ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how planning and design could be used to support socially diverse places. Place diversity is diversity that exists within the realm of "everyday life" activities – attending school and shopping for groceries, for example. It concerns neighborhoods, whose pattern, design, and level of resources constitute the "things that really count" – schools, security, jobs, property values, amenities. From the city planner's point of view, the connection between design and social diversity is not whether the built environment creates diversity, but whether diversity thrives better, or can be sustained longer, under certain physical conditions that designers may have some control over. Even amongst social critics who are most concerned with the deleterious effects of social segregation and concentrated poverty, it is assumed that what is needed is better spatial mobility, not better planning and design to accommodate diversity. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
