture, urban history, urban design, landscape architecture and geography. Foreword by Rafael Moneo.

Although the way associations and the organization of local social life are intertwined is one of the oldest approaches to community study, the way citizens and residents come together informally to act and solve problems has rarely been a primary focus. Associations are central to important and developing areas of social theory and social action. This handbook takes voluntary associations as the starting point for making sense of communities. It offers a new perspective on voluntary organizations and gives an integrated, yet diverse, theoretical understanding of this important aspect of community life.

The field of urban planning is far-reaching in breadth and depth. This is due to the complex nature of cities, regions, and development processes. The knowledge domain of planning includes social, economic, technological, environmental, and political systems that continue to evolve and expand rapidly. Understanding these systems is an inter-disciplinary endeavor at the scale of several academic fields. The wide range of topics considered by planning educators and practitioners are often based on varying definitions of "planning" and modes of planning practice. This unique book discusses various elements and contributions to urban planning research to show that seemingly disparate topics do in fact intersect and together, contribute to ways of understanding urban planning. The objective is not to discuss how to "do" research, but rather, to explore the context of urban planning scholarship with implications for the planning academy and planning practice. This edited volume includes chapters contributed by a diverse range of planning scholars who consider the corpus of planning scholarship both historically and critically in their area of expertise. It is essential reading for students of planning research and planning theory from around the world.