This book is the result of a three day workshop on "Evaluation in theory and practice in spatial planning" held in Ramsey Hall, University College London, in September 1996. Some 30 people from 8 different countries attended and 20 papers were presented. The majority of them now form the basis for this book. This occasion was the third on the topic, the two preceding having taken place in Umea in June 1992 and in Bari in 1994. Following these three meetings, we can now say that this small, industrious, international family really enjoy meeting up from time to time at each others places, in the presence of older members and new children, each one presenting his/her own recent experiences. It particularly enjoys exchanging views and arguing about the current state and the future of evaluation in spatial planning (all families have their vices ... ). It is also pleasing to see these experiences and discussions resulting in a book for those who could not attend and for the broader clan inthe field. Not long time ago, but ages in the accelerated academic time scale, evaluation in planning established its own role and distinct features as an instrument for helping the decision-making process. Now this role and these features are exposed to major challenges. First, the evolution of planning theory has lead to the conception of new planning paradigms, based on theories of complexity and communicative rationality.

Inhalt
Trends in planning evaluation: A British perspective.- I Emerging Issues for Evaluation Theory.- Conservation of cultural and natural heritage. Evaluation for good governance and democratic control.- Economics and ecological sustainability. An actor-network approach to evaluation.- Dealing with environmental conflicts in evaluation. Cognitive complexity and scale problems.- The communicative turn in planning and evaluation.- The communicative ideology and ex ante planning evaluation.- Regulation through the development plan: an evaluation.- II Perspectives in Evaluation Methods.- Integrated planning and environmental impact assessment.- Sustainability indicators in urban planning evaluation. A new classification system based on multimodal thinking.- Cultural heritage and the urban revitalisation: a meta-analytic approach to urban sustainability.- Evaluation and equity in economic policies for environmental planning.- On the evaluation of wicked problems. Guidelines for integrating qualitative and quantitative factors in environmental policy analysis.- Evaluation in the digital age.- III Linking Practice to Theory.- Linking ex ante and ex post evaluation in British town planning.- Evaluation in Israeli spatial planning. Theory vs. practice.- Developments in transport appraisal in Britain.- Managing uncertainty in the evaluation process: A legal perspective.- Towards the economic evaluation of British land use planning.- Conclusions.