Planning participation in public decision making

By posing as specialists in forecasting the future, by arguing the “inevitability of technological progress, and by hiding behind the skirts of public officials, planners in the public sector seek to exercise power without responsibility—power to determine the shape of life for the rest of us. The author attacks this myth of the all- seeing planner and in the process seeks to demolish some of the planners' unwarranted assumptions about “the year 2000”, the future of technology, the affluent society, the age of leisure, etc.