Complexity Rising: A Dialogue Emergent from Planning Theory

, edited by Gert de Roo and Elisabete A. Silva, is a welcome addition to our bookshelves. Like most edited volumes, some few chapters will endure more than others. And, as is fitting in a field as complex as planning, which chapters work for you will likely differ from those that work for others. What makes the book useful to planners is the sheer range of approaches represented by the chapters of this very European volume. Growing out of a dialogue that began at an Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) Conference, and then shaped by conversations amongst participants over the years, the dominant theme is planning theoretic, interwoven with substantial chunks of practical application—to spatial planning, modeling, brownfields and transportation planning. It should be said that this is not an introductory volume to systems thinking or to complexity planning, but rather, a place to come once you know something of the theory and have developed questions that you would like to see answered. It will probably be more useful to planning theorists with some exposure to a