This key planning textbook on shaping integrated and sustainable communities offers clear outlines of practicable planning methods and will help develop essential skills for planners.
The current strong movement towards higher standards of urban life and the challenges of rapid change are not solely about detailed design or matters of style but rather a pursuit of healthier, safer, and more sociable and responsive urban areas.
In Community Planning: Integrating social and physical environments, the author examines the impacts of social and economic change on community life and organisation and explores ways in which these changes can be planned and managed. Community planning is presented as a means to balance and integrate beneficial change with the maintenance of valued cultural traditions and lifestyles.
The aims and roles of community planning are explored and the key planning operations are explained, including the phases and applications of community planning method, the planning and location of community facilities, the roles of design in shaping responsive community spaces, and the capacity of different types of community governance to improve the relations between citizens and societies.
The book is organised into three main sections: the first four chapters establish the interests and scope of community planning. The next five move from accounts of values, methods and analytical techniques to their application in the planning of the key activities of housing, health, education and work. In the third section of the book, the concluding three chapters draw together the preceding themes and demonstrate the integrity of the community planning process in the participatory shaping and governance of healthy and sociable places, and their prospects within the continued evolution of community planning.
