This paper proposes a conceptual framework for planning and design practice to incorporate self-consciously the hybrid space of the virtual and physical. Cyberspace has now become a commonplace environment for social and public life, and its complex uses are entwined with those of the existential life in the physical environment. Therefore, it is argued, planners must engage in the design of the parallel realities of social and public life in these spaces. This paper proposes to look at them in a rhizome-like spatial formation, and in their future design to apply related planning knowledge on places and communities. Based on observations of online activity, the paper illustrates a method to analyse cyberspace's quality by means of Kevin Lynch's taxonomy of images, and of William H. Whyte's method to evaluate spatial uses. Spatial elements are identified through analogies between the virtual and the physical social environments, in order to derive alternatives for future (hybrid) spatial design.

The objective of this research is to determine the role of urban street layout design in the process of shaping property values. The effect of spatial accessibility on rent is a classic finding of spatial economics. Using space syntax fine-grained spatial design analysis, which indexes the spatial centrality and accessibility, the patterns of property prices are analysed for a large contiguous sample of over 60 000 residential dwellings in a North London borough, using the council tax band as a proxy variable for the property price. Few studies have examined the effect of spatial contiguity on the housing sub-market classification. The findings demonstrate that the council tax band proxy is a good indicator of residential property sale prices. In addition, a hedonic model framework shows that spatial centrality and accessibility, as indexed by the space syntax spatial design analysis, accounts for the variations in residential property values for single and multiple dwellings when controlling for the property size, relative density and building age. Multivariate analysis is used to establish the weighting of the different variables. The single most important spatial factor is the property size, followed by the ambient density, the local and global spatial accessibility and the building age. Non-residential land use location, the proximity to main arterial roads and the associated traffic and air pollution are shown to inhibit the residential property location.

This paper considers how the provision of integrated household-level infrastructure – particularly water and environmental sanitation (including water supply, sewerage, roads, storm drainage and solid waste management) – can play a leading role in improving the conditions in slum settlements. Around 700 socio-economic interviews were carried out in India and South Africa to investigate an innovative approach called slum networking, which sees the strong correlation between slum locations and drainage paths as an opportunity for improving the wider urban environment. This recognition allows resources to be mobilised locally, thereby removing the need for external aid funding. The evidence from the 700 families shows that communities perceive water and sanitation inputs to be their top priority and are willing to contribute to the costs. If slum upgrading is led with access to integrated water and environmental sanitation at household level with community contributions to the cost of infrastructure, then slum communities subsequently invest considerably greater sums in improved housing and education, with longer term contributions to poverty alleviation, improvements in health and literacy and an increase in disposable incomes.

The travel plan can be defined as a long-term management strategy for an organisation and its various sites or business park; the plan seeks to deliver transport objectives through positive action and is articulated by a document that is regularly reviewed. Importantly, unlike more ‘traditional’ measures, they can be effective at reducing car use while being politically acceptable and relatively cheap and quick to introduce. Given that politicians and their officials have often seen transport problems as being extremely difficult to solve, it is therefore strange that they have seemingly ignored the apparent significant potential of the travel plan. Interviews were undertaken with ten travel plan experts in the UK, the aim being to ascertain their views on the current state of play with respect to travel plans and their predictions for the future. From these a series of recommendations is presented as to how travel plan policy may be conducted in the future.

This briefing explores the relevance of Kuhn's analysis of paradigm change in the physical sciences to paradigm change in the wider world. It looks at progress from a world view dominated by a commitment to short-term economic growth, to one that favours longer-term, environmentally and socially sustainable public decision-making. The specific focus is the author's interest in a landscape-led approach to planning for resource use and land management. Here, landscape is defined in the inclusive way taken by the European Landscape Convention. The briefing concludes that society is currently between paradigms, and that this situation will take some time to resolve; however, there are already places where a landscape-led approach is helping to build bridges between the old and the emerging paradigms.

The objective of this paper is to discuss the use of geographical information and spatial analytical methodologies in urban safety research and planning. Based on previous empirical examples, the paper investigates the advances and challenges of studying crime and perceived safety using geographical information and spatial analytical methodologies. Studies of crime and perceived fear at the micro-level in the urban landscape are also reviewed, followed by a discussion of ecological studies, which often search for associations between crime and socio-economic characteristics of small areas. The use of geographical information and visualisation techniques has been incorporated into research and planning in public participation schemes and, more recently, into new methodologies aiming at predicting human movement patterns using real-time data. The paper reviews some of the current challenges for spatial urban safety research and concludes with prospects on the value of this form of analysis in the near future.

The rapid consumption of culture for chiefly economic benefit is leading the contemporary city towards the loss of place identity which is increasingly becoming hybrid, transitory and compromised. In order to analyse the new urban complexity and dynamics, researchers have tested methods, maps, multimedia images, hypertext and software. Indeed, in recent decades, computer science has become a useful support for improving studies and applications in the field of area investigations. This paper describes the PlaceMaker method and software. PlaceMaker is an original urban analysis and design tool that detects elements that do not feature in traditional mapping and which constitute the contemporary identity resources of places; it also identifies appropriate planning interventions related to new needs and enterprises relating to cultural resources. Some experimental applications are summarised and issues relating to software development are discussed.