About the Book
‘A textbook to introduce new developments to new students and old planners was clearly needed; we are fortunate that one of the most able of British academic planners took on the task. McLoughlin has been outstandingly successful in writing a clear and comprehensive account of the systems approach to planning. He particularly deserves to be congratulated on his lively and unpretentious style: a wider public may thus be encouraged to learn more of the planners’ new tools. Books such as this may do more for public participation in planning than many a shrill pamphlet.’
-R.E. Pahl in New Society
‘Hard-bitten, overworked, practical planners who normally reach for their guns at the mention of a systems approach will be pleasantly surprised by this book. It is well written, easily understood and might even be described as ‘absorbing’. The book is a must for all town planners and should certainly become a text book in schools of planning.’
-Architect’s Journal
Contents
1. Man in his Ecological Setting
2. Modifying Actions and the Environment
3. Location Theory: A Foundation for Planning
4. The Guidance and Control of Change: Physical Planning as the Control of Complex Systems
5. Planning as a Cyclic Process
6. Goal Formulation: Identifying Objectives
7. System Description: Information Needs
8. System Simulation: Forecasting and Modelling
9. Plan Formulation: Charting Possible Courses of the System
10. Plan Selection: Choosing the Desired Course
11. Plan Implementation: System Guidance, Control and Review
12. Implications of a Systems Approach to Planning
About the Author / Editor
J. Brian McLoughlin was born in Bradford, England in 1932 and was educated in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he also studied Town and Regional Planning at the King’s College of the University of Durham, graduating in 1954. After a stint in the National Service, McLoughlin worked as a local government planning officer in Newcastle, and in 1962 was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Town Planning at the University of Manchester and went on to attain several senior academic posts in UK and Europe and Hong Kong. In 1983 he arrived in Australia as scholar of international standing for his planning policy research and academic publication in the UK and Europe. He held the Chair of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Melbourne and made substantial and lasting contributions to the study of urban studies and urban planning in Australia.
