and empowerment of a jointly owned trinity, operated on a profit-
sharing basis. Yet because this was, let us assume, an action of the
heart rather than the head, the three landowners have not pre-
pared a legally effective contract, and it transpires that their imag-
inative arrangement gets undermined because of wrangles over
unequal rates of participation. Even this outcome, compared with
the ‘traditional’ approach ‘B’, does not quite match up with the-
oretical ‘radicality’, although it sets out to be sympathetic to the
landscape.
A solution which would be awkward to implement, but bound
to work, is given in the construct as option ‘D’, a radical-
traditional resolution. For this format each landowner, according to their skill, is
assigned the class of land appropriate to that skill. This retitling and reappor-
tionment (known on the continent of Europe as remembrement) has not, thus far,
struck a chord with North American and Australasian landowners, although it
loosely accords with the adaptability ascribed to ‘flexible zoning’ (Porter, Phillips,
Lassar 1991).
Such are the options and hopes for planners working for their ‘communities of
concern’ in multiple belief circumstances where morally conscious and ethically
driven private and public institutions set out to contribute to the future of their
communities. Conservation with development is recommended, in this context,
for urban, rural and regional landscapes in order to bring about a progressive
three-point ‘ranked’ outcome. Firstthere is the quest to generate ever-improving
across-the-board material comfort and wellbeing; Secondis the aim to provide
security for individuals and to empower communities through their social struc-
tures; and Thirdthere is harmonization in the use of resources and enjoyment of
the environment within the overall landscape ‘indefinitely’. This trinity or ‘triple
bottom line’ is a rather at odds combination particularly difficult to achieve on all
three fronts in these tumultuous times of technological advance, entrenched free-
hold ownership, political flux and liberalization of global trade.
How Planning Works
Development, conservation and planning all exist in combination as part of a
public corporatist agenda for pre-figuring the general good of communities within
society, and for the benefit of individuals. The intervention of ‘planning’ within
otherwise ‘natural’ change patterns – urbanization, mining, forestry, fishing and
agribusiness – is justified on the presumption that such intervention will make a
useful difference – producing profit surpluses, inducing growth, providing
variety, allowing diversity, and nowadays being sustainable.
Technical achievements of the modern world, in and of themselves, amount to
nothingexceptin their service to society. Planning fails society when it establishes
a land use in the wrong place (housing on flood plains, useless suburban back-
land reserves), or installs a community service that is not adequately connected
Knowledge Power Outcomes 49In the paraphrased
opinion of Brian Quinn
(quoted in Mintzberg
1994) ‘planning [as
zoning: styled ‘B’ in the
construct] is like a ritual
rain dance...for...it
has no effect on the
weather that follows –
but those who engage in
it think it does.’