The Right Place

The location of public facilities attracts attention from the general public, academics, politicians and bureaucrats. Many sites are seen as controversial such as the location of waste dumps, recycling plants and power stations. The process by which these locations are selected or rejected is an example of collective choice bringing together information on technical needs and social preferences. "The Right Place" provides a critical review of the location process. Drawing on empirical research from the social sciences and operational research, it embraces the concepts of accountability, choice and consensus, as well as more recent computer-based decision support systems and multi-criteria decision aid models. The book identifies fundamental principles and approaches which relate to complex facility siting problems and examples are drawn from a wide variety of countries to clarify and illustrate the arguments.
The book assists the planner in the development of procedures which will reduce the changes of making costly planning mistakes and it also examines the use of new information technologies in particular Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to handle data on estimated impacts and the methods to incorporate this data into planning, political and bureaucratic procedures. It is aimed at graduates and professional level. It is suitable for the following courses: geography, planning and social policy, geographical information systems applications, professionals in local and national government involved in the planning and development of public facilities.