AICP Certification Exam Selected Readings

The following list may help planners who are preparing to take the AICP examination. Please note that the readings are presented with two cautions:

No reading list can span the entire range of material in the AICP exam. As a result, the list is not a substitute for professional planning experience and education. It is not expected that exam takers will have read all the resources cited.
The readings are intended as guidelines only. The AICP exam questions are not drawn from these readings directly, but are developed from materials of similar content.

General Reference

Books

Dalton, Linda, Charles Hoch, and Frank So (eds.). 2000. The Practice of Local Government Planning. Washington, D.C.: ICMA.

American Planning Association (ed.). 2006. Planning and Urban Design Standards. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

APA General References

Planning magazine

Journal of the American Planning Association

PAS reports

Planning & Environmental Law

Policy Guides

I. History, Theory and Law

Brooks, Michael. 2002. Planning Theory for Practitioners. Chicago: American Planning Association: (2002).

Campbell, Scott (ed). 2003. Readings in Planning Theory. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.

Eisner, Simon, Arthur Gallion, and Stanley Eisner. 1993. The Urban Pattern (6th ed). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Lucero, Lora (ed.). 2005. Four Supreme Court Land-Use Decisions of 2005. Planning Advisory Service Report No. 535. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Hall, Peter. 1988. Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Irons, Peter H. 1996. May It Please the Court. New York: New Press.

Krueckeberg, Donald (ed.). 1983. Introduction to Planning History in the United States. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy.

Peterson, Jon. 2003. The Birth of City Planning in the United States: 1840-1917. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Scott, Mel. 1995. American City Planning Since 1890. Chicago: American Planning Association.

II. Plan Making and Implementation

Babbie, Earl R. 2006. The Practice of Social Research (2006). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing.

Chang, Kang-Tsung. 2008. Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Dandekar, Hemalata. 2003. Planner's Use of Information (2nd ed.). Chicago: American Planning Association.

Gaber, John, and Sharon Gaber. 2007. Qualitative Analysis for Planning & Policy: Beyond the Numbers. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Klosterman, Richard E. 1990. Community Analysis and Planning Techniques. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

McLean, Mary L., and Kenneth Voytek. 1992. Understanding Your Economy: Using Analysis to Guide Local Strategic Planning. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Meier, Kenneth J., Jeffrey L. Brudney, and John Bohte. 2008. Applied Statistics for Public and Nonprofit Administration. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing.

Myers, Dowell. 1992. Portraits of Change: Methods of Analysis With Local Census Data. Boston: Academic Press, Inc.

Patton, Carl, and David S. Sawicki. 1993. Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education.

Smith, Stanley K., Jeff Tayman, and David A. Swanson. 2001. State and Local Population Projections: Methodology and Analysis. New York: Springer Publishing Co.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. www.census.gov

III. Functional Areas of Practice

Berke, Philip R., and David R. Godschalk. 2006. Urban Land Use Planning (5th ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Campbell, Scott. 1996. "Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities?: Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development." Journal of the American Planning Association 62, no. 3: 296-312.

Daniels, Tom, and Katherine Daniels. 2003. Environmental Planning Handbook. Chicago: American Planning Association.

DeGrove, John. 2003. Planning, Policy and Politics: Smart Growth and the States. Cambridge, Mass.; Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Downs, Anthony. 2004.Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Litman, Todd. 2006. Parking Management Best Practices. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Marsh, William M. 2005. Landscape Planning: Environmental Applications, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Meyer, M.D., and E.J. Miller. 2001. Urban Transportation Planning: A Decision Oriented Approach (2nd ed.) Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Moore, Terry, Paul Thorsnes, and Bruce Appleyard. 2007. The Transportation/Land Use Connection. Planning Advisory Service Report No. 546. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Nolon, John, and Patricia Salkin. 2006. Land Use in a Nutshell. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West.

Randolph, John. 2003. Environmental Land Use Planning and Management. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Shoup, Donald C. 2005. The High Cost of Free Parking. Chicago:American Planning Association.

IV. Spatial Areas of Practice

Arendt, Randall G. 1994. Rural by Design. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Barnett, Jonathan. 2003. Redesigning Cities: Principle, Practice, Implementation. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Burchell, Robert W., et al. 1998. The Costs of Sprawl: Revisited. Transit Cooperative Research Program Report No. 39. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Burchell, Robert W., and Sahan Muberji. 2003. "Conventional Development Versus Managed Growth: The Costs of Sprawl." American Journal of Public Health 93: 1534-1540.

Burby, Raymond J., Peter May, Philip R. Berke, and Linda C. Dalton. 1997. Making Governments Plan: State Experiments in Managing Land Use. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

DeChiara, Joseph, and Lee Koppelman. 1982. Urban Planning and Design Criteria (3rd ed.). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.

Ewing, Reid. 1997. "Is Los Angeles-Style Sprawl Desirable?" Journal of the American Planning Association 63, no 1: 107-126.

Gordon, Peter, and Harry W. Richardson. 1997. "Are Compact Cities a Desirable Planning Goal?" Journal of the American Planning Association 63, no. 1: 95-106.

V. Public Participation and Social Justice

Arnstein, S. 1969. "A Ladder of Citizen Participation." Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35: 216-224.

Creighton, James L. 2005. The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions Through Citizen Involvement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tochterman, Joel (ed.). Public Participation and Community Engagement: Selected Resources. Sacramento: California Department of Housing and Community Development, Housing Policy Division.

Davidoff, P. 1965. "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning." Journal of the American Institute of Planners 31: 331-338.

Fisher, Roger, Bruce M. Patton, and William L. Ury. 1992. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. New York: Penguin Books.

Forester, John. 1999. The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Processes. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Friedmann, J. 1973. "The Public Interest and Community Participation." Journal of the American Institute of Planners 39: 2-12.

Innes, Judith E., and David E. Booher. 2004. "Reframing Public Participation: Strategies for the 21st Century." Planning Theory & Practice 5, no. 4: 419-436.

Peattie, L. 1968. "Reflections on Advocacy Planning." Journal of the American Institute of Planners 34: 80-87.

VI. AICP Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

American Planning Association. Ethics for the Certified Planner. www.planning.org/ethics.

Barrett, Carol D. 2001. Everyday Ethics for Practicing Planners. Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Certified Planners.

Bolan, Richard S. 1983. "The Structure of Ethical Choice in Planning Practice." Journal of Planning Education and Research 3: 23-34.

Forrester, John. 1987. "Planning in the Face of Conflict: Negotiation and Mediation Strategies in Local Land Use Regulation." Journal of the American Planning Association 53, no. 3: 303-314.

Marcuse, P. 1976. "Professional Ethics Beyond Values in Planning." Journal of the American Institute of Planners 42: 264-294.