considerable hard graft and political contestability involved in latching onto the
tenets of triple-balanced sustainability. Much can be done through the interdisci-
plinary enclaves and layers of the education system, working with pre-schools,
through grade schools and colleges, right on to the graduate academy.Trends and Changes: A Concluding Commentary
The ‘dilemma of central-local relations’ (Stewart 1981) is constantly being both
added to and resolved. There is emerging evidence of less central government
intervention,with local government more in control of its actions – sometimes
perceived as an abrogation of central responsibility, but more thoughtfully
endorsed as subsidiarity.
With improved and easier communication there is scope for greater consulta-
tion and cooperation between central and local levels of government, particularly
in terms of sharing information and in shared work experience and personnel
exchanges. As inter-government distinctions are clarified, public administration
can move away from interventionist ‘regulatory’ controls toward a greater use of
‘inducement’ including deemed-to-comply procedures.
Misunderstanding between central government and local government profes-
sionals remains a complication for both conservancy and development. This
derives usually from central officials viewing their role as an interventionist one,
organizationally and in terms of the advice they give out. By contrast, local gov-
ernment officials are inclined to view themselves as geared to achieving transfor-
mational outcomes and ‘getting things done’. Neither role is that clear cut. A case
can be identified for pluralistic central-local working relationships which require
that central government transactional and local government transformational
efforts defer to a consideration of conservation withdevelopment. There is a need
for policy to move in the direction of neomodernity – a matter of getting commu-
nities to work toward economic-social-environmental wellbeing. What is called
for is a coordination of transactional policies and transformation practices: the
overall objective being generalized improvement in lifestyle, particularly the
improvement of urban lifestyle variety through the coordination of conservation
withdevelopment
Viewed from a domestic perspective the households which comprise a locally
governed community are ‘paid back’ through the non-profit services they ‘invest’
into. Year after year, this is the way local administrations operate. Unfortunately,
performance for the whole of a community, involving a noble pursuit of the
‘highest best use’ principle for land, can be virtually unattainable within conven-
tional local government practice. This calls for ‘social profitability’ to be factored
in, so local government can register the success arising from a cleaving to those
‘highest best use’ principles.
There is certainly now a great deal more agency-to-agency as well as agency-
to-public consultation than existed in the pre-Fax and email era, although much
communication can be judged as lip-service consultation via sent, but unread,
messages, with political leaders and public mentors ‘looking through’ and ‘talking276 Practice