Ray Spaxman came across this wonderful quote.
Rowan Moore (Observer (UK) 2014), commenting on what is happening in London.
Great planning does not mean either “most restrictive” or “most laissez-faire”. It means creating the conditions for growth and change while maintaining a vision of the common good. It balances competing interests. It includes a grasp of the cumulative effect of individual decisions, which private developers will not have.
It can protect long-term benefits against damage from short-term profit. It has the ability to spot problems before they become crises and find a way to address them. It can review alternative approaches to an issue, such as population growth, and promote the best ones.
It has clarity and consistency, so everyone knows where they stand. It has the ability to review the results of its own decisions, and learn from them. It is informed by knowledge, not guesswork. It is the result of genuine and transparent public debate.
Ray: It seems right on target for our own shared concerns. Downtown policies, guidelines and development controls, Downtown Eastside Planning, local area plans and processes, urban design, some visions for the future city, transportation priorities, engaging citizens genuinely, densification, affordability and so on.
Also sounds like something that would benefit a great deal from a lot more interactive digitisation. Walk around 3D worlds that represent the outcome of current plans and proposals; comment in place; consistently question receive input (reddit style up and downvotes) and review whenever concerns reach critical mass, not at arbitrary 5 or 10 year periods.
Better than one-day billboards at inconvenient brief times in inconvenient places; or never-read pdfs with aspirational watercolours and photoshop people.
But what are the conditions for growth?
Can planners really create the conditions for growth?
Is growth caused by forces over which planners have no control?
Is growth always desirable?
Is growth always good?
Is there an end to growth?
Is it possible that growth has nothing to do with change?
What is the cause of change?
Is all change for the good?
Is some change bad change?
Who has the vision of the common good?
Who shall we believe?
What vision will prevail?
Does great planning exist anywhere?
Is “great planning” just a set of platitudes looking for a home?
“Consensus is something that everyone eventually agrees to collectively, but that which no one believes in, individually.”