Book excerpt: Beginning with a brief history of contemporary urban design, the book tracks urban design's roots in architecture and planning and identifies how and why it has emerged as a separate discipline. It then sets out the principles and key criteria that underpin urban design and explains how urban designers interpret policy, baseline data, and graphical analysis to present an understanding of place and space. The book concludes by highlighting a number of growing urban challenges facing cities today, discussing how urban design can play a leading role in tackling issues connected with climate change, globalisation, and technological advancements, and positively respond to the current and future needs of society.