Synopsis
It is no longer just conservative forces but mainstream American culture that opposes and ignores traditional planning formats if judged by action, not word. At its core, the current model has failed because it lacks social resonance and political acceptance within the society, and because interest-group politics enable multiple points of influence. If true land-use reform is to be achieved it must come from some other experimental path. This book suggests, among other things, that the future of American planning must shift in both sector orientation and approach if it is to regain societal relevance. It was in Oregon that I recognized the ethical dilemma of American planning practice and the limited effectiveness of many of our basic tools in a society steeped in competitive individualism. Cultural-Based Incentive Planning was specifically created to reduce the current contentiousness between Americas culture of competitive individualism and plannings egalitarian objectives. These principles work without question in applications from political campaigns to improving safety behavior in the workplace. Our challenge is to best apply these concepts and techniques to planning practice. Land planning in America, both town and county, is arguably the only significant category of environmental management in which major advancements in a system-wide context have not been achieved in the past 35 years. The concept of sustainability in planning is more than creating and maintaining a natural ecosystem, human environment, and supporting economy in balance. It is also inherently tied to social validity and sustained political consensus. One has difficulty conceiving how to achieve sustainability without accommodating these two critical elements in a freewheeling, market-based democracy like the United States. In the final analysis, if you believe in the concept of sustainability, planning programs must have both broad social validity and political acceptance to be effective.
About the Author
Donald R. Chance, Ph.D. Fate can be so very strange. After decades of professional wanderlust as a planner, I found myself returning to the university scene for a boot-camp style intellectual retrofit and a Ph.D. at the age of 55. It was a little like volunteering for Ranger paratrooper school three decades late it made absolutely no sense at my age. What drove me back to academia was a long simmering dissatisfaction with the results of American planning. This manuscript is virtually my exact and completed doctoral dissertation specifically written and reviewed from inception as a potential book a book that my doctorial committee informed me I would write if I ever wanted to escape their grasp. It has undergone the rigorous review of six senior Ph.D. faculty members at Virginia Tech over two years with specializations in planning, land-use law, behavioral economics, behavioral psychology, and communications. It has also been subjected to review by outside academics in natural resource management, and professional planners and legislative affairs specialists. No portions of the manuscript have been used in journal publications, and the dissertation has been restricted to only electronic access by members of the Virginia Tech campus. In short, as applied to planning it is largely new material. My experience as a planner is much more extensive than my academic pursuits. In fact, I would never make the claim to be a true planning academic, far from it, although I spent years as a researcher and lecturer. Instead, I have synthesized the clever basic research and theoretical contributions of some wonderfully talented people, largely outside the discipline of planning, with my own professional insights into an applied model of practice for American planners. While uncomfortable to me personally, I recite here my professional and academic background in the interest of full disclosure, and at the insistence of my publisher, so that you may understand my perspective and where it originates. My resume includes 33 years of urban planning, including current and advanced planning functions, commercial and residential site design and development, municipal ordinance development and administration, and environmental assessment. This includes 18 years of management experience in the administration of local government planning agencies, housing and natural resource industry trade associations, and planning consulting firms. In addition, my professional time has also painfully included 16 legislative sessions in the states of Washington and Montana, as well as Washington, D.C. representing various clients groups. I dealt with governmental and legislative affairs on a broad range of land planning, property development and natural resource management issues with an emphasis on collaboration and consensus building in complex political and economic environments. Finally, interspersed with my practical experience were my years as a university professor and researcher in the fields of environmental design and planning with a specialization in small cities and incentive-based planning formats.
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