wants to admit ethical shortsightedness and amnesia over the
past century, the state of the earth speaks to our narrowness and
neglect.’ Out of World War II there followed the behavioural
refinements of operations research, systems analysis and scien-
tific management, mainly to cut down on time losses and fiscal
costs. These techniques were followed in turn by the also empiri-
cist ‘social impact assessment’ and ‘environmental impact
abatement’ procedures. The carry-over to contemporary urban
planning is a replica, repeating and reproducing what has gone
before. This is apparent with procedures which endorse the status
quo. What happens is that the indicator usage pattern is extrap-
olated and enlarged upon in urban plans, serving developer gains
ahead of the interests of the communities they are intended for.
Another example arises in the context of scheduling prime agri-
cultural land for ‘enclosure’ into urban use on a 20-year look-
ahead basis, serving local developer cash-up and move-on
interests ahead of national needs. From these examples it can be
seen that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been, and
largely continue in the twenty-first century to be, identifiable with
formula-growth models, the trend being set by developers and
landowners rather than the identification of settlement roles and
community needs.
An abbreviation and re-expression of the traditional plan-
making process, based on Le Breton and Henning’s classic
(1961)Planning Theoryis presented in figure 2.5 as the Tradi-
tional planning sequence. The core is the lineal progression: a
step-after-step progression where theoretically, and usually in
practice, each ‘step’ is completed in sequence.
In relation to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century work of
the settler engineer, surveyor, and architect, the traditional
planning sequence, whether consciously pursued or not, gave rise
to such orthogonal examples as the box bridge, the settle-
mentgrid, and the office block. The 11 steps leading to finite project
completion in figure 2.5 are processional, one event
following the other in an ordered sequence, culminating with
completion.
Data analysis and design can be refined and improved by
revisiting the earlier steps (1–5) on a ‘feedback’ basis within the
‘11-step’ sequence. These feedback refinements are of little
improving effect if the blueprint itself is flawed, which is fre-
quently the case. Two adverse outcomes via the blueprint
approach can be anticipated: first, ‘master urban’ plans take
unconscionably long periods of time to come to fruition when left
to the machinations of the marketplace; Second, ‘master urban’
plans are put in a constitutional quandary because their fixed
Knowledge Power Outcomes 55A personal early lesson
arising from the
‘traditional planning’
approach arose during
the mid-1960s following
my preparation of
constitutionally correct
first-time ‘master plans’
for Ba, Nadi and
Sigatoka: river-crossing
settlements on the
westerly side of Viti
Levu in Fiji. The
hurricanes which hit the
island a few years later
swept away many of the
railroad bridges, which
underwrote these loci
standi.The replacement
bridges were sited
‘elsewhere’ at the then
technically most
appropriate positions,
throwing the master
plans into disarray. From
this early experience
was gained an insight
into the limitations of
‘traditional’ master
planning, and the role
and utility of ‘flexibility’.Because so much down-
time, money and
emotional energy can be
lost on fatuous
information assembly, I
re-express here the title
headings to the Step 5
principles of data
assembly as:suitability,
economy, efficiency,
relative accuracy,
sufficient to the cause,
and simplicity; keywords
emphasized because
information assembly is
the stage where many
planning practitioners
become mesmerized by
data collections and data
comparisons – to the
neglect of plan-making.