Research Design in Urban Planning: A Student′s Guide - Hardcover

Farthing, Stuart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1446294447 ISBN 13: 9781446294444

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015

Synopsis

Research Design in Urban Planning is a short, accessible, and clearly written text on how to design research for a dissertation planning project. Aimed at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, this text will: * discuss research design, looking in detail at how researchers make their choices of methods * examine these in reference to case studies/examples from the planning research literature * explain to students how to interpret policy to define researchable questions * review the issues comparatively * situate the methodological questions in terms of research ethics. Packed with case studies, exercises, illustrations and summaries, Research Design in Urban Planning is an invaluable resource for students undertaking their first substantial, individual investigations.

About this title

Review:

This excellent book fills a significant gap in the literature supporting planning education by providing clear, succinct advice on the design and implementation of small-scale student research projects. 

Although aimed primarily at planning students, the text is equally relevant to those undertaking similar tasks on other social science and built environment programmes. (Chris Couch)

This book should rapidly find its way onto lists of essential readings for research methods and dissertation modules in undergraduate and postgraduate planning coursework programs. Pitched perfectly at its target audience, logically structured and clearly written, this is a perfect text for supervisors to give students so that they plan their research projects carefully rather than leap headlong into data collection. 

(Jean Hillier)

Stuart Farthing’s new book ‘Research Design in Urban Planning’ can be highly recommended.  It explores key questions and issues in research and design, and probes applicable approaches in the field of urban planning in particular.

A key strength is that it combines thoughtful, insightful treatment of theoretical perspectives, with a very practical approach to supporting students or early career researchers in the area of research and project design.

Ranging across topics such as planning a research programme and data management and the handling of ethical issues, the book will be very helpful to those embarking on a thesis or dissertation in the field.
(Peter Fidler)

Because planning researchers work in the knotty spaces between practice, policy, and the academy, their research needs to meet several different standards of quality simultaneously.  Farthing has produced a comprehensive handbook that will teach students to do just that -- to identify questions of intellectual and policy significance, generate original data, and establish the evidentiary basis for the factual claims they make.  Farthing addresses head-on the issue of ethics, which arises often when scholars are as close to the topics and constituencies they study as planners are.

(Rachel Weber)

About the Author:

Stuart Farthing was Principal Lecturer in the Department of Planning & Architecture, at UWE, Bristol and spent most of his working life in Bristol though he had an international reputation, having been a Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Melbourne, Curtin and Murdoch in Australia, the University of Tours in France and University of Hannover in Germany. He was also a member of the Conseil Scientifique of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme ‘Villes et Territoires’ at the University of Tours.

His research interests in recent years  have included understanding how planning affects the nature of housing development but also how national housing policies shape changes in planning policy; investigating the changing role of small towns in rural regeneration; and analysing policy-oriented learning in the context of European spatial planning.

Stuart has supervised hundreds of dissertations in planning over the years, supervised many PhD students and he played a leading role in the training and supervision of social science doctoral students at UWE Bristol, developing and running the cross-disciplinary Masters in Applied Social Research.

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1446294447
• ISBN 13: 9781446294444
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240