Tools for Integrated and Participatory PlanningUN-Habitat founded its in-house Urban Planning and Design Lab in Nairobi in order to provide assistance to local, regional and national authorities with urban planning and design. The Lab has been a response to a growing demand from cities to UN-Habitat not only to provide tools for their urbanization challenges, but also to respond to urban planning in general that remains to be hampered by general reflections without providing clear solutions that can cope with the speed of urbanization.
This publication discusses three themes: key challenges that urban planning faces today, how a Planning Lab can address these and help local or national governments, and straightforward step-by-step guidelines on how to set up a Planning Lab. By exploring these themes through the past and ongoing practices of the UN-Habitat Planning Lab’s work and through concrete case-studies, this publication deduces experience-based guidelines and advices that can help cities facing similar challenges, offering methodologies for inspiration and duplication.