ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters of this study have shown that new approaches have been advocated, and sometimes also followed, which suggest a fundamental break with planning approaches of the past. When looking back, the study up till now has shown that academic and professional planners are increasingly convinced that planning should involve consensus-oriented processes. This chapter aims to put the outer limits of consensus planning in a critical spotlight. It will not focus on the obvious positive side of a consensus-planning approach. The intention here is to explore the other side of this coin. This exploration is not done to immediately reject - what in this chapter will be called - the communicative ideology. A purely professional and technological planning paradigm is clearly something of the past. On the other hand, this study has frequently come across some uncertainty whether the communicative ideology is a proper framework for protecting values and reaching objectives that have justified planning interventions up until now in society. The purpose of this chapter is to pay more attention to this confusion.
