Sustainable Land-Use Planning

Approaches to sustainable land use planning haveevolved in two discreet directions. One isprocess-oriented that develops community-wideconsensus on the problems and definitions ofprogress. The other is more technology driven anduses planning support systems (PSS) to identifyissues and manage complex information. While process-oriented approaches help garnercommunal support in determining a future vision, itmay be cumbersome its ability to test alternativefutures and impacts. A technologically basedapproach helps to codify issues and processinformation, but requires more rigorous data andanalysis. And while it can test potential futurescenarios, it must also be clear enough to provide acommunally supported vision for the future.While the approaches appear contradictory, possiblebenefits can be found in their convergence. Othershave suggested that PSS?s exist that can help toinform and support the visioning process. Can thevisioning process in turn be used to improve therelevance and legitimacy of PSSs? This book arguesthat in order to truly operationalize sustainableplanning ideals we should consider a strategy thatintegrates process and technology.