ABSTRACT

To provide a vehicle for some free-ranging conjecture about the opportunities for further experiment in the development of outwardly connective styles of planning, we shall now find it convenient to introduce a set of fictitious agencies and actors, operating within a hypothetical region of England some years after the reorganization of local government in 1974. We hope that the scenario which we shall unfold is one that the reader outside England will not find too difficult to translate into terms relevant to other sets of national circumstances. At this point, we shall have to adopt the standard fiction writer's disclaimer that none of our actors in this chapter will be based on actual individuals. All our characters will be purely imaginary, as will the various localities within which they operate.