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.