Becoming an URBAN PLANNER Are you considering a career in urban planning? Becoming an Urban Planner is the best place to start. Through in-depth interviews with more than eighty urban planners across the United States and Canada, this book gives you a valuable insider’s look at your future profession as it is lived and practiced. Becoming an Urban Planner introduces you to the urban planning profession—its history, what you must know to prepare for a career in planning, and the different types of planning jobs. Beyond the basics, though, it shows you the realities of what it’s really like to be a planner today. You’ll learn about: The skills you’ll need and how to hone them in school and on the job Potential career paths and what people in these positions do Using internships, job shadowing, and other opportunities to break into the field Deciding among planning specialties and moving between public and private sectors How to search for and get your first position Emerging areas in planning, including sustainability and climate change Each topic is explored through in-depth interviews with both generalists and others who have devoted their careers to a particular aspect of planning. These professionals share their insights and describe how they have arrived at where they are and how beginners like you can learn from their experiences. With the information from this book to guide and inspire you, you will be able to chart your own path to success as an urban planner.

Urban planners are problem solvers. They find out how housing, transportation, business, and recreational areas can work together to create a successful community. They consult with city officials, developers, and the public during the planning process. This fascinating career can involve restoring historic buildings and conserving natural resources as well as overseeing construction. This book examines the history of urban planning as well as the challenges these resourceful professionals face today. Readers will learn what it takes to prepare for this fascinating and influential career.

The Routledge Companion to Professional Awareness and Diversity in Planning Education engenders a discourse on how urban planning as a discipline is being made attractive to children and youth as they consider their career preferences. It also provides a discourse around the diversity challenges facing the institutions for training urban planning professionals. This Companion is an impressive collection of initiatives, experiences, and lessons in helping children, youth, and the general public appreciate the importance of, and the diversity challenge confronting, the urban planning profession and education. It comprises empirical, experimental, and case study research on initiatives to address the professional awareness and diversity challenges in urban planning. It has uniquely assembled voices and experiences from countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Contributors are educators, practitioners, and activists of urban planning as well as policymakers in their respective countries. This Companion is intended as a resource for urban planning schools and departments, foundations, non-profit organizations, private sector organizations, public institutions, teachers, and alumni, among others to learn and consciously drive efforts to increase planning education awareness among children, youth, and the general public. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

How to create the world's new urban future With the majority of the world's population shifting to urban centres, urban planning—the practice of land-use and transportation planning to help shape cities structurally, economically, and socially—has become an increasingly vital profession. In Urban Planning For Dummies, readers will get a practical overview of this fascinating field, including studying community demographics, determining the best uses for land, planning economic and transportation development, and implementing plans. Following an introductory course on urban planning, this book is key reading for any urban planning student or anyone involved in urban development. With new studies conclusively demonstrating the dramatic impact of urban design on public psychological and physical health, the impact of the urban planner on a community is immense. And with a wide range of positions for urban planners in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors—including law firms, utility companies, and real estate development firms—having a fundamental understanding of urban planning is key to anyone even considering entry into this field. This book provides a useful introduction and lays the groundwork for serious study. Helps readers understand the essentials of this complex profession Written by a certified practicing urban planner, with extensive practical and community-outreach experience For anyone interested in being in the vanguard of building, designing, and shaping tomorrow's sustainable city, Urban Planning For Dummies offers an informative, entirely accessible introduction on learning how.

This book explores Patrick Geddes’ significant contributions to urban planning and sociology. His vision of the city, rooted in the principles of social development and preservation of cultural and ecological resources, has inspired generations of urban planners, architects and social scientists engaged with contemporary urban issues. The book discusses Geddes’ early experiments with urban renewal in Edinburgh, the famous Cities and Town Planning Exhibition and his work in India for the improvement of cities and towns with minimal financial and human cost. It examines the theoretical underpinnings of his ideas in relation to issues such as better housing and health; the preservation of history and culture; the role of a citizen; university and urban renewal; and the contemporary urban ecological crisis among others. Furthermore, it looks at the question of sustainability in the context of Geddes’ vision of a more humane, social, natural and aesthetic town and city. A comprehensive review of Patrick Geddes’ ideas, this book underlines the relevance of his work to contemporary urban concerns and issues, especially in India. It will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, urban studies, city planning, urban sociology, architecture, human geography, urban geography, settlement studies, development studies and environmental sustainability.

This book analyses urban planning in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone Africa, exploring its history and advocating for new approaches. In a climate changing world, cities need to be reimagined and designed to be more sustainable, but despite being one of the fastest urbanising continents, Africa has generally weak urban planning systems. The chapters adopt multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, combining insights from urban studies and policy sciences, emphasising existing gaps, particularly in decision-making, planning practice and inclusiveness, to offer an in-depth analysis of urban planning in Africa. The authors advocate for the reimagination of urban planning, debating new institutionalism, digital infrastructure, climate urbanism, gated communities, and smart mobility. The chapters provide both theoretical and practical contributions, and advance thinking, policymaking, and implementation of sustainable urban planning approaches in Africa, thus making the book indispensable for advanced students, researchers, and practitioners alike.

A career guide for professionals in sustainable architecture, design, planning, development, and related consulting For those considering a new career or a career change focused on green and sustainable building and design, Becoming a Green Building Professional offers practical information on educational requirements, career options, guidance and tips, and first-hand interviews with green building professionals. Perfect for underemployed architects and other building and design professionals who want to reinvent and renew their careers, as well as students considering such a career, this is a vital and informative guide to a growing field.

This handbook contributes with new evidence and new insights to the on-going debate on the de-colonization of knowledge on urban planning in Africa. African cities grew rapidly since the mid-20th century, in part due to rising rural migration and rapid internal demographic growth that followed the independence in most African countries. This rapid urbanization is commonly seen as a primary cause of the current urban management challenges with which African cities are confronted. This importance given to rapid urbanization prevented the due consideration of other dimensions of the current urban problems, challenges and changes in African cities. The contributions to this handbook explore these other dimensions, looking in particular to the nature and capacity of local self-government and to the role of urban governance and urban planning in the poor urban conditions found in most African cities. It deals with current and contemporary urban challenges and urban policy responses, but also offers an historical overview of local governance and urban policies during the colonial period in the late 19th and 20th centuries, offering ample evidence of common features, and divergent features as well, on a number of facets, from intra-urban racial segregation solutions to the relationships between the colonial power and the natives, to the assimilation policy, as practiced by the French and Portuguese and the Indirect Rule put in place by Britain in some or in part of its colonies. Using innovative approaches to the challenges confronting the governance of African cities, this handbook is an essential read for students and scholars of Urban Africa, urban planning in Africa and African Development.

This book aims to refocus urban planners on the implications of their work for human health and well-being. Provides practical advice on ways to integrate health and urban planning.

For many young planners, the noble intentions with going to planning school seem starkly out of place in the neoliberal worlds they have come to inhabit. For some, the huge gap between the power they thought they would have and what they actually do is not only worrying, but also deeply discouraging. But for some others, practice means finding practical and creative solutions to overcome challenges and complexities. How do young planners in different settings respond to seemingly similar situations like these? What do they do – give up, adjust, or fight back? What role did their planning education play, and could it have helped in preparing and assisting them to respond to the world they are encountering? In this edited volume, stories of young planners from sixteen countries that engage these questions are presented. The sixteen cases range from settings with older, established planning systems (e.g., USA, the Netherlands, and the UK) to settings where the system is less set (e.g., Brazil), being remodeled (e.g., South Africa and Bosnia Herzegovina), and under stress (e.g., Turkey and Poland). Each chapter explores what might be done differently to prepare young planners for the complexities and challenges of their ‘real worlds’. This book not only points out what is absent, but also offers planning educators an alternative vision. The editors and esteemed contributors provide reflections and suggestions as to how this new generation of young planners can be supported to survive in, embrace, and change the world they are encountering, and, in the spirit of planning, endeavor to ‘change it for the better’.