PLANNING  IN  ICELAND

¡¡

FROM  THE  SETTLEMENT  TO  PRESENT  TIMES

By  Trausti  Valsson

Published in Desember 2003

by the University of Iceland Press  

This book gives an overview of the development of settlements and urban areas in Iceland from its first settlement in 874 to present times. Iceland, being an island with well-documented history, can be seen as a laboratory on how human habitat evolves and changes in an interplay with the forces of nature.

As Iceland is small and sparsely populated, it fits well for the study on how aspects of society, nature and planning interact. Until with this book the story of planning in Iceland has been unknown to the world. Scholars and students may find the book a good base for further study. The 1250 maps and pictures, and countless references, make it highly useful for such purposes.

PREFACE BY SIR PETER HALL: on Planning in Iceland
Trausti Valsson has achieved an extraordinary feat of scholarship: he has written the comprehensive, definitive, encyclopaedic account of planning in one European country, from the beginnings to the present day. True, Iceland is a small country in terms of population, even though respectably large in area. But that area contains huge variations - in position, in terrain, in natural resources - and Icelandic economic and social development is as sharply differentiated in economic terms as that of other European countries. Because however the country is so distinctive in its relative geographical isolation, it has developed in quite special ways, though culturally part of the Scandinavian or Nordic group as its strong planning traditions reflect.
Until now, all too little was known of this rich history. That is now definitively remedied. Trausti Valsson not only tells the story in rich detail, from the earliest origins of planning to the present day; he also sets it firmly within a rich geographical and historical context, so that in important respects this is a definitive general history of the development of social policy in a very distinctive Northern European country, with a distinguished story of positive intervention in social matters. Little known outside its homeland, this story needed to be written, and it has found an exceptionally able chronicler.
Thorough in its research, comprehensive in its scope, always highly readable, Trausti Valsson's book sets a new standard in historical scholarship and provides a model for other scholars in other countries to follow.
Professor Sir Peter Hall

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The book is 480 pages in US-letter format

 It has about 1250 pictures and maps

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The book costs about USD 78

  Ordering information in the UK and Europe:

Univ. of Iceland Press c/o Lavis Marketing, 73 Lime Walk, Headington, Oxford OX3 7AD   Ph  01865 76 7575   Fax  01865 75 00 79

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The book Planning in Iceland makes the story of settlements and urban development in Iceland available ¨C for the first time to foreign audiences

This thesis is divided up into five ¡°books¡± to underline the individual nature of these five parts.  They are:

Book One  ¨C Nature:  The Forces that Shape it

Book Two ¨C First Steps in the Shaping of Settlements

Book Three ¨C Plan Development of Towns and Regions

Book Four  ¨C Development of Systems on a Country Scale

Book Five  ¨C Developments of Today

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The author, Dr. Trausti Valsson, is a professor of planning at

the University of Iceland.  He was educated in Berlin and Berkeley

Dr. Valsson is author of eleven books - one other book also in English:

  City and Nature ¨C An Integrated Whole (2000)

This book is available for USD 23.95 (See agency abouve)

Dr. Valsson¡¯s Home Page: www.hi.is/~tv