Planning and Urban Change
- Stephen Ward - Oxford Brookes University, UK
Stephen Ward demonstrates how urban planning can be understood through three categories: ideas - urban planning history as the development of theoretical approaches: from radical and utopian beginnings, to the `new right' thinking of the 1980s, and recent interest in green thought and sustainability; policies - urban planning history as an intensely political process, the text explains the complicated relation between planning theory and political practice; and impacts - urban planning history as the divergence of expectation and outcome, each chapter shows how intended impacts have been modified by economic and social forces.
This Second Edition features an entirely new chapter on the key policy changes that have occurred under the Major and Blair governments, together with a critical review of current policy trends.
An interesting overview of the subject.
The books covers in-depth overview and discussions on key planning and urban topics. A must essential and recommended book for planners especially to research students. The impact section / theme in the book is well written and covered looking at wider target groups.
This interesting and generally well-written volume traces a history of planning activity in Britain. I particularly liked the three categories deployed to understand planning: ideas, policies and impacts. However, I was slightly disappointed the author did not have more to say about contemporary planning. This may not have been his aim and this is well covered elsewhere but as my course is about the contemporary system (other colleagues cover planning history), this textbook is of less direct use to my students.
