Visualizing Sustainable Planning

The authors present the state of the art in the rapidly growing field of visualization as related to problems in urban and regional planning. The significance and timeliness of this volume consist in its reflection of several developments in literature and the challenges cities are facing. First, the unsustainability of many of our current paradigms of development has become evidently clear. We are entering an era in which communities across the globe are strengthening their connections to the global flows of capital, goods, ideas, technologies and values while facing at the same time serious dislocations in their traditional socioeconomic structures. While the impending scenarios of climate change impacts remind us about the integrated ecological system that we are part of, the current discussions about global recession in the media alert us and make us aware of the occasional perils of the globalized economic system. The globally dispersed, intricately integrated and hyper-complex socioeconomic-ecological system is difficult to analyze, comprehend and communicate without effective visualization tools. Given that planners are at the frontlines in the effort to prepare as well as build resilience in the impacted communities, appropriate visualization tools are indispensable for effective planning. Second, planners have largely been slow to incorporate the advances in visualization research emerging from other domains of inquiry.

Prof. Dr. Hans Hagen:March 1982: PhD (Mathematics), University of Dortmund1983-1986: Assistant Professor at Arizona State University1986-1988: Professor (C3), TU Braunschweig since 1988: Professor (C4), University of KaiserslauternHans Hagen is heading the research group for Computer Graphics and Computer Geometry at University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is both national and international a pioneer in his research domains geometric modeling and scientific visualization. Prof. Dr. Subhrajit Guhathakurta:1987: MCRP, Community and Regional Planning, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa1991: Ph. D., City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley1992-93: Visiting Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning, Iowa State University, Ames1993-94: Research Associate, Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics and Institute of Urban and Regional Development, UC Berkeley1994-2000: Assistant Professor, School of Planning and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State UniversityMar-Jun 2000: Visiting Faculty, School of Geographical Sciences and Planning, University of Queensland, Brisbane, AustraliaOct 2000-Jan 2001: Visiting Faculty, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, India since 2000: Associate Professor, School of Planning and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State UniversityProf. Guhathakurta has developed a keen interest in urban modeling since his involvement with Prof. John Landis at UC Berkeley and the California Urban Futures Modeling effort.Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Steinebach: 1979: Received ‘Diploma Spatial and Environmental Planning’ (Dipl.-Ing. Raum- und Umweltplanung) at University of Kaiserslautern1979-1987: Research Assistant, University of Kaiserslautern1987: PhD (Dr.-Ing. Raum- und Umweltplanung), University of Kaiserslautern1988-2000: Co-Founder and Managing Director of ‘Forschungs- und Informationsgesellschaft der Raum- und Umweltplanung (FIRU)’1997-1999: Visiting Professor, University of KaiserslauternSince 1999: Professor (C4), University of KaiserslauternGerhard Steinebach is a recognized expert in his research domains: ‘Urban ecology - focusing on the environmental impacts of development’, ‘Conversion of military and industrial brownfields’ and ‘Management of planning procedures’.