ABSTRACT
In reflecting on these issues, planning scholar, Bishwapriya Sanyal has concluded that the profession of planning faces some major challenges. Consequently, the profession needs to: (1) integrate spatial and socioeconomic planning; (2) construct planning theories to meet the needs of planning practitioners; and (3) rejustify government intervention (Sanyal 2000: 317-33). The model for planning practitioners constructed for this book is intended to enable local planning practitioners to begin to address these challenges by inventing their own planned solutions. To meet and operationalize these challenges, planners will need to apply the principles and lessons from the emerging and growing body of contemporary planning theory and practice. Further application and use of these theories will serve to advance the effectiveness of the practice of relational planning at the regional and local levels, such that it becomes increasingly integral to and engages the dynamics and complexities of the global knowledge economy and the network society.
