Clarity is the key to planning

This book comprises some 400 pages of text, interspersed with tables, diagrams and a number of extremely useful summary and exhibit boxes. Yvonne Rydin is well known for her easy-to-read style and in this book the style is continued in the discussion of the rapidly growing field of urban and environmental planning.

Urban and Environmental Planning in the UK represents a welcome and timely introductory work.The layout of the text is efficient and easy to follow. The chapters are split into sections and sub-sections on an issue-by-issue basis, with the result that none of them is so long as to bore the reader.

Rydin employs summary boxes that provide clear definitions and explanations for the reader. In addition, exhibit boxes provides the reader with the opportunity to gain deeper insights into issues raised within the text.

The medium adopted by Rydin seems to be the combining of theory with practice but also includes a critique of alternative approaches that the reader will find most useful. The use of material such as that on new Labour and the impact of Thatcherism is well laid out and easy to follow.

This book is suitable for students of housing, planning, land management, geography, urban and environmental studies and a wide range of related areas.

Maureen Rhoden is senior lecturer in housing, University of Greenwich.