This book offers key concepts and practical guidance about the planner’s role in countering terrorist risk. Public safety and security has always been a fundamental premise of successful public spaces, and a material consideration in planning processes, but especially so since the events of 9/11 2001. Recent attacks in Berlin, Nice, Stockholm, London, Melbourne, Barcelona, New York and elsewhere using fast-moving vehicles in crowded places has led to a re-evaluation of security in many public locations. In these uncertain times, planners are increasingly being seen as key stakeholders in national security and counter-terrorism endeavours where the spatial configuration and aesthetic design of protective security interventions will have a crucial impact upon the vibrancy, resilience and safety of urban centres both now and in the future.

Illustrated with historic and contemporary international case studies, this book discusses: the changing roles and responsibilities of planning; how security is increasingly becoming a statutory consideration in the planning process; the need for planners to engage with a range of non-traditional stakeholders such as the military, police and security services to facilitate better planning outcomes; the importance of planning in national and global politics; the ethics of planning decision-making and the importance of determining what is in the public interest; how to advance proportionate counter-terrorist security in plans that balance effectiveness with social and cultural factors; and the role of training, guidance, standards and regulation in enforcing or encouraging the fulfilment of planning requirements.

Jon Coaffee is Professor in Urban Geography based in the department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. His research focuses upon the interplay of physical and socio-political aspects of urban resilience and he has also published widely, especially on the impact of terrorism and other security concerns in the functioning of urban areas.