Setting the scene: About planning and a world in change

Today’s world is predominantly urban. Most urban regions are located in delta regions. And delta regions face severe pressures because of their fragile environments, their delicate relationship with existing ecological habitats and coastal zones, which need protection, and the increasing constraints and threats due to climate change and sea level, rise. Delta regions are under pressure. Spatial planning is one of the means to maintain quality of living in delta regions. Spatial planning has a strong tradition in taking ‘here and now’ decisions to responding to problems and difficulties, with not much difference in technical and communicative approaches. If spatial planning wants to be supportive to transformations at various levels of scale in urbanized delta regions alternative time related approaches are desperately needed. The plurality of urbanized delta regions forces such time related planning approaches to be emergent, adaptive, co-evolving and transformative in nature. It means planning has to embrace a non-linear understanding of space and place. This book is meant as an introduction to non-linearity and spatial planning.