ABSTRACT
Social impact assessment is one of four elements in the planning process and, because planning is an aspect of broader political processes, social impact assessment has important political components. The acknowledgement of the need for social impact assessment derives from a recognition of the extent to which the unanticipated consequences of development strategies can seriously diminish the benefits of the development. However, in the view of the Commonwealth Government the preservation of the forests of the Wet Tropics represented an important 'social good', which outweighed the interests of a number of small townships which relied upon the logging of crown land. The latter are more difficult to understand, assess and compensate. Studies undertaken in a variety of locations subject to urban renewal and relocation consistently find that the elderly and the less well-educated find the social adjustment to movement from well-known neighbourhoods to be far more difficult to cope with than the younger and better-educated.
