ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the kinds of practical remedies that were proposed and applied. It reflects on the main factors which generated changes in thought, policy and practice. The main elements and examples used in the chapter are from Western Europe and North America since this was where modern urban and regional planning largely emerged during the later nineteenth century. Initially in western nations, but increasingly throughout the world, the functioning of increasingly complex economies has required the growing concentration of population in towns and cities. Modern spatial planning appeared as a series of ideas and actions to manage the various economic and social contradictions which followed from that urban growth. Regeneration in the neo-liberal era was much more a function of the private sector. In most countries, the relative shift to mass urban living began against a background of marked absolute population growth.
