Today's planners use myriad tools and techniques to identify and protect what is special about their communities: historic preservation ordinances, improved sign controls, computerized viewshed protection regulations, tree-planting and landscaping requirements, cell tower controls, and more. As the level of preservation activity has increased dramatically, so has the number of court cases challenging aesthetic-based regulation.

Every year hundreds of local governments hire consultants to help them with planning projects. But few planning officials go through the process often enough to feel confident in choosing consultants wisely, working with them effectively, and getting the best results from the relationships. Working With Planning Consultants shows not only how to hire a good consultant but how to be a good client--one who gets good value from the investment in consulting services.

This report gives planners a complete understanding of why fiscal impact analyses are so important and how they can better design and execute them in their communities. The common methodologies are explained, critiqued, and put under a microscope, so that planners can see the impact of each component on the resulting analysis.

Planning for sustainability is the defining challenge of the 21st century. More than any other single endeavor, it confronts the critical perils to our future, from energy shortages and environmental stress to climate shifts and population surges. That's the argument of a forward-looking new report from the American Planning Association. In plain language, authors David R. Godschalk, FAICP, and William R. Anderson, FAICP, show how cities, towns, and regions can work together to meet the challenge. These leading planners put forward eight principles for developing comprehensive plans that address today's needs without compromising the needs of the next generation. Case studies demonstrate sustainability planning at work in cities including Seattle and San Diego and smaller communities like Keene, New Hampshire, and Union County, Pennsylvania. Sustaining Places gives planners, local officials, and involved citizens a practical framework for understanding today's concerns and a roadmap for moving toward a better future. The report culminates the American Planning Association's multiyear, multifaceted Sustaining Places Initiative.

For planners, officials, and citizens seeking to employ the principles of new urbanism to development in their community, Codifying New Urbanism, by the Congress for the New Urbanism, examines the various ways to do so by modifying their land development regulations. Heavily illustrated and in full color, this report describes new urbanist essentials, the steps to putting new urbanism to work in your community, and the successes of 12 communities who have followed the approaches described in the report. It also contains an extensive interview with a practitioner about his experience in championing and implementing new urbanism. Finally, it contains a survey of communities using new urbanism.