Land and Limits: Interpreting Sustainability in the Planning Process [Hardcover]

The first edition of this seminal book was written at a time of rapidly growing interest in the potential for land use planning to deliver sustainable development, and explored the connections between the two and implications for public policy. In the decade since the book was first conceived, environmental imperatives have risen still further up the policial agenda and land use conflicts have intensified, lending even greater importance to the authors' research.

In a rigorous discussion of concepts, policy instruments and contemporary planning dilemmas, the authors challenge prevailing assumptions about planning for sustainability. After charting the remarkable growth in expectations of planning, they show how attempts to interpret sustainability must lead to fundamental moral and political choices.

Foreword John Forester  Introduction  1. Old Conflicts and New Ideas  2. Rhetoric, Policy and Practice: Sustainable Development as a Planning Issue  3. Interpreting Sustainability  4. Defining and Defending: Approaches to Planning for Sustainability  5. Moving Targets: Planning for an Integrated Transport Policy  6. Planning for Biodiversity: Ethics, Policies and Practice  7. Distributing Development: Sustainability and Equity in Minerals Planning  8. Conclusions and Reflections

This book explores the impact of an influential idea  sustainable development  on the institutions and practices governing use of land. The new edition adds a Foreword by Professor John Forester as well as a substantial chapter by the authors in which they reflect on the arguments propounded in the book in the light of subsequent events.

Susan Owens is Professor of Environment and Policy at the University of Cambridge, Department of Geography, and a Professorial Fellow of Newnham College. She has lS,