Book reviews for healthier places and place-making
Book reviews can serve many purposes, and at Cities & Health we still value book reviews.
In a fast-moving field, such as healthy city planning and design, reviews of books can help us all keep on top of new and revised publications in the field and guide our reading. Writing book reviews can be a great way for early career practitioners or researchers to put their toe in the water and get published in a journal; and for more seasoned practitioners or researchers, they provide a format to share their reflections as new summations of knowledge are published.
Book reviews also: allow more informed choices when purchasing a text either for personal use or classroom use; provide an overview of a text to make sure readers are aware of values and shortcomings of a book (especially for those less familiar with the specific subject); represent an independent critical review of a text.
We hope our book reviews provide support for those, at every level of their professional development, who want to extend their own understanding of the depth and breadth of urban health; through the approaches of spatial planning, place-making and urban governance.
In today’s publishing environment, with open access fees, it is becoming harder for some journals to justify publishing book reviews. Many journals no longer do so. We want to buck that trend for as long as we are able. So, to facilitate better access, we have set up a collection of all our book reviews, so they can be found together, in one place.