A Community That Fails To Plan, Plans To Fail
Steve Herbaly, a former planning director, talks about how politics gets in the way of planning.
"In rural areas of the Rocky Mountain West such as Flathead County, if there is a land use policy plan, it is usually a set of vague generalities about goals for the future. It may contain some ideas about preservation, unless of course this preservation happens to keep John or Jane Doe from doing whatever they want with the land. The result is usually that there is little to no regulation, and substandard developments expand uncontrollably with no real services or infrastructure."
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planning failure or planners failure, is that the question?
My experience has shown that there are better ways to make decisions than what is being presented to US planners and important people who need to listen to them. For example, why are US planners still working with prescriptive legislation and regulations? Many leading industries create incentives and performance based criteria to motivate individuals to excel in decision making. Some countries use principles, objectives and performance criteria in planning documents to convey a sense of responsibility and accountability in the planning and decision making process.