Urban design and city planning were considered one subject near the start of the 20th century.  Then the first official schools of urban planning began, and the two disciplines started to split…. The split continued through World War Two.  Then, in the 1960s Colin Rowe’s studio teachings at Cornell, created a new school of thought about cities from the view of urban design.  

The essays collected by Hurtt and Tice, provide a genealogy of theories and their interrelationships.  These interconnected concepts go beyond the social, economic and technical issues that planners like to prioritize for making good public places. The essays show how good public places require more than effective engineering and infrastructure but an in-depth understanding of urban culture, form and the context of the city. 

For decades the professional urban planning has preached, correctly, that community engagement is necessary and critical.  Community engagement can, however, mislead or harm places: an in-person or on-line survey can be invalid or unreliable; audience comments may not be truthful, useful, or morally correct. 

Eventually urban designers and city planners must “do something” and “make it happen”.  Essays in the Urban Design Legacy of Colin Rowe discuss the way designers and planners should analyze urban form through the use of figure-ground maps.  But, as the analysis proceeds so too does the constraints and opportunities of implementation. 

Collage City and the Urban Design Legacy of Colin Rowe will help design good places, but how do we build and sustain good places?  Who makes and manages good community places …. Most importantly, how do planners collect and implement good urban places over time?