We need buildings for housing and for the other services they provide for us and our activities. Our demands stimulate supply, creating a market. As the market supplies and services these buildings it makes demands on national resources, changes regional economies and populations, affects the quality of life and creates costs and benefits. Planning professionals set out to regulate the market, sometimes removing imperfections, sometimes creating them. Their policy decisions need to take account of the likely changes in industry, technology, life styles and expectations and the demands they...

This 1973 book contains the results of a research project carried out at the National Institute between 1966 and 1969 on the economics of urban form. The effects of size, shape and form on costs of construction are examined for various model settlements. The populations of these models, and hence the facilities requires, are built up from a study of actual towns, existing and planned. Transport systems are examined, as well as the extra costs and advantages of expanding an existing settlement rather than developing on a virgin site. The financing of development and efficient use of resources...