negotiating table – supplicating, negotiating, ameliorating,
applying, assessing and monitoring. These process-planning
activities often constitute ‘the tail that wags the whole dog’ in
modern planning: observed by Jean Perraton decades ago (1972)
as an activity where ‘problem solvers tend to play down the
importance (or even deny the possibility of) innovation’. The
point to now register within this revisitation is that the intended
characteristic of the planning activity being addressed here is of
a goal-led, plan-led multiplex character.
The plan or plans resulting from plan-making show indicated
outcomes and preferred results: and the central concern for this
chapter is to clarify understanding about the preparation of such
plans within a multiple belief system – an openly democratic
environment. That ‘grounded’ context is the focus of the next
passage, which examines the working of traditional-lineal plan-
ning;followed bya passage which explores the radical-multiplex
strictures for development with conservancy.
Traditional-Lineal Planning
The traditional planning procedure has provided, historically, a purposeful-tar-
geted foundation to human domination over the biospheric envelope. At base this
amounts to: What do we have? What do we want? What do we do to get it? It is
predicated on the notion that communities actually ‘know’ what it is they ‘want’
and will be energized enough to attain it; and, or also, that planners have the req-
uisite certainty of knowledgeto be safely left with the powerto apply their opera-
Knowledge Power Outcomes 53Survey Analysis and prognosis Planning Delivery[Layered Information]
Agencies
Land uses S trengths
Traffic Potentials
Communications P
Population W eaknesses L ‘IMPLEMENTATION’
Landscape A and then
Utilities N ‘REVIEW’
Investments O pportunities [S]
Infrastructure Problems
Economy
Social welfare T hreats
Administration
Linkages etc.Figure 2.4 The ‘SWOT’ progression
After a planned
intention is made
known, and differences
of value emerge,dispute
resolutioncomes into
play. For guidance
consult: Lawrence
Susskind and Patrick
Field,Dealing with an
Angry Public (1996).
Before a planned
intention is disclosed,
consensus buildingcan
be harnessed to bridge
between value
differences. For guidance
consult:The Consensus
Handbook, Susskind,
McKearnan, Thomas-
Larmer 1999.