Deals with the interaction of local planning systems and the process of land development. These issues are explored with particular reference to statutory plan-making locally. Adams draws on some broad research into urban planning and development,

This book is a comprehensive treatment of the twin processes of planning and development and is the only book to bring the two fields together in a single text.

Beginning with a brief history of contemporary urban design, the book tracks urban design's roots in architecture and planning and identifies how and why it has emerged as a separate discipline. It then sets out the principles and key criteria that underpin urban design and explains how urban designers interpret policy, baseline data, and graphical analysis to present an understanding of place and space. The book concludes by highlighting a number of growing urban challenges facing cities today, discussing how urban design can play a leading role in tackling issues connected with climate change, globalisation, and technological advancements, and positively respond to the current and future needs of society.

This text is about the very essence of urban planning in a market economy. It is concerned with people - landowners, developers, investors, politicians and ordinary members of the public - who produce change in towns and cities as they relate to each other and react to development Pressure. Whether Such Change Occurs Slowly And Is Almost Unnoticed, Or happens rapidly and is highly disruptive, a production process is creating a finished product: the built environment. This form of production, known as the land and property development process, is regulated but not controlled by the state. Urban planning is therefore best considered as one form of state intervention in the development process.; Since urban planning would have no legitimate basis without state power, it is an inherently political activity, able to alter the distribution of scarce environmental resources. Through doing so, it seeks to resolve conflicts of interest over the use and development of land. However, urban plans that appear to favour particular interests such as house-builders above others such as community groups provoke intense controversy. Development planning can thus become highly politicized, with alliances and divisions between politicians not always explained by traditional party politics.; These issues are explored with particular reference to statutory plan-making at the local level. The author draws on his extensive research into urban planning and development, making use of recent case studies and examples to illustrate key points. There are four parts. The first explores the operation of land and property markets and development processes, and examines how the state intervenes in the form of urban planning. The second part looks at the people and organizations who play a critical role in shaping the built environment and considers their relationship with the planning system. Specific attention is paid to important actors in the development process, such as landowners, developers, financial institutions, professional advisers and to the variety of agencies in the public sector that aim to promote development. This concludes with discussion of public- private partnerships and growth coalitions. The third part of the book concentrates on local development planning.

Shaping Places explains how towns and cities can turn real estate development to their advantage to create the kind of places where people want to live, work, relax and invest. It contends that the production of quality places which enhance economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental sustainability require a transformation of market outcomes. The core of the book explores why this is essential, and how it can be delivered, by linking a clear vision for the future with the necessary means to achieve it. Crucially, the book argues that public authorities should seek to shape, regulate and stimulate real estate development so that developers, landowners and funders see real benefit in creating better places. Key to this is seeing planners as market actors, whose potential to shape the built environment depends on their capacity to understand and transform the embedded attitudes and practices of other market actors. This requires planners to be skilled in understanding the political economy of real estate development and successful in changing its outcomes through smart intervention. Drawing on a strong theoretical framework, the book reveals how the future of places will come to be shaped through constant interaction between State and market power. Filled with international examples, essential case studies, color diagrams and photographs, this is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students taking planning, property, real estate or urban design courses as well as for social science students more widely who wish to know how the shaping of place really occurs.

American cities are increasingly turning to revitalization strategies that embrace the ideas of new urbanism and the so-called creative class in an attempt to boost economic growth and prosperity to downtown areas. These efforts stir controversy over residential and commercial gentrification of working class, ethnic areas. Spanning forty years, Latino City provides an in-depth case study of the new urbanism, creative class, and transit-oriented models of planning and their implementation in Santa Ana, California, one of the United States’ most Mexican communities. It provides an intimate analysis of how revitalization plans re-imagine and alienate a place, and how community-based participation approaches address the needs and aspirations of lower-income Latino urban areas undergoing revitalization. The book provides a critical introduction to the main theoretical debates and key thinkers related to the new urbanism, transit-oriented, and creative class models of urban revitalization. It is the first book to examine contemporary models of choice for revitalization of US cities from the point of view of a Latina/o-majority central city, and thus initiates new lines of analysis and critique of models for Latino inner city neighborhood and downtown revitalization in the current period of socio-economic and cultural change. Latino City will appeal to students and scholars in urban planning, urban studies, urban history, urban policy, neighborhood and community development, central city development, urban politics, urban sociology, geography, and ethnic/Latino Studies, as well as practitioners, community organizations, and grassroots leaders immersed in these fields.

This trailblazing book outlines an interdisciplinary "process model" for urban design that has been developed and tested over time. Its goal is not to explain how to design a specific city precinct or public space, but to describe useful steps to approach the transformation of urban spaces. Urban Ecological Design illustrates the different stages in which the process is organized, using theories, techniques, images, and case studies. In essence, it presents a "how-to" method to transform the urban landscape that is thoroughly informed by theory and practice. The authors note that urban design is viewed as an interface between different disciplines. They describe the field as "peacefully overrun, invaded, and occupied" by city planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects (with developers and politicians frequently joining in). They suggest that environmental concerns demand the consideration of ecology and sustainability issues in urban design. It is, after all, the urban designer who helps to orchestrate human relationships with other living organisms in the built environment. The overall objective of the book is to reinforce the role of the urban designer as an honest broker and promoter of design processes and as an active agent of social creativity in the production of the public realm.