ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores multilevel modeling, which is an advancement of the linear regression technique and particularly useful to analyze hierarchical, nested data. It describes the journey between completing a manuscript and publishing it. The book covers considerations for choosing a journal. It provides examples to demonstrate how the models and techniques have been applied to real-world problems in urban and regional planning. The book also provides increasingly popular meta-analysis and its more novel cousin, meta-regression analysis. It discusses the importance for even the most devoted quantitative researcher to expand their skill set to include some qualitative methods. Data can be either cross-sectional or longitudinal according to the temporal dimension. Cross-sectional data are collected at a single point in time.
