This book focuses on the urban and regional planning systems under conditions of economic crisis and austerity, focusing in particular on the systems of Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Spatial Planning as Institutional Design examines the structure and legislation of these systems throughout the twentieth century as well as the decade before the 2008 economic and fiscal crisis and the years of recovery following it.

Instead of seeking theory to justify practical professional judgments this book describes how professionals can and should use theory to guide these judgments. Professional spatial planning in the US, and globally, continues to suffer from a weak conceptual grasp of its own practice. Practitioners routinely recognize the value and wisdom of practical judgment finely attuned to context, nuance and complexity; but later offer banal testimony and glib stories of ‘just so’ best-practice discrediting the ambiguity of their own experience. The chapters in this book provide a vocabulary tailored to the conventions of practical judgment, challenging students and practitioners to treat professional expertise as work in progress rather than ‘best’ practice. Instead of seeking theory to justify practical professional judgments, Hoch describes how professionals can and should use theory to guide these judgments. The pragmatist plan helps cope with complexity rather than control it, making it invaluable in the anyone’s pursuit of a planning career. This book will appeal to a wide cross section of students and scholars, especially those working in urban planning, public policy, and government.

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The Routledge Handbook of Regional Design explores contemporary research, policy, and practice that highlight critical aspects of strategy-making, planning, and designing for contemporary regions—including city regions, bioregions, delta regions, and their hybrids. As accelerating urbanization and globalization combine with other forces such as the demand for increasing returns on investment capital, migration, and innovation, they yield cities that are expanding over ever-larger territories. Moreover, these polycentric city regions themselves are agglomerating with one another to create new territorial mega-regions. The processes that beget these novel regional forms produce numerous and significant effects, positive and negative, that call for new modes of design and management so that the urban places and the lives and well-being of their inhabitants and businesses thrive sustainably into the future. With international case studies from leading scholars and practitioners, this book is an important resource not just for students, researchers, and practitioners of urban planning, but also policy makers, developers, architects, engineers, and anyone interested in the broader issues of urbanism.

Draws on new thinking in social, political, and spatial theory to provide a framework for planning which is rooted in institutional realities but designed to foster communication and collaborative action. Contains sections on an institutionalist account and a communicative theory of planning, the changing dynamics of urban regions, and process for collaborative planning. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis placed on local and regional integration in major planning projects and infrastructure development including roads, rail and waterways. This emphasis is not only on integrating various projects, but also integrating them with related issues such as housing, industry, environment and water. In other words, land-use planning and infrastructure management have become more spatially-oriented. This book brings together experts in the fields of spatial planning, land-use and infrastructure management to explore the emerging agenda of spatially-oriented integrated evaluation. It weaves together the latest theories, case studies, methods, policy and practice to examine and assess the values, impacts, benefits and the overall success in integrated land-use management. In doing so, the book clarifies the nature and roles of evaluation and puts forward guidance for future policy and practice.