Harry W. Richardson holds the James Irvine Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at the School of Policy, Planning and Development, University of Southern California, USA. Dr Chang-Hee Christine Bae is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Washington, USA.

• Contents: Introduction, Chang-Hee Christine Bae and Harry W. Richardson. Part I: The United Kingdom: Sustainable settlements and jobs-housing balance, Michael Breheny; Reducing sprawl and delivering an urban renaissance in England: are these aims possible given current attitudes to urban living?, Katie Williams; Push-pull forces in the spatial organization of Greater London and South East England, Terence Bendixson; Knowledge, decisions and urban form: implications from the socialist calculation debate, Mark Pennington; The thirty-year's experiment with British greenbelt policy in Korea: a convergent path to sustainable development, Sang-Chuel Choe. Part II: France and Continental Western Europe: Urban sprawl in Rennes and 77 urban areas in France, 1982-1999; Remy Prud'homme and Bernard-Henri Nicot; Urban sprawl in France 1990-1999, Alain Sallez and Julien Birgi; Urban sprawl: is there a French case?, Denise Pumain; Concentration and dispersal of employment in French cities, Jean-Marie Huriot; Location patterns of producer services: between centralization and urban sprawl; French and Swiss case studies, Antoine Bailly; Urbanization and the social origins of national policies toward sprawl, Jefferey Sellers. Part III: The United States of America: US population and employment trends and sprawl issues, Harry W. Richardson and Peter Gordon; Urban containment American style: a preliminary assessment, Arthur C. Nelson; Local innovations in controlling sprawl: experiences with several approaches in the Seattle urban region, Donald Miller; Immigration and densities: a contribution to the compact cities and sprawl debates, Chang-Hee Christine Bae; Transit and density: Atlanta, the United States and Western Europe, Alain Bertaud and Harry W. Richardson; Traffic and sprawl: evidence from US commuting, 1985 to 1997, Randall Crane and Daniel G. Chatman; Index.

’This newly-published collection of papers presents original research findings from Europe and North America on one of the most important and most contentious issues for planners worldwide: how far is it possible or desirable to limit urban growth so as to promote more sustainable transport patterns?’ Professor Sir Peter Hall, Institute of Community Studies, London, UK ’Sprawl is back on the agendas of governments in most Western countries, and is now a priority concern of urban policy and planning...This edited collection is a substantial contribution to those debates...a stimulating and highly informative collection. It offers detailed empirical analyses and policy reviews of European urban situations that are not widely available in English...a must for anyone interested in the current debates on emerging urban forms and the dilemmas facing contemporary land-use planning and urban policy generally.’ Population, Space and Place ’Urban sprawl is a worldwide concern nowadays...it is thus stimulating to read a comparison of three countries, with some excursions to Switzerland, Austria and Korea. This book is interesting in many respects.’ Journal of Housing and the Built Environment