Environmental Planning in Context

The environment is scarcely out of the news. Warnings of melting ice-caps, shrinking biodiversity and devastating floods are salutary reminders of the ways in which humanity can both be subject to powerful natural events and exert its own potent influence. Environmental planning has long been a feature of socialites, helping them to influence development in ways that enhance both human experience and the natural environment. With mounting concerns regarding the long-term impact of humanity, the decisions of environmental planners have become more important-and more contentious-than ever. The wide-ranging and innovative text provides a comprehensive account of the contexts, principles and complexity of environmental planning. It examines issues that are relevant wherever and whenever environmental planning occurs: How is the environment understood? How are these frames of reference interpreted? And how does this lead to judgements, from moral ones to aesthetic to economic? It is organized around the three interconnected areas within which planning debates occur: wider society and politics the process of policy-making, and the practices of planning itself. This approach takes account of the wider context of planning, from the intellectual legacies that affect how we view nature, to the problematic interface between science and policy, to the effectiveness of the range of decision support tools available. Drawing on, and synthesizing work, from a range of discipline, this text is a rich and nuanced account of how societies around the world can frame, develop end operationlize the management of planning concerns, as well as the opportunities and constraints that planners face. Book jacket.