Should government and company planners influence each other?

With the National Plan of 1965, government planning in Britain got off to a poor start. Now, with the Governement's green paper, The Task Ahead, it seems about to be reborn. In this article the author argues the case for closer co-operation between planners in government and planners in business along the lines of the planning dialogue which occurs in NEDC. He answers critics who complain of government pressure on industry and the undue influence of business on government, and suggests that “consultative planning is essential if national plans to be made flexible and realistic, and if company plans are to be made with the national interest in mind”.     

Corporate planning in local government—a case study

The authors set out their view of the peculiar problems facing corporate planners in local government as compared with the private sector and their view of the nature of corporate planning in this special environment. By way of illustration as to how one local authority has attempted to introduce corporate planning, the article includes a case study of the City of Bradford Metropolitan Council.     

Understanding the planner’s role in lookahead construction planning

Capacity planning is instrumental in production planning as the variability witnessed in construction projects complicates the planner’s role in achieving a balance between weekly task load and available resources. The purpose of this article is to assess the effects of capacity planning on a project’s time and cost performance and to inform planners on the pitfalls of uninformed capacity planning. A simulation model is developed to test several project scenarios against different capacity planning methods. Cost, time and planning quality measures are developed to track project’s performance throughout the construction period. Results show that the planner’s choice of capacity planning method and the type of project both affect a project’s cost and duration. Interestingly, informed planners who are aware of a project’s characteristics are able to achieve the best balance between weekly load and capacity. They are able to reduce incurred costs wasted on idle resources without significantly affecting the construction period.     

Planners' Perspectives on Obstacles to Sustainable Urban Development: Implications for Transformative Planning Strategies

A major problem confronting planning is the gap between transformative proposals and enduring urban development trends. The paper interprets interviews with 62 planners involved in a sustainable urban development strategy in a large region focussed on Toronto, Canada. Surveyed planners were asked about the obstacles they encounter when attempting to modify prevailing urban development. Mentioned obstacles are consistent with expectations arising from three major perspectives on inertia: institutionalism, political economy and path dependence. Interviews also highlight the role of planners' practical knowledge in identifying and interpreting obstacles, and the existence of a consensus among respondents over sustainable urban development.     

What kind of corporate planner do you need?

The planning literature ignores distinctions among types of plans and types of planners. Consequently, a systematic pairing of planners and a company's level of planning need is not well understood or implemented in practice. This paper provides two missing links in order to bridge this shortfall between theory and practice. One is a planning matrix which establishes six possible planning modes for a company based on its stage of development and management style. The second is a distinction between three types of planners who would be appropriate to each planning mode. The matrix plus the three categories of planners provides a new tool for management in its responsibility for planning the job of the corporate planner. In doing so, it also surfaces some underlying causes of organizational strain and stress associated with the corporate planner's position.     

Cultural Differences: A Cross-cultural Study of Urban Planners from Japan,Mexico, the U.S., Serbia-Montenegro,Russia, and South Korea

This study evaluates the efficacy of Hofstede’s indexes of national culture in the context of public planning agencies across six countries—US, Mexico, Serbia-Montenegro, Russia, Japan, and South Korea. We surveyed 343 planning employees and computed separate one-way, between groups analyses of variance to test for overall differences in Hofstede’s indexes. We found that public planning officials across countries are significantly different on all five dimensions of culture. We comment on how cultural differences might factor into urban planners’ attitudes toward advocacy and social equity planning, market-based planning, citizen participation, rational planning, and other issues relevant to planners’ roles.     

Dealing with Conflict in Local Planning: Reflections from Australian Planners

Planners routinely deal with issues involving conflict, regularly engaging with people who may be upset, angry and at times aggressive. Yet planners are not conflict resolution specialists and their role is not necessarily to act as mediator. The level of conflict they experience can be stressful and challenging. This paper reports on interviews conducted with local government planners in Melbourne, Australia, in which they discuss their experience with conflicts and reflect on their preparation for this challenging aspect of their profession. The results indicate the need for more emphasis on training in a range of personal and professional behaviours within planning education.     

If we cannot forecast how can we plan?

The purpose of this article is to deal directly and explicitly with the issues and problems currently facing forecasting, planning and strategy and to discuss how the challenges of the 1980s can be realistically and effectively met. The article deals with the various environmental changes that have taken place and their implications for planners; presents empirical evidence, originating from the literature and the area of psychology concerned with human judgment processes; and outlines several new ideas which contribute towards integrating forecasting, planning and strategy and dealing with the turbulent enviroment of the future.     

Planning for job creation

Economic and technological change makes planning more important than ever. But a fundamentally different type of urban planning is now being called for. How people are employed is the most urgent and pressing problem to confront today's planners. The author analyzes the problem, confronts the mythical solutions and suggests how new types of planning might be used.     

Making Competitive Cities in the Light of the Meta-SWOT Tool: A Case Study of Tehran,Iran

ABSTRACT

While there is a growing body of scholarship on regional competitiveness, little attention has been paid to the planning methods that can pursue this objective. Public planners are mainly relying on conventional methods that have come under increasing criticism. This study aims to introduce Meta-SWOT as a novel planning tool in urban and regional studies. Meta-SWOT provides competitive and realistic strategies for planners. It systematically tries to present strategies rooted in internal resources and capabilities while acknowledging the challenges posed by the external environment. Nevertheless, it has several limitations that should be considered when applying to urban and regional planning.     

Organizational implications for long range planning

Much long range planning has ignored the need to change the firm's organization as its environment changes. Research demonstrates that those organizations which are effective have structures and behaviour which are congruent with their environments. To ensure that organizations can cope and adapt to future changes in environmental conditions long range planners need to take into consideration the appropriate development of both the organization and its members. This needs a multi-disciplinary approach in which behavioural scientists can play an important role. The Chemical Allied Products Industry Training Board has been developing a technology for examining organizations which could assist long range planners and managers to develop the organization and its members to suit the needs of future environmental change. This article discusses the many implications of these points.     

Planning in a state of turbulence

This paper is concerned with an exploration of the role of the long range planner, whether in the private or public sector of the economy, and the impact made upon the processes of his work by government's increasing propensity to manipulate the economy. The authors' researches over the last 2 years into the comparative nature of planning processes in the U.K. economy have made it abundantly clear to them that planners are increasingly concerned at the dangerous potential of such impact upon their forecasting procedures. The emphasis here will rest upon the planner in private enterprises, although the authors' work in both local government and the nationalized enterprises suggest that the problem is of equal importance in these sectors.The authors consider first the past nature of the search processes in long range planning and the context of such attempts to narrow down the range of variables that form the enterprise's perception of its future. Secondly, they examine the emerging discontinuity and the changing role of government, with particular reference to indicative planning concepts. Then they introduce some of the findings of a recent survey of attitudes towards long range planning in the construction industry of the U.K., a sector vitally influenced by turbulence in the economy and with particular interest in government's ideas of macro-planning. Finally Edwards and Harris examine the implications to government and to planners of their findings.     

Corporate planning as a control system in United Kingdom nationalized industries

Since the late 1960s some U.K. nationalized industries have undertaken corporate planning as a means of exercising control. In the early 1970s, the U.K. Government, on the advice of one of its select committees, required that all U.K. nationalized industries undertake corporate planning. This requirement has been reinforced through a White Paper in 1978, in which the government reiterated that it saw corporate planning as a major instrument of control both for the nationalized industries themselves, and also for government in its relationships with the industries.This paper examines the development of corporate planning in nationalized industries. The findings are based on research carried out since 1976 in which discussions have taken place with corporate planners in most of the major U.K. nationalized industries. The method followed was to send planners a structured questionnaire covering the field of enquiry, and to follow this by an interview (or interviews) at a high level which would allow further discussion, particularly on the issues seen as important to the organization. The questionnaire was subsequently completed in consultation with the people concerned.     

Strategies for planning

In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion amongst planning specialists and academics about the gap which exists between the theory of planning as set out in journals and textbooks, and the practice of planning in private and public organizations. Planners are continually complaining about the resistance to planning by top management and operating managers in divisions and departments.In this article the author aims to produce a reconciliation between theory and practice and to discuss what alternative strategies are open to planners in devising planning systems for their organizations.He suggests that the problem has its origin in the fact that corporate planning theory was first developed by management scientists as a total systems approach. Corporate planners have failed to sell an integrated planning system either as programme budgeting or as corporate planning. Research suggests that a management team can only adopt and implement a comprehensive planning system in very special circumstances, e.g. when the organization's survival is threatened, a new management team has been appointed and the staff of the organization are ready to accept radical change.In normal circumstances the planner is wrong to advocate a ‘root and branch’ solution. He must diagnose the planning needs of the organization and his objective must be not merely to establish a particular planning procedure but rather to discover how he can best improve the quality of management decisions.Recent studies on strategy formation indicate that the introduction of a formal planning procedure is only a partial answer to the problem of improving the quality of management decisions.The paper reviews various approaches to planning and considers how they relate to organizations with different strategic problems, with differing organization structures and various management styles.     

Water rights,conservation and recreation planning

Decision making for administrative planning is a particularly important factor. Additionally, water resource management is a major problem for public agencies. Therefore, a case study was developed on the Illinois water rights laws, their implications for planning, and the need to use a total system approach to water resource planning to prevent a massive chaotic situation. Many of the problems created in Illinois because of the lack of a coordinated approach to water rights laws and planning were identified, and suggestions were made to alleviate the situation. While the article relates to a specific environment and a particular set of laws, it raises questions which will be pertinent to water resource planners in many other locations.     

Marketing planning in a service economy

This article discusses the need for effective planning of the vital services which support modern industrial economies. The influence of the public sector on private industry has grown substantially over the past decade. Government intervention in industry is no longer unique; the public sector and the private sector are in tandem and corporate planners in both areas should establish and develop a fruitful dialogue.     

Planning Interventions: Urban Bias,Social Reform and the City

The planning profession struggled for urban amelioration, but avoided confronting the conflict between the redistributive public interest and the goals of industrial capital, resulting in a devaluing of social planning in the US. This article classifies social biases in planning and relates them to sanctuary cities. In the current crisis, launched by the federal government’s hostile rhetoric to immigrants, the planning apparatus is forced to confront what it has sought to avoid – planning for the just, inclusive city that has to reckon with the presence of some of the poorest urban populations.     

Environmental forecasting and non-profit professional organizations

To undertake any kind of realistic planning activity, it is useful to have a long-term environmental forecast which provides the planner with an overall perspective. The planner will be functioning over the next decade in a very dynamic, complex and challenging political, economic, technological and social environment, and will require very effective planning efforts to cope with such changing environment. This article presents an approach and methodology that a planner could use in his/her organization's planning process. To the best of our knowledge, very few organizations—profit and non-profit oriented—undertake a formal long-term environmental forecast. This article might encourage several planners to examine this area of long range planning in their respective organizations. The long- term environmental forecasting approach presented in this article could be applied by planners in all types of organizations—small or large, profit oriented or non-profit oriented, old or new. This article, however, is based on a study which the authors did for a non-profit organization.     

Profiteering from Disaster: Why Planners Need to be Paying More Attention to Insurance

Insurance is overlooked in planning practice and research. Focusing on house and contents insurance in Australia’s disaster-prone areas, I describe why the impacts of insurance availability and pricing on urban form requires greater attention from planners. With increasing climate change-related risks, the growing influence of insurance and insurers is exacerbating social and financial inequity: fostering disadvantaged enclaves and protected pockets of wealth, and sustaining insurer profits. I call for the better integration of insurance within planning, particularly a more considered and careful mobilization of insurance in disaster preparation. I present four research questions for advancing planning in disaster-prone urban areas.     

Empty Signifiers of Transformation in Participatory Planning and the Marginalization of Black People in South Africa

There is no doubt that participation as a development paradigm for the transformation of planning in South Africa took off in the early days of democracy with a revolutionary zeal. The mood of transforming planning practice from apartheid planning associated with top-down authoritarian modernist systems towards bottom-up post-apartheid democratic systems was marked by the emergence of a deluge of African metaphors such as indaba, lekgotla, simunye, tswele pele, etc. These metaphors immediately entered the scene of planning and policy documents, and this was seen largely as signifying the increased participation of black people marking moments of inclusion, transformation and empowerment. However, the legacy of apartheid planning still pervades through the work that planners do and its arresting impact remains unabated in South Africa. This paper explores the emergence of these African metaphors in participatory planning and their implications on the transformation of planning in South Africa. The paper advances the argument that African metaphors of participation have acted as empty signifiers of transformation for black people in the integrated development planning process. While the metaphors are used to construct politically sellable image for participatory processes, participation has gained ideological traction to support Eurocentric and globalist traditions of urban change. Participation reflects a new way of thinking about order, peace and development, and the African metaphors are not instrumental in changing the Eurocentric and global capitalist logic presiding over the constitution of law, theory and the technical instruments of planning.