Urban, Regional and National Planning (UNRENAP): Environmental Aspects contains the proceedings of a Workshop on Urban, Regional and National Planning held in Kyoto, Japan, on August 5-6, 1977 under the auspices of the International Federation of Automatic Control. The workshop provided an opportunity to address the environmental aspects of urban, regional, and national planning. The discussions are organized around the themes of modeling, evaluation, simulation, and optimization. Comprised of 34 chapters, this book begins by outlining an alternative approach to environmental modeling in which comprehensive models are replaced by a network of simpler models, focused on specific aspects of the reality and sponsored by corresponding decision-making organizations. The reader is then introduced to some socio-economic aspects of health care planning; structural modeling in a class of systems by fuzzy sets theory; and the role of legal measures in the orientation of urban growth. Subsequent chapters deal with the use of Environmental Assessment Scale as a technique for environmental evaluation; computer simulation of economy management systems; and optimal control models of regional economies. A model for pollution reduction and control is also described. This monograph will be of interest to urban planners and environmental policymakers.

Widely accepted principles and assumptions of American planning theory come under heavy fire in this refreshing and provocative book. The author's main contention is that, contrary to current supposition, development planning is, in practice, a highly political activity. Professor Rondinelli maintains that it is because the dynamics of the policy-making process are not properly understood that current planning prescriptions are inadequate when they are applied within organizationally complex urban regions. To illustrate his argument, he offers a case history of federally aided redevelopment programs for an urban region in northeastern Pennsylvania that experienced three decades of economic decline. He further believes that existing programs of planning education do not provide the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary for effective management of urban change. Curricula must be reoriented, he says, if planners are to have an impact on future urban and regional development. Finally, he sets forth positive alternatives to current planning processes, stressing the need for planning theory and practice that recognize and cope with the characteristics of the complex policy-making system.

This book is comprised of articles and papers that have come about after years of academic and applied research endeavors of the practitioners and academicians in the field of urban and regional development planning. Most of these articles have already been presented and deliberated in national and international conferences held in different parts of the world, namely: Indianapolis, Newcastle upon Tyne, Rome, Istanbul, Cairo, Alexandria, Vienna, Stockholm, Jeddah, Riyadh, Jubail, Islamabad, Penang, and Bandung. The concepts and case studies described in this book bring home the fact that the world is undergoing a gyrational transition. Not only are developed and developing countries getting influenced by each other and transforming due to a process of circular causation, but each of the two sets of countries are also undergoing a simultaneous internal transformation due to the differential infusion of technology and indigenous entrepreneurship. As a consequence, highly diversified urban systems are getting integrated interactively, leading to the formation of a global village and achievement of a unity in diversity!

Includes entries for maps and atlases.

System Identification is a special section of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC)-Journal Automatica that contains tutorial papers regarding the basic methods and procedures utilized for system identification. Topics include modeling and identification; step response and frequency response methods; correlation methods; least squares parameter estimation; and maximum likelihood and prediction error methods. After analyzing the basic ideas concerning the parameter estimation methods, the book elaborates on the asymptotic properties of these methods, and then investigates the application of the methods to particular model structures. The text then discusses the practical aspects of process identification, which includes the usual, general procedures for process identification; selection of input signals and sampling time; offline and on-line identification; comparison of parameter estimation methods; data filtering; model order testing; and model verification. Computer program packages are also discussed. This compilation of tutorial papers aims to introduce the newcomers and non-specialists in this field to some of the basic methods and procedures used for system identification.

Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning 5 is a selection of some of the best scholarship in urban and regional planning from around the world. The internationally recognized authors of these award-winning papers take up a range of salient issues from the theory and practice of planning. The topics they address include the effects of globalization on world cities, metropolitan planning in France and Australia, and new research in pedestrian and traffic design. The breadth of the topics covered in this book will appeal to all those with an interest in urban and regional planning, providing a springboard for further debate and research. The papers focus particularly on themes of inclusion, urban transformation, metropolitan planning, and urban design. The Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) book series is published in association with the Global Planning Education Association Network (GPEAN) and its member national and transnational planning schools associations.