Presenting the complexities of doing planning work, with its moral and practical dilemmas, this rich ethnographic study analyses today’s planning scene through the stories of four diverse working environments.

Becoming an URBAN PLANNER Are you considering a career in urban planning? Becoming an Urban Planner is the best place to start. Through in-depth interviews with more than eighty urban planners across the United States and Canada, this book gives you a valuable insider’s look at your future profession as it is lived and practiced. Becoming an Urban Planner introduces you to the urban planning profession—its history, what you must know to prepare for a career in planning, and the different types of planning jobs. Beyond the basics, though, it shows you the realities of what it’s really like to be a planner today. You’ll learn about: The skills you’ll need and how to hone them in school and on the job Potential career paths and what people in these positions do Using internships, job shadowing, and other opportunities to break into the field Deciding among planning specialties and moving between public and private sectors How to search for and get your first position Emerging areas in planning, including sustainability and climate change Each topic is explored through in-depth interviews with both generalists and others who have devoted their careers to a particular aspect of planning. These professionals share their insights and describe how they have arrived at where they are and how beginners like you can learn from their experiences. With the information from this book to guide and inspire you, you will be able to chart your own path to success as an urban planner.

Planning the Built Environment takes a systematic, technical approach to describing how urban infrastructures work. Accompanied by detailed diagrams, illustrations, tables, and reference lists, the book begins with landforms and progresses to essential utilities that manage drainage, wastewater, power, and water supply. A section on streets, highways, and transit systems is highly detailed and practical. Once firmly grounded in these "macro" systems, Planning the Built Environment examines the physical environments of cities and suburbs, including a discussion of critical elements such as street and subdivision planning, density, and siting of community facilities. Each chapter includes essential definitions, illustrations and diagrams, and an annotated list of references. This timely book explains new physical planning methods and current thinking on cluster development, new urbanism, and innovative transit planning and development. Planners, architects, engineers, and anyone who designs or manages the physical components of urban areas will find this book both an authoritative reference and an exhaustive, understandable technical manual of facts and best practices. Instructors in planning and allied fields will appreciate the practical exercises that conclude each chapter: valuable learning tools for students and professionals alike.

For many young planners, the noble intentions with going to planning school seem starkly out of place in the neoliberal worlds they have come to inhabit. For some, the huge gap between the power they thought they would have and what they actually do is not only worrying, but also deeply discouraging. But for some others, practice means finding practical and creative solutions to overcome challenges and complexities. How do young planners in different settings respond to seemingly similar situations like these? What do they do – give up, adjust, or fight back? What role did their planning education play, and could it have helped in preparing and assisting them to respond to the world they are encountering? In this edited volume, stories of young planners from sixteen countries that engage these questions are presented. The sixteen cases range from settings with older, established planning systems (e.g., USA, the Netherlands, and the UK) to settings where the system is less set (e.g., Brazil), being remodeled (e.g., South Africa and Bosnia Herzegovina), and under stress (e.g., Turkey and Poland). Each chapter explores what might be done differently to prepare young planners for the complexities and challenges of their ‘real worlds’. This book not only points out what is absent, but also offers planning educators an alternative vision. The editors and esteemed contributors provide reflections and suggestions as to how this new generation of young planners can be supported to survive in, embrace, and change the world they are encountering, and, in the spirit of planning, endeavor to ‘change it for the better’.

Taylor describes the development of urban planning ideas since the end of the Second World War, outlining the main theories from the traditional view of planning as an exercise in physical design to recent views of planning as 'communicative action'.

How to create the world's new urban future With the majority of the world's population shifting to urban centres, urban planning—the practice of land-use and transportation planning to help shape cities structurally, economically, and socially—has become an increasingly vital profession. In Urban Planning For Dummies, readers will get a practical overview of this fascinating field, including studying community demographics, determining the best uses for land, planning economic and transportation development, and implementing plans. Following an introductory course on urban planning, this book is key reading for any urban planning student or anyone involved in urban development. With new studies conclusively demonstrating the dramatic impact of urban design on public psychological and physical health, the impact of the urban planner on a community is immense. And with a wide range of positions for urban planners in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors—including law firms, utility companies, and real estate development firms—having a fundamental understanding of urban planning is key to anyone even considering entry into this field. This book provides a useful introduction and lays the groundwork for serious study. Helps readers understand the essentials of this complex profession Written by a certified practicing urban planner, with extensive practical and community-outreach experience For anyone interested in being in the vanguard of building, designing, and shaping tomorrow's sustainable city, Urban Planning For Dummies offers an informative, entirely accessible introduction on learning how.

“This superbly succinct and incisive book couldn’t be more timely or urgent.” —Michael Sorkin, author of All Over the Map Our cities are changing. Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. Real estate is now a $217 trillion dollar industry, worth thirty-six times the value of all the gold ever mined. It forms sixty percent of global assets, and one of the most powerful people in the world—the president of the United States—made his name as a landlord and developer. Samuel Stein shows that this explosive transformation of urban life and politics has been driven not only by the tastes of wealthy newcomers, but by the state-driven process of urban planning. Planning agencies provide a unique window into the ways the state uses and is used by capital, and the means by which urban renovations are translated into rising real estate values and rising rents. Capital City explains the role of planners in the real estate state, as well as the remarkable power of planning to reclaim urban life.