ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, spatial planning was presented as a social practice through which those concerned with the qualities of places and the spatial organization of urban regions collaborate to produce strategies, policies and plans to help guide specific decisions in order to regulate and invest in development activity. It was also argued that there are pressures to widen the range of those involved in these practices in order to include those in the private sector and voluntary groups of various kinds. This means that agencies involved in plan-making are likely to fmd themselves operating in a "shared power world" (Bryson & Crosby 1992). No one agency is in control, although some hold key sources of power, such as the legal power to issue a regulatory permit, or to draw up a plan with legal standing, or the financial power to invest and develop, or the political power to change politicalleadership through votes or other forms of political mobilization.
