Cover: Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans: From Theory to Practice, by Mark Seasons. illustration: multi-coloured rectangles are intersected by white lines and arranged like an aerial map.
248 pages, 7 x 9
25 charts/diagrams, 16 tables
Paperback
Release Date:01 Mar 2021
ISBN:9780774866262
EPUB
Release Date:01 Mar 2021
ISBN:9780774866286
PDF
Release Date:01 Mar 2021
ISBN:9780774866279
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Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans

From Theory to Practice

UBC Press

Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans blends theory and practice to delineate the questions that planners need to ask as they shape the future of Canadian communities. Which practices have worked before and which haven’t? What went wrong, and what does that teach us? Too often, urban and regional planners simply don’t know whether or how well planning policies were carried out.

In this book, experienced practitioner and planning scholar Mark Seasons offers a wealth of pragmatic guidance on plan evaluation processes and methods. Evaluation focuses on assessing the results of the high-level comprehensive policy plans that guide land use and other aspects of community and regional development. Monitoring the outputs and outcomes generated by a plan – and gauging their impact – ensures that the planning function remains credible and relevant, and that resources are used effectively, efficiently, and equitably.

As both a primer on plan evaluation practice and an original contribution to theory, Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans is an invaluable resource not only for the Canadian planning community but for planners everywhere.

A much-needed text for university and college students in planning theory, policy, and evaluation, this book is also an essential resource for professional planners and planning scholars.

RELATED TOPICS: Urban Studies & Planning
The combination of theories, methods and practices makes this book an essential resource for all professional planners in Canada and elsewhere. Haiqing Xu, Deputy City Manager, Vaughan, ON, Plan Canada
This new text is a must-read in undergraduate and graduate planning classrooms. Robert Patrick, University of Saskatchewan, Canadian Planning and Policy
Scholarship has been differentiated into many categorizations, including scholarship of discovery versus scholarship of synthesis...Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans contributes to both. Lewis D. Hopkins, Journal of the American Planning Association
An outstanding book. Mark Seasons is clearly the leading scholar in the field. David Gordon, professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Queen’s University
There is no other text that presents plan evaluation in a better manner. It needs to be in the hands of students and practitioners. Harry Harker, FCIP, RPP, principal, 1st Principles Planning
Mark Seasons, FCIP, RPP, is a professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. He is a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a registered professional planner with career experience in Ontario, Alberta, and New Zealand. His planning research has been published in several leading academic journals, and in UN-Habitat’s Global Report on Human Settlements 2009: Planning Sustainable Cities.

Introduction: Tackling the Unknowns

1 Who Does What: The Canadian Planning Context

2 Laying the Cornerstone: Plan Evaluation History and Theory

3 The Toolbox: Indicator Frameworks and Models

4 Measure Twice, Cut Once: Monitoring and Evaluation in Practice

5 Ready, Set: Planning the Evaluation Process

6 Finding Answers: Research Approaches and Methods

7 Making It Work: Management of the Evaluation Process

8 A Pocket Guide for Best Practice

Glossary; Works Cited; Index

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