ABSTRACT
Planning has been widely identified as a vital mechanism for promoting sustainable development, both in terms of the creation of specific sustainability plans (typically at national level) and by instituting sustainability objectives into existing processes for land use planning. Conventionally, the task of planning for sustainability is seen as involving the following steps: identifying sustainability goals, allocating actions, seeking integration between governmental sectors, engagement of different stakeholder groups, appraisal and monitoring. However, for all the effort that has been applied to planning for sustainability, outcomes have generally been disappointing, for various reasons: for example, the limitations of planning powers and difficulties challenging powerful economic interests. Nevertheless, planning still has an important role in promoting sustainability, especially where it allows the direction of development to be questioned.
