Inclusion – at the Expense of Collective Concern?

A common belief among many planners, often held by those with an academic persuasion, is that greater levels of participation in planning inherently leads to better outcomes. Equally common, but perhaps more so among practitioners, is first-hand experience of the many difficulties in reaching satisfactory decisions when many people are involved, allied with knowledge of the difficulties of identifying appropriate ways of including disparate groups and individuals in typical rule-bound planning processes.