The book features 20 examples of masterplans that are rigorously analysed visually through drawings and diagrams. These are specially drawn to scale for this volume. As well as providing high quality graphical representations of its subjects, The Urban Masterplanning Handbook gives an important new emphasis on the processes and structures that influence the form of these projects. It is highlighted, for instance, whether a masterplan has been privately or publicly funded, if it has been planned as a single entity, or through multiple subdivisions of land, if it has been initiated by an individual landowner or by the city through expropriation. These significant influences on a plans form are highlighted in the individual case study texts and through highly legible diagrams and also by the comparisons made between the projects. The books sequence and content is organised around these development processes rather than any geographical or chronological order. By explicitly mixing up urban projects from very different geographical locations and also periods, The Urban Masterplanning Handbook, like The Urban Housing Handbook, provides intriguing insights and provokes the reader to re-analyse the featured case studies and see them in an entirely new light. This is particular useful to architects and students of architecture and urban design as it highlights the formative aspect of each masterplan. Each project chapter concludes with the question of sustainability, and explains the major environmental issues for each selected masterplan.
