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power over independent economic actors and institutions has reduced
proactive planning to a largely notional paper exercise.
I agree that planning cannot encompass all aspects of society and the
natural world with which it interacts and produce blueprints for the
future conduct of human activities. Our incomprehension of how eco-
systems behave and react to anthropogenic interference adds to other
'
that compromise the ideal of rational compre-
hensive planning. At the same time, the fact that perfection cannot be
achieved does not mean that the use of planning techniques to explore
how undesirable situations might be avoided or moved away from when
they are encountered should be abandoned. In this regard, opponents of
rational comprehensive planning also criticise the inadequacy of incre-
mentalism, a mode of planning that eschews a full analysis of available
options in preference for making improvements to situations as oppor-
tunities arise, because of its inability to challenge the status quo or
sustain a thorough review of whether changes in direction are needed.
6
Lang argues that a happy medium must be found between these two
poles of planning theory which allows strategies to be formed as per rational
comprehensive planning whilst
bounded rationalities
'
'
borrowing from incrementalism and
to temper its theoretical abstractions.
7
Ifollow
this approach in arguing that a move back towards a more progressive style
of planning is necessary if strategies for reducing the threats of ecological
harm are to be formed whilst recognising the impossibility of establishing a
perfect balance between socioeconomic systems and the natural world in
circumstances of profound uncertainty on both sides. The framework for
planning that I propose does not aspire to produce an exact statement of
society
observed common sense
'
s future as the outcome of planning processes. Its purpose is to
provide consistent guidance to planning and decision-making at all levels of
governance and to create fora that enhance coordination with a view to
ensuring that plans promote the pursuit of disparate sectoral, regional and
local aims in a way which advances ecological objectives.
It is also an inevitable consequence of the diminution of its role in
guiding socioeconomic systems that the in
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uence of public planning on
the private sector has been reduced. However, I suggest that this is more
due to an ideological reluctance by governments to take action that could
Planning
'
s Saving Grace or Road to Perdition?
'
(2006) 26 Journal of Planning Education
and Research,208.
6
Cullingworth and Nadin,
'
Town and Country Planning
'
, pp. 7
-
8; Lang,
'
Achieving
Integration
'
,pp.31
-
2.
7
Lang,
'
Achieving Integration
'
,p.32.
