This book presents a set of selected and edited papers presented at the 2nd and 3rd Design and Decision Support Conference. The purpose is to provide examples of innovative research in decision support systems in urban planning from throughout the world.

The first worldwide overview of Planning Support Systems (PSS) and their application in practice. PSS are geo-technology related instruments consisting of theories, information, methods, tools, et cetera for support of unique professional public or private planning tasks at any spatial scale. The aim is to advance progress in the development of PSS, which are far from being effectively integrated into the planning practice. The text provides an Internet-based worldwide inventory of innovative examples and successful applications of PSS in a number of different planning contexts. In-depth insights into the purposes, content, workings, and applications of a very wide diversity of PSS are given.

This unique text shows students and professionals how geographic information systems (GIS) can guide decision making about complex community and environmental problems. The authors’ step-by-step introduction to GIS-based decision analysis methods and techniques covers important urban and regional issues (land, transportation, and water resource management) and decision processes (planning, improvement programming, and implementation). Real-world case studies demonstrate how GIS-based decision support works in a variety of contexts, with a special focus on community and regional sustainability management. Ideal for course use, the book reinforces key concepts with end-of-chapter review questions; illustrations include 18 color plates.

With planning support software, citizen planners can move buildings from block to block, tear them down, build complete subdivisions, run new highways in and around town, analyze any number of scenarios, and see with their own eyes the consequences of each action. This reference offers new possibilities and discusses the most important aspects of computer-aided land-use planning.

Editor Richard K. Brail has brought together the wisest of the field's thinkers, the most inventive of the toolmakers, the most experienced of those working at the interface with real clients, and the most battle-seasoned practicing planners (and many of these individuals occupy more than one of these niches). Together they present a broad view of support systems, in-depth developmental histories of the most important models and tools as told by their creators, and a provocative, in-the-trenches critique of the state of the art.

This book collects a selection of the best articles presented at the CUPUM (Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management) conference, held in the second week of July 2013 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The articles included were selected by external reviewers using a double blind process.

This book is thematically positioned at the intersections of Urban Design, Architecture, Civil Engineering and Computer Science, and it has the goal to provide specialists coming from respective fields a multi-angle overview of state-of-the-art work currently being carried out. It addresses both newcomers who wish to obtain more knowledge about this growing area of interest, as well as established researchers and practitioners who want to keep up to date. In terms of organization, the volume starts out with chapters looking at the domain at a wide-angle and then moves focus towards technical viewpoints and approaches.