The Planners Use of Information

For more than 20 years, planners have depended on The Planner's Use of Information to help them solve their information problems. While the ability to manage complex information skillfully remains central to the practice of planning, in the last two decades the variety and quantity of information have ballooned. The methods of accessing and handling information - although often ultimately easier and faster - require new technical savvy. At the same time, planners themselves, and the constituents they serve, have changed.

The completely revised and updated second edition of this popular book will serve the new generation of planners who work in a world where computers, the Internet, telecommunications networks, and a changing population have revolutionized the practice of planning. Edited again by Hemalata Dandekar, with chapters by leading experts in data collection, analysis, presentation, and management, The Planner's Use of Information fully describes the capabilities, uses, and impacts of twenty-first century technologies. One of today's most valuable planning tools, computer graphics, is covered in depth. A new chapter takes the reader through a city planning director's typical workday to examine how to obtain, assess, and use information to best advantage within the crucial political context of planning.

The Planner's Use of Information offers a range of methods for solving many kinds of information problems in myriad situations. It's an invaluable day-to-day resource for practicing planners and an ideal classroom text for courses in planning communication and analytical methods. Illustrations, sidebars, real-life examples, cartoons, exercises, bibliographies, and lists of online resources enrich the text.

The new edition of The Planner's Use of Information includes chapters by Hemalata C. Dandekar, Nancy Nishikawa, Maria Yen and Grace York, Richard Crepeau, Peter Ash, Elaine Cogan, Alfred W. Storey, Vivienne N. Armentrout, Andrea Frank, and Kristina Ford.