Knighted in 1998 ‘for services to the Town and Country Planning Association’, and in 2003 named by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a ‘Pioneer in the Life of the Nation’, Peter Hall is internationally renowned for the breadth and depth of his studies and writings on urban and regional planning. For the last 50 years, he has captured and helped to create the ‘planning imagination’. Here the editors have brought together in five themes a series of critical reflections on Peter’s vast and diverse contributions. Those reflections are provided by colleagues familiar with his work. The five parts are devoted to Peter Hall’s breadth of academic work, covering the history of cities and planning, London, spatial planning, connectivity and mobility, and urban globalization. Finally, as a sixth part, the editors have asked Peter Hall himself to reflect on his career and the sources of his imagination. The story this book tells is not one of a singular, totally consistent theoretical and philosophical view elaborated over several decades. Rather it covers a set of views that necessarily admits signs of Peter’s inconsistency and imperfection over the years – the insights and imperfections that inevitably accompany the exercise of a nonetheless remarkably fertile, restless and inspiring planning imagination.

Urban planning is not just about applying a suite of systematic principles or plotting out pragmatic designs to satisfy the briefs of private developers or public bodies. Planning is also an activity of imagination, with a stock of wisdom and an array of useful methods for making decisions and getting things done. This critical introduction uncovers and celebrates this imagination and its creative potential. Nicholas A. Phelps explores the key themes and driving questions in the circulation of planning ideas and methods over time and across spaces, identifying the contrasts and commonalities between urban planning systems and cultures. He argues that the tools for inclusive urban planning are today, more than ever, not solely restricted to the hands of planning bodies, but are distributed across citizens, a variety of organizations (what Phelps calls ‘clubs’) and states. As a result, the book sets the ground for the new arrangements between these groups and actors which will be central to the future of urban planning. By unsettling standard accounts, this book compels us towards more critical and creative thinking to ensure that the imagination, wisdom and methods of urban planning are mobilized towards achieving the aspiration of shaping better places.

For courses in Media Planning and Advertising Media. Very contemporary in its perspective, this text not only explains and illustrates tools of the trade, but also explains the "why" and "how" while demonstrating the creative mind at work.

From Paris to Antarctica, a family finds that a little imagination can go a long way! Sam has a very busy family. Mom works late; Dad's projects pile up. Even Sam's younger sister Marla is always doing something. Everyone in Sam’s family has their own idea of what the perfect vacation would look like. But there’s one thing they all agree on: they just can’t get away right now. So Sam comes up with a different kind of getaway. With a little planning, a few supplies, and a touch of creativity, she finds that her family’s dream vacation wasn’t so far away after all.

New York in Cinematic Imagination is an interdisciplinary study into urbanism and cinematic representations of the American metropolis in the twentieth century. It contextualizes spatial transformations and discourse about New York during the Great Depression and the Second World War, examining both imaginary narratives and documentary images of the city in film. The book argues that alternating endorsements and critiques of the 1920s machine age city are replaced in films of the 1930s and 1940s by a new critical theory of "agitated urban modernity" articulated against the backdrop of turbulent economic and social settings and the initial practices of urban renewal in the post-war period. Written for postgraduates and researchers in the fields of film, history and urban studies, with 40 black and white illustrations to work alongside the text, this book is an engaging study into cinematic representations of New York City.

We don’t think of imagination the way that we should. The word is often only associated with children, artists and daydreamers, but in reality, imagination is an integral part of almost every action and decision that we make. Simply put, imagination is a person’s ability to create scenarios in his or her head: this can include everything from planning a grocery list, to honing a golf swing, to having religious hallucinations. And while imagination has positive connotations, it can also lead to decreased productivity and cooperation, or worse, the continuous reliving of past trauma.The human brain is remarkable in its ability to imagine—it can imagine complex possible futures, fantasy worlds, or tasty meals. We can use our imaginations to make us relaxed or anxious. We can imagine what the world might be, and construct elaborate plans. People have been fascinated with the machination of the human brain and its ability to imagine for centuries. There are books on creativity, dreams, memory, and the mind in general, but how exactly do we create those scenes in our head? With chapters ranging from hallucination and imaginary friends to how imagination can make you happier and more productive, Jim Davies' Imagination will help us explore the full potential of our own mind.

In politics, utopians do not have a monopoly on imagination. Even the most conservative defenses of the status quo, Raymond Geuss argues, require imaginative acts of some kind. In this collection of recent essays, including his most overtly political writing yet, Geuss explores the role of imagination in politics, particularly how imaginative constructs interact with political reality. He uses decisions about the war in Iraq to explore the peculiar ways in which politicians can be deluded and citizens can misunderstand their leaders. He also examines critically what he sees as one of the most serious delusions of western political thinking--the idea that a human society is always best conceived as a closed system obeying fixed rules. And, in essays on Don Quixote, museums, Celan's poetry, Heidegger's brother Fritz, Richard Rorty, and bourgeois philosophy, Geuss reflects on how cultural artifacts can lead us to embrace or reject conventional assumptions about the world. While paying particular attention to the relative political roles played by rule-following, utilitarian calculations of interest, and aspirations to lead a collective life of a certain kind, Geuss discusses a wide range of related issues, including the distance critics need from their political systems, the extent to which history can enlighten politics, and the possibility of utopian thinking in a world in which action retains its urgency.

A guide for mining the imagination to find powerful new ways to succeed. We need imagination now more than ever—to find new opportunities, rethink our businesses, and discover paths to growth. Yet too many companies have lost their ability to imagine. What is this mysterious capacity? How does imagination work? And how can organizations keep it alive and harness it in a systematic way? The Imagination Machine answers these questions and more. Drawing on the experience and insights of CEOs across several industries, as well as lessons from neuroscience, computer science, psychology, and philosophy, Martin Reeves of Boston Consulting Group's Henderson Institute and Jack Fuller, an expert in neuroscience, provide a fascinating look into the mechanics of imagination and lay out a process for creating ideas and bringing them to life: The Seduction: How to open yourself up to surprises The Idea: How to generate new ideas The Collision: How to rethink your idea based on real-world feedback The Epidemic: How to spread an evolving idea to others The New Ordinary: How to turn your novel idea into an accepted reality The Encore: How to repeat the process—again and again. Imagination is one of the least understood but most crucial ingredients of success. It's what makes the difference between an incremental change and the kinds of pivots and paradigm shifts that are essential to transformation—especially during a crisis. The Imagination Machine is the guide you need to demystify and operationalize this powerful human capacity, to inject new life into your company, and to head into unknown territory with the right tools at your disposal.

In much the same way that views of the earth from the Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s led indirectly to the inauguration of Earth Day and the modern environmental movement, the dawn of aviation ushered in a radically new way for architects, landscape designers, urban planners, geographers, and archaeologists to look at cities and landscapes. As icons of modernity, airports facilitated the development of a global economy during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, reshaping the way people thought about the world around them. Professionals of the built environment awoke to the possibilities offered by the airports themselves as sites of design and by the electrifying new aerial perspective on landscape. In Flights of Imagination, Sonja Dümpelmann follows the evolution of airports from their conceptualization as landscapes and cities to modern-day plans to turn decommissioned airports into public urban parks. The author discusses landscape design and planning activities that were motivated, legitimized, and facilitated by the aerial view. She also shows how viewing the earth from above redirected attention to bodily experience on the ground and illustrates how design professionals understood the aerial view as simultaneously abstract and experiential, detailed and contextual, harmful and essential. Along the way, Dümpelmann traces this multiple dialectic from the 1920s to the land-camouflage activities during World War II, and from the environmental and landscape planning initiatives of the 1960s through today.

When twenty-one-year-old Michael Dell asked E. Lee Walker to be the president of his fledgling computer company, PC’s Limited, Walker, in his mid-forties, immediately thought about all the people who had helped him through life—as an undergraduate at Texas A&M (class of ’63), a graduate student at Harvard, and a once-young entrepreneur himself. As he and Dell created the foundation of what would become one of the most successful companies in the world, Walker was guided by the lessons of his past business ventures, by his belief in the power of imagination, and by his relationships with people who had provided encouragement when he most needed it. When he left Dell Computer Corporation to teach, Walker discovered that the stories he took with him—of his aspirations, of his failures and triumphs, and of his friends and mentors—were the key to engaging and inspiring his students. Here, Walker records those stories in a memoir that spans five decades and reveals a man whose curiosity, resourcefulness, and luck led him out of South Texas and into corporate boardrooms, university lecture halls, and community activism. In fast-paced tales about life as a high-tech entrepreneur, adjunct professor, civic leader, and environmental advocate, Walker manages to convey the importance of creative thinking and communal effort in all his endeavors. Originally offered to a small group of college students in Italy for study abroad, this affecting memoir will introduce to a wider audience not only a seasoned executive and philanthropist but also a wise and delightful storyteller.