Planning for sustainable development: what can be learned from the critics?

Abstract

Yet experiences with state planning initiatives in the twentieth century have been deeply ambiguous. On one hand, the complex planning mechanisms through which governments seek to structure and orient patterns of social and economic interaction have been associated with real achievements. On the other hand, planning and planners have been linked to a steady stream of policy fiascos and disasters. It is not just that planning techniques have been pressed into the service of dubious ends, but that laudable ends pursued by wellintentioned bodies have so often resulted in acute disappointment: either because the original objectives were never attained, because these objectives were subsequently revealed as ill-conceived or illusory, or because the harvest of anticipated benefits was vitiated by the unintended consequences of the policies designed to secure them.

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