Hamdi, N. (2010). The placemakers' guide to building community. London, Earthscan.
The placemakers' guide to building community is a practical book on community development for architects, planners, urban designers and other built environment specialists. Drawing on four decades of practical and teaching experience, the author argues that the complexities of community development faced by practitioners are a context for, rather than a barrier to, creative work. The author challenges the one-size-fits-all top-down approach to design and planning through counter-examples of good policies and professional practices in Europe, the US, Africa, Latin America and post-tsunami Asia. The author demonstrates how good policy can derive from good practices through 'reasoning backwards' and through approaches which emerge through practice rather than over-planning. This practical guide to placemaking offers a variety of methods and tools for urban and community development.