On Contemporary Urban Planning - Annotated Bibliography Example

Contemporary Urban Planning Annotated Bibliography Albrechts, L., & Mandelbaum, S. (2005). The network society: A new context for planning? New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Albrechts and Mandelbaum discuss theoretical and practical perspectives on the contemporary organization of social, economic, cultural, political and physical spaces in this book designed for graduate students taking up courses in urban studies, city and regional planning, and urban design. The book provides sufficient insight in its five sections which looks at models of the Network Society and the impact of physical networks.

It thoroughly discusses challenges for Planners raised by society's increased reliance on new technology and examines local networks including community networks and the possibilities of setting up local networks for disaster recovery. It ends by comparing spatial and policy networks and looking at the institutions involved in them. de Roo, G., & Silva, E. (2010). A planner's encounter with complexity. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. In A Planner's Encounter with Complexity, de Roo and Silva present various understandings of complexity and how the environment is considered accordingly.

One of the considerations that the book expounds on is the environment as subject to processes of continuous change, being either progressive or destructive, evolving non-linearly and alternating between stable and dynamic periods. The authors argue that environments confronted with discontinuous, non-linear evolving processes might be more real than the idea that an environment is simply a planner's creation. Likewise, they argue that recognizing the complexity of our environment offers an entirely new perspective on our world and our environment, on planning theory and practice.

This book caters largely to professional planners as it emphasizes the importance of complexity in planning, clarifies many of the concepts and theories, presents examples on planning and complexity, and proposes new ideas and methods for planning. Grant, J. (2006). Planning the good community: New urbanism and practice. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Grant examines new urban approaches in this book, both in theory and practice, presented to undergraduate and graduate students in Urban Planning.

He takes a critical look at how new urbanism lives up to its theory and its practice, and asks whether new urban approaches offer a viable path to the good community. The book draws examples from the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Norway, and Japan, and explores new urban approaches in a wide range of settings. It considers the relationship between the movement for urban villages and an urban renaissance that has spread in the UK and Europe with the 'New Urbanism' movement in the United States and Canada and asks whether the concerns that drive contemporary planning theory - issues like power, democracy, spatial patterns, and globalization - receive adequate attention in new urban approaches.