The fact that the Anglo settler societies confront multiple con-
fusions vindicates the introduction of broad-spectrum policies for
achieving balance and empowerment. The structural nature of
this neomodern spectrum is indicated within box 1.2 in the style
ofNew-age pragmatics with an emphasis on sustainable per-
formance (see also the Charter Matrixdetailed in chapter 3, box
3.7).The basis for conservation practice and development planning
was defined during and after World War II in four main ways:
in consideration of environmental, gender, ethical and first-people
verities. It is almost as though the values of nature (for whose
sake? does nature have a soul?) have now been added in to the
anthropocentric equation. To the ‘four ways’ listing Beatley
(1994) identifies those faced with ethical judgements about
land use: namely, landowners, homeowners and landholders,
public lands users, custodians of community interests, elected
and appointed managers, the land management professionals
and their institutions. A deconstruction of their conflicting and
often mutually excluding motives informs sustainable urban
planning.
There is also a need to understand the motivational forces
and the moral and bio-ethical basis for development, conser-
vancy and planning interventions; to identify (Hillier 1993)
‘whether any form of discursive democracy is actually achiev-
able’ and or also whether community empowerment, particu-
larly urban community empowerment, is deliverable? What
we know is that governments – left and right – have clutched
at difficult times to social wellbeing; then at other more
affluent times to environmental harmony; and most consis-
tently to development and growth. Despite adverse social and
environmental consequences, one theme has always been
around, namely material monetized growth by every means
available. This includes the delusion of consuming tomorrow’s
goods today, mostly using tomorrow’s capital! As a conse-
quence planners have had to face the reality that individual
profits and material immediacy has come before community
needs and preferences, particularly in the conscience of elected
political representatives working hard to keep their political
place.
So confusing and discordant has the growth objective been
in relation to the ideals for social wellbeing and environmen-
tal harmony that it spawned a school of planning ‘thought’
offered up in the early post-war decade as the Science of Mud-
dling Through(Lindblom 1959) involving ‘incremental politics
and partisan mutual adjustment’.^12 This was a long way from look-ahead socially24 Principles
‘How then could
individuals possibly
replace government In a
democracy they are
government.’
The Unconscious
Civilization, John Ralston
Saul, 1997In order to test the
pervasiveness of
modern technology
rank this list of
alphabetically ordered
twentieth-century
technological step-
changes in order of
importance – listing
those you could least
do without ‘first’, and
those you’d be most
ready to give up on
‘last’.
Antibiotics
Airplane travel
Automobiles
Birth pill
Computers
Electricity
Food preservation
Genetic engineering
Motion pictures
Nuclear capability
Plastics
Plumbing in the home
Radio
Reinforced concrete
Space travel
Tapwater supply
Telephone
Television
Sewerage disposal
Vacationing
See where, on the list,
you would draw a cut-
off line if it were
imperative to do so!