Urban Planning

This textbook is designed to serve as a comprehensive introduction to the field of urban planning today. The success of our earlier textbook, Introduction to Urban Planning (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1979), led us to undertake this new edition to reflect the rapid changes that have been occurring within the field since 1979. This new edition is contemporary in the best sense, both in describing the field's recent innovations and in relating its traditional concerns and methods to those of the present.

In the 1979 edition we noted that several trends would probably soon call for a new edition:

1

Multidisciplinary scope. Other professions and academic disciplines would be expanding their scopes and frames of reference to include many areas formerly thought of as the province of urban planning.

2

Evolutionary changes. Urban planning would continue to be a field in transition because it is highly interrelated with the social, political, economic, environmental, and technological conditions that affect cities.

3 Expanding employment opportunities. The marketplace for urban planners would continue to change, affecting both the development and the teaching of the field. Urban planners would come to have a far wider and more varied employment base than ever before.

All three trends have indeed progressed remarkably fast.

For instance, there are greatly increased employment opportunities for urban planners in the private sector now, and computer technology for planners is advancing at an exciting pace. The effects of all such developments on the teaching of urban planning indicated the need for a new edition promptly.

To develop the outline for Urban Planning, we queried many users of the 1979 edition and conducted an informal survey of urban planning and architecture schools to determine what was being taught, what readings were used, and what the needs were. From the instructors and students queried, as well as from several instructors who volunteered ideas, most suggestions dealt with subiect matter to be deleted or added. The survey not only revealed a need for up-to-date materials (going beyond the current use of ephemeral readings and of book lists for specific subject areas) but also established a consensus about the subiect areas that needed coverage in this growing field. The majority of respondents indicated that a new text covering all these areas would be welcome in a great number of undergraduate and graduate courses.

Specifically, the survey showed that the following types of courses can make use of Urban Planning, and we have designed this textbook accordingly:

• One type of course, typically called Introduction to Urban Planning, is offered to entering graduate students in a 2-year Master's program.

• Another common type, also often called

Introduction to Urban Planning, is offered at the graduate level to students not majoring in urban planning and at the undergraduate level to majors and nonmajors alike.

• Many architecture schools offer their undergraduate majors a course dealing with urban planning. Since most practicing architects consider themselves to be urban planners as well, we believe that every architecture student should at the very least take an introductory course in urban planning.

• Related academic disciplines account for many of the urban planning courses offered. The disciplines offering these courses have a wide range. They include civil engineering, environmental studies, geography, archaeology, the social sciences (especially political science, sociology, economics, and anthropology), the humanities (especially history and literature), business (especially real estate), law, social work, urban affairs, public administration, and policy analysis.

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• Many prearchitectural and preengineering technology schools offer courses that have a major

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concern with urban planning.

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o • Numerous courses at the 2-year Associate Degree level include major portions dealing with urban planning.

• A significant number of continuing education courses deal with urban planning. These courses are addressed to people who are in related and affected fields or are otherwise interested in urban planning. of

The results of the survey led us to adopt four unian guiding principles:

1 Include the subject areas generally taught in the and related fields.

above types of courses in urban planning, architecture,

2 Emphasize broad perspectives and aim to cover much of the field, focusing on the built environment to give the subject areas a cohesiveness.

3 Encourage further reading and study. 4 For maximum clarity, keep the writing level appropriate for students who have little or no background in urban planning.

These principles have resulted in several important changes to our 1979 edition. By no means merely an Updating of the 1979 edition, Urban Planning has been reorganized and entirely rewritten to satisfy the needs of the courses we surveyed.

All these courses needed a single textbook that covers the field's traditional and contemporary concerns comprehensively. In synthesizing their course content and subject areas, we have followed the suggestions of several users and reviewers to tighten up some areas and to add others. Some chapters from the 1979 edition have been deleted, with their contents revised and integrated into other chapters. The principal new areas that we have added reflect the field's evolution - including qualitative analytic methods, urban design, computer applications, finance, infrastructure, technology, and real estate development. Most warrant a full chapter; others are interwoven into several chapters.

Synthesizing a wide range of subject areas and topics requires a comprehensive, panoramic outlook. This is not to say that it requires only a generalized approach, for Urban Planning is replete with specific examples and focuses on the built environment's physical realities to illustrate the problems and successes of urban planning in detail. Rather, it is to say that we have opted to be comprehensive instead of limited to narrow issues, for we believe that it is most important at this course level to see and appreciate the full panorama of urban planning.

It is as appropriate for the beginning student to survey the field's subject areas through concise analyses and illustrations as it is for the well-informed student to delve further for more detailed knowledge. The chapters in Urban Planning are written to stimulate this advanced study and contain specific suggestions for further reading.

With its comprehensive coverage providing a solid grounding in the field, Urban Planning is ideal for a 3-hour one-semester introductory course. This can be extended to a 6-hour two-semester course (e.g., for an academic-year sequence) by using further readings, such as those the chapters list. In addition, this textbook is designed to be useful in special courses, such as in an academic-year studio supplemented with field work or a practicum. In providing a clear overview of what urban planning is about, it can also be well used as a supplementary reading for professional and academic courses dealing with urban regions.

The contributor of every chapter in Urban Planning was selected on the basis of his or her recent work and publication in the subject area. In fact, most chapters' contributors are authors of recent textbooks in their respective subject areas. A major criterion in selecting the contributors was that their work showed innovative and creative approaches.

We would like to express our thanks for the many useful comments and suggestions provided by colleagues who reviewed this text during the course of its development, especially to Vernon Deines, Kansas State University; Richard Henak, Ball State University; Nicholas Patricios, University of Miami, and K. C. Sinha, Purdue University.