Urban codes have a profound influence on urban form, affecting the design and placement of buildings, streets and public spaces. Historically, their use has helped create some of our best-loved urban environments, while recent advances in coding have been a growing focus of attention, particularly in Britain and North America. However, the full potential for the role of codes has yet to be realized. In Urban Coding and Planning, Stephen Marshall and his contributors investigate the nature and scope of coding; its purposes; the kinds of environments it creates; and, perhaps most importantly, its relationship to urban planning. By bringing together historical and ongoing traditions of coding from around the world – with chapters describing examples from the United Kingdom, France, India, China, Japan, Australia, South Africa, the United States and Latin America – this book provides lessons for today’s theory and practice of place-making.

A comprehensive, illustrative guide to Form-Based Codes "This volume describes in clear argument and significant detail the issues and techniques associated with the design and management of Form-Based Codes as an antidote to zoning and sprawl. Reading it and putting it to practice is an excellent point of departure for individuals and municipalities to safeguard and to grow their communities." - From the Foreword by noted architect and urbanist Stefanos Polyzoides Form-Based Codes are the latest evolutionary step in the practice of development and land-use regulation. A growing alternative to conventional zoning laws, Form-Based Codes go beyond land use to address not just the physical form of buildings but also surrounding streets, blocks, and public spaces in order to create, protect, and revitalize sustainable communities. Written by three recognized leaders in the field of New Urbanism, including an urban planner and an architect, this book is the first to address this subject comprehensively. After defining Form-Based Codes and explaining why they are a necessary alternative to conventional zoning regulations, the authors detail the various components of Form-Based Codes and then go step by step through the process of creating and implementing them. Finally, a series of case studies illustrates best practice applications of Form-Based Coding at various scales from county-wide to site specific, and various project types from city-wide development code replacement to the preservation or evolution of downtowns. This timely and accessible text features: * More than 200 clear illustrations of Form-Based Codes * Studies of real-world applications of Form-Based Coding by leading planners, urban designers, and architects Form-Based Codes is a must-read for today's urban designers, urban planners, architects, and anyone with a vested interest in utilizing the latest regulatory tool to help create compact, walkable, and sustainable communities.

An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities’ development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners’ dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities’ productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.

Why plan? How and what do we plan? Who plans for whom? These three questions are then applied across three major topics in planning: States, Markets, and the Provision of Social Goods; The Methods and Substance of Planning; and Agency, Implementation, and Decision Making.

Traces the evolution of urban development codes and standards, examines their effect on city planning and design, and proposes alternatives that will encourage innovation.

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.