ABSTRACT
This chapter and the preceding chapter consider six contemporary examples of longer-term planning from different contexts. They range from towns to world cities, small island nations to leading industrial countries. Planning and planners have played a crucial role in all of them, but these initiatives go well beyond what many people might think of as ‘planning’. All of them were initially motivated by crisis but they have found ways to emphasise the short-term benefits of acting for long-term goals. They rely on a leading role for the state but many have found ways to engage the public; in fact this has been crucial to their success. Perhaps most importantly they provide some grounds for optimism about our ability to act collectively for the longer term. They also demonstrate that communicating optimism is crucial to engaging others in thinking about the future.
