The Future of Shared Vision Planning

Planning is an act of abstraction in which alternative decisions are tested by comparing the future results we think those decisions will cause. The future of planning is shared vision planning, but the future of planning is not assured. The coincidence of planning and public involvement with the revolutionary performance improvements and price reductions in personal computing made shared vision planning possible. There is little doubt that computer advances will allow far more powerful and comprehensive shared vision planning tools, but will they influence decisions? If planning does not produce obviously better solutions than one can achieve in the courts, the legislature, by regulation or by simply doing nothing, then they will not. The challenge to water resources planners is to confront the reasons why planning has not lived up to its promise and fix it if it can be fixed.