ABSTRACT
The idea of planning for a sustainable future, as the contributors in this book have pointed out, has its roots in many different kinds of social intervention which have emerged as distinct perspectives on how to manage the modern world. Indeed, the very concept of planning itself, and certainly institutionalised physical planning which in the West dates from the mid-nineteenth century, is tied up with the general objective of balancing conflicting interests if the collective good is to be realised in terms of a sustainable future. Benton Mackay's ‘planning for habitability’ which was dominant in the rise of regional planning in North America and Western Europe (Glikson, 1955) from the 1920s was little different from our current concern for ‘planning for sustainability’. In fact, historically, physical planning was far closer to a concern for a balanced ecology than it is today although our concern for linking the social with the natural through physical planning is being reawakened once again through this focus on sustainability. It may even be as Meyerson and Rydin (1996) so cogently point out, that this heightened interest in questions of sustainability marks a sea change in the way we think about management of modern global society. This is part and parcel of an increased awareness that the complexities, interdependencies, and possibilities of entirely unanticipated indirect impacts are far greater than they have ever been before.
