Roles and Challenges of Urban Design

This paper provides an analysis of the rising significance of urban design and the challenges it is facing. It places urban design in the wider context of the urban development process, and of the growing importance of cities in the global economy. By adopting a dynamic and multi-dimensional perspective, the paper looks at this process from the viewpoints of producers, regulators and users of the built environment. Urban design is found to make major contributions for each of these groups, which explains its rising but contested significance; being integrated into the mainstream of the development process has generated new challenges for urban design. Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ESRC-funded seminar Urban Design & Development Quality at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London in May 2004. Some of its themes had been briefly explored in a short paper entitled 'Why urban design?' in the journal Town Planning Review (75(2), pp. 1–4, 2004). Notes 1. See http://www.ibss.bids.ac.uk 2. See http://portal.isiknowledge.com 3. See http://www.odpm.gov.uk 4. See http://www.google.co.uk 5. See http://www.rtpi.org.uk. 6. See http://www.odpm.gov.uk 7. See http://www.ceu-ectp.org.