Abstract
Issues, organizations and plans interact in complex ways in metropolitan regions. Planning seeks to influence this interac-tion to produce a better future: But there are tensions between seeking a better future and a more certain one. The con-cept of planning as managing uncertain-ties is used to explore these tensions in two examples: the 1929 Regional Plan of New York and the SEQ 2001 Project in Australia. The article explores how uncer-tainties, the intentions and plans of orga-nizations, and processes of agreement interact to affect the efforts of planners, visionary individuals, and governments to deliver plans for a better future.
Keywords: uncertainty; metropolitan plan-ning; SEQ 2001; New York; complex systems
*This article was adjudicated under the editorship of Karen S. Christensen and Karen Chapple at the University of California, Berkeley.
Journal of Planning Education and Research 28:503-517 DOI: 10.1177/0739456X08330976
Initial submission, July 2007; revised submissions, May and October 2008; final acceptance, December 2008
© 2009 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
John Abbott was project coordinator with the SEQ 2001 Project in South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia. He is cur-rently working on and researching met-ropolitan planning in SEQ and teaches planning theory in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management at the University of Queensland.
M
etropolitan regions encompass multiple organizations, plans, issues, and actions interacting in complex ways. Metropolitan planning occurs as part of a “complex adaptive system” in which a “multiplicity of institutions, practices, and motivations jointly interact to shape metropolitan development” (Innes and Booher 1999, 142). Understanding this complex interaction is important in understanding the perceived failures and successes of metropolitan planning (Bromley 2001; Alexander 2002). Complexity also creates uncertainties about the future of metro-politan regions and for planning processes (Christensen 1985, 1999; Abbott 2005). Planning for metropolitan regions involves working “within complex systems” (Hopkins 2001, 251) to address these uncertainties and complexities by linking and integrating issues and by coordinating organizations, plans, and actions to achieve agreed outcomes and urban futures.Urban planning is part of a utopian and reform tradition that seeks to influence future events to improve the urban environment. “Effective planning” makes a differ-ence to events and changes the future (Davidoff and Reiner 1962, 106; Benveniste 1989, 263). Alexander (1992, 72) makes the important distinction between planning and utopian thinking: “Planning, like utopia, depicts a desirable future state of affairs but, unlike utopia, specifies the means for achieving it.” Urban planning thus seeks to identify and achieve a different and better future compared to the urban future that is expected to occur if current trends, policies, and intended actions of relevant organizations remain the same. Views about what constitutes a “better” future will, of course, vary with different people and organizations and are explored as part of the planning process. However, there are dilemmas here. A different and better future may be less feasible to achieve and be harder to get agreement about among stake-holders. “Pushing the bounds of possibility” to achieve a better future may be more risky and uncertain (Abbott 2005, 248). In planning, there are tensions between delivering better outcomes and more certain outcomes—that is, between delivering a better future or a more certain one.
This article uses the concept of planning as managing uncertainties (Abbott 2005) to explore these tensions in the context of planning for metropolitan regions. Metropolitan regions have been chosen because they are classic examples of complex multiorganiza-tional systems (Alexander 2002; Christensen 1999). Hopkins (2001, 6) says that “making useful plans” in complex systems requires thinking about “the dynamic behaviour of systems, available actions, predictable intentions and . . . potential effects.” The article
A Better Future or a More Certain One?
*
John Abbott
looks at the making of two very different plans for which detailed information about the stages of the process is available: the 1929 Regional Plan of New York and its Environs and the SEQ 2001 Project, which prepared a regional growth management plan for South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia, in 1995. The inten-tion is not to directly compare these two cases but to look at how uncertainties were understood and addressed in each process and how this affected the nature of the plans produced.
Planning as Managing Uncertainties
Exploring the question of certainty about the future in The Quest for Certainty, philosopher John Dewey (1929, 39) concluded that “security in the results of action” is the “ulti-mate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty.” In other words, people seek greater certainty in linking their actions to desired outcomes. It is in this sense of knowledge and con-fidence about the likelihood of future outcomes that the term certainty is used in this article. To be certain, people need to know things about the past and the present and how these link to the future. Conversely, uncertainty is a lack of knowledge about future outcomes. This article follows Dewey (1929), Friend and Jessop (1969), Mack (1971), and Abbott (2005, 238) and defines uncertainty as follows:
Uncertainty is a perceived lack of knowledge, by an individual or group, which is relevant to the purpose or action being undertaken and its outcomes.
In this article, the purpose being undertaken in each case is the preparation of a plan for a metropolitan region.
Knowledge is diverse and is recognized as being con-structed in a social process (Abbott 2005, 238; Rydin 2007, 52). To change the future, planning needs to obtain knowledge to
understand and address uncertainties about the future (Friend and Jessop 1969; Christensen 1985). Abbott (2005, 239) identi-fies two sources of uncertainty affecting urban planning: envi-ronmental uncertainty, which arises from the changing social, economic, and physical environment and is experienced by everyone in an urban area; and process uncertainty, which arises from the planning process and is experienced only by those people actively involved in the process. He identifies five dimensions of uncertainty affecting planning, namely, causal uncertainty, organizational uncertainty, value uncertainty, external uncertainty, and chance. The relationship between environmen-tal uncertainty and process uncertainty and the five dimen-sions of uncertainty is shown in Figure 1, and the nature of each of the dimensions is explained in Figure 2.
Planners aim to modify the future of metropolitan regions to create a different and better future. They consider alterna-tive futures and how to get to these outcomes, and this cre-ates different dimensions of uncertainty for the people and groups involved in the planning (Abbott 2005). Different stakeholders bring different knowledge to the process (Rydin 2007), and this will address different uncertainties. Planners and scientific experts bring knowledge about causal uncer-tainties, and local residents bring knowledge about commu-nity value uncertainties.
Myers (2001, 365) says planning needs to address “the twin hazards of uncertainty and disagreement” among stakehold-ers if it is to shape future outcomes. This means addressing uncertainties and getting agreement among the people and organizations involved, or at least some of them. But these two hazards interact: uncertainties have to be addressed to get agreement among stakeholders. In two case studies, the arti-cle explores how uncertainties, the interests and plans of organizations, and processes of agreement interacted to affect the efforts of planners, visionary individuals, and governments to deliver plans for a better future.
Figure 1. Dimensions of environmental and process uncertainty. Source: Abbott (2005, 245).
ENVIRONMENTAL UNCERTAINTY
PROCESS UNCERTAINTY
• External Uncertainty
• Chance
• Causal Uncertainty
• Organizational Uncertainty
Research Methods
Different research methods have been used in the two case studies to explore how uncertainties were understood and addressed.
In the case of the 1929 Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, no new primary research has been carried out. Rather, Johnson’s “thorough description of the creation of the Regional Plan” (Hopkins 2001, 195), which did use pri-mary historical documents and interviews with people involved in the process, has been reinterpreted and analyzed using Abbott’s categories of uncertainty from Figure 2. Johnson does not explicitly use an uncertainty framework, but in his introductory chapter he notes that planners in the 1920s faced many of the same issues as today and one of these is “how should planning activity respond to risk and uncer-tainty” (Johnson 1996, 9). While Johnson is the main source, accounts by Hall (1989, 2002), Bromley (2001), and Morrow (1945) have also been used to reinforce the analysis.
In the SEQ 2001 Project, detailed primary research was car-ried out involving a review of the main plans and reports pro-duced in the process, content analysis of the written submissions of stakeholders, a review of the minutes of the major political and planning committees, and interviews with seventeen of the most active participants. These included committee chairs, state and local government politicians, state and local government officers, and community and business representatives. In addi-tion, the author was a planner and participant observer in the process and attended all of the major conferences and work-shops and the main political and planning committee meetings. This provided a unique insight into how uncertainties were understood and dealt with in the process for over five years. For a detailed list of all the sources, see the appendix.
A Visionary or a Pragmatic Approach: The 1929
Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs
In 1920, few people had any concept of a wider New York region. However by 1929, the Regional Plan of New York and its Environs—Volume 1: The Graphic Regional Plan (the 1929 NY Plan) had been successfully launched by civic leaders and industrialists with “tremendous optimism and mutual congratulations” (Johnson 1996, 175). The main steps in preparing the 1929 NY Plan are shown in Figure 3.
Origins and Scope of the Planning Process
Between 1800 and 1920, the population of the New York region grew from 300,000 people to 8.8 million people (Johnson 1996, 13). The problems facing the New York region were huge and included reducing subway crowding and the “intolerable congestion” because of the growing numbers of vehicles, rationalizing the railroads to the port, and improving the “wretched housing conditions” of the mil-lions of immigrant poor. The leadership of banker Charles Norton led to the initiation of metropolitan planning to “rec-ognise the inter-relationships among the problems and deal with them comprehensively in a regional context.” He and other business and philanthropic reformers had no confi-dence in “corrupt” city governments addressing these prob-lems (Johnson 1996, 24).
Norton put his proposals for a regional plan of New York to the Russell Sage Foundation, and in 1921 they agreed to pro-vide $300,000 for its preparation. He established the Committee on the Regional Plan of New York (the Committee) consisting of bankers, industrialists, philanthropists, and professionals and Figure 2. The dimensions of uncertainty in planning.
Source: Based on Abbott (2005).
External uncertainties arise from the external environment. They relate to external processes and events that will not be affected directly by planning activities but which may affect the planning process and the urban environment being planned. The effect of the national economy on a metropolitan plan is an example.
Chance uncertainties are unpredictable events that can occur during plan preparation and implementation and include: sudden
natural disasters, such as flooding, fire and hurricanes; unexpected election outcomes; and deaths of key leaders in organizations.
Physical, ecological and social change processes in the urban environment link the past to the present and the present to the future.
Causal uncertainties relate to imperfect knowledge of the urban environment, of cause and effect relationships in the change pro-cesses, and of how these different relationships and processes interact to produce outcomes in complex urban systems.
Organizational uncertainties are uncertainties about the future intentions, policies, plans, and actions of organizations in the planning environment. Metropolitan areas are complex multi-organizational environments.
engaged regional planning staff (the Committee planners). The Committee agreed that the New York region should consist of areas within two hours commuting time of Manhattan. This included a population of nine million people in 1921. Hall says this was “a far bigger canvas than any plan before had covered” (2002, 165). Norton initiated four survey inquiries that con-firmed the wide scope of the plan, as follows: an economic and industrial survey; a physical survey of topography, land use, and built facilities; a legal survey of laws affecting a future plan; and a social and living conditions inquiry (Johnson 1996, 70).
Steps in the Planning Process
In 1922, based on a range of expert projections, the Committee adopted a figure of twenty million people for the regional population in 1965. More significant than this figure was the projected distribution of population within the region. The figures for the counties became “a starting point for planning, shaping, rather than shaped by the proposals” for housing, densities, and transportation (Johnson 1996, 121). The Committee invited Raymond Unwin, a distin-guished town planning expert from the United Kingdom, to advise it. Unwin recommended that an aim of the Plan should be to “distribute your population properly” and it should include “a conscious program for decentralization” into “new garden cities.” This garden city–satellite city pro-posal would become “the most controversial issue” in the ongoing plan preparation and later criticism of the Plan (Johnson 1996, 81).
Thomas Adams was in charge of the technical planning work, and in January 1923 he divided the region into six geographic sectors and appointed eminent planners to develop proposals for each of these sectors: the geographic plans would cover land use, transportation, and open space. However, tragedy struck in March 1923 when Charles Norton, who had been “the driving force behind the Plan,” died. Banker Frederic Delano took over as chair of the Committee and the work continued (Johnson 1996, 95).
Policies for decentralization and the “creation of garden cities within a regional plan” were being promoted at this time by Lewis Mumford and the Regional Planning Association of
America (RPAA), which had been formed in 1923 (Hall 2002, 156). Adams was “highly sympathetic to the concept” (Johnson 1996, 133). Clarence Perry wanted to move beyond concepts and in 1924 proposed, to the social inquiry and to Adams, the development of two alternative patterns of regional growth. These were “(a) gradual congestion and extension of existing population centers (present tendency if undisturbed); (b) creation of new regulated population centers (artificial stimu-lation of satellite cities).” Perry noted that the Committee planners would “be regarded as highly visionary if we went ahead and based the final plan upon the satellite principle” without further investigations. He proposed that the planners “prepare rapid sketches of (a) the Region as it will probably be if present growths continue and (b) the Region if the increase might be distributed among a certain number of well placed satellite cities. . . . We could present tentative data showing the transportational, recreational and social condi-tions which may be expected in connection with each mode of development. . . . They could be given the widest public-ity. . . . After local and general discussion of these two princi-ples, it would not be difficult . . . to determine with fair accuracy which the public would favour and the elaboration of the final plan could then proceed on the basis indicated by this referendum” (Perry, quoted in Johnson 1996, 133). This was a remarkable proposal for its time.
However, for Adams, “Perry’s proposal appeared to be too innovative to be credible”; the plan could not “appear too boldly visionary. There were limits to the public’s willingness to absorb new ideas” (Johnson 1996, 135). Hall (2002, 164) notes that “the RPAA did manage to float two experimental communities” in the region at Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn, but it was “mostly . . . in the business of market-ing long-term dreams.” He says application of the satellite city model as “a general solution” for metropolitan growth in a market economy was unacceptable (Hall 2002, 166). Murray Bassett, who was doing the legal survey, advised that no legal provisions existed for new cities. Adams was urged by Bassett and others to avoid “intangibles” and to develop a “blueprint for action” rather than a “formula for utopia, if results were to be achieved” (Johnson 1996, 131-35).
In 1925, Adams was collating the uneven results of the six geographic plans with the four survey inquiries. Another Figure 3. The 1929 NY plan—Steps in the planning process.
Source: Johnson (1996).
1921 The Russell Sage Foundation supports Charles Norton’s proposal for a plan of the New York region. 1921 The Committee on the Regional Plan of New York established and staff appointed.
1921-25 Four survey reports prepared covering economic, physical, legal and social conditions. 1922 Regional and county population projections prepared and adopted.
1922 Planning expert Raymond Unwin recommends satellite/garden cities. 1923-25 Proposals developed for six geographic sectors of the region.
important aspect was working with public authorities, such as the Port of New York Authority and highway authorities, to identify their proposed projects. Adams advised the Committee planners to “avoid putting forward concrete pro-posals that conflict with the propro-posals of public authorities who have the power to carry them into effect” (Johnson 1996, 147). Adams considered that the plan should be seen as an “agenda of realizable projects” (Johnson 1996, 135). This would be achieved by “the inclusion of pre-existing, long-standing proposals, by endorsement . . . of proposals made by public authorities with their own development capabili-ties” (Johnson 1996, 2).
By 1927, the broad nature of the plan was clear, and “rather than pressing a strategy for radically shifting the course of regional development, the plan would ride with the trends” (Johnson 1996, 140). In November, the Committee decided that “proposals regarding housing should avoid controversial matters and consist mainly of concrete suggestions” (minutes of the Committee for 11/14/1927 from Johnson 1996, 140). This meant that the plan “would make no substantive proposals for building new towns or for rebuilding the deteriorated housing in the cen-tral city” (Johnson 1996, 141). Adams “synthesized a collage of trends, forecasts, old proposals, and approved projects” into the summary Graphic Regional Plan. “The overall strat-egy was clear: ride the forces of change, channelling them where possible into more efficient or amenable patterns; avoid the impractical and the excessively visionary” (Johnson 1996, 174). What the process delivered was a better under-stood and analyzed version of the trend growth pattern for the region. The alternative of planned regional growth into a series of satellite cities was discussed at a conceptual level but was not formulated or analyzed in any detail.
The 1929 NY Plan was launched to great acclaim at a pub-lic dinner in May 1929 and “to the assembled civic leaders and industrialists, the destiny of the region seemed more secure than it had ever been before” (Johnson 1996, 175).
Understanding and Addressing Uncertainties
The preparation of the 1929 NY Plan recognized and addressed the five dimensions of uncertainty outlined in Figure 2, as discussed below. These are the uncertainties per-ceived by the group actively preparing the plan, namely, the Committee planners and the Committee itself.
The population growth of “the region as a whole was viewed as determined by external forces” (Johnson 1996, 120) and was thus subject to external uncertainties. The regional population projections needed to address these uncertainties. Similarly, the economic survey work, which looked at national trends affecting the New York region, and the predictions of growth of car travel, which involved
projecting the take up of the new automobile technology, also had to recognize and address external uncertainties.
The likelihood and effects of chance uncertainties from natu-ral events, such as floods and earthquakes, do not appear to have been examined in preparing the plan or have not been described in Johnson’s account. However, the death of Charles Norton in 1923 was a very important chance event. It did not stop the plan from being completed, but Johnson (1996, 280) says it probably resulted in a less “humane” outcome.
Because a new entity, namely, the New York region, had to be defined and the many dimensions of its future growth understood and predicted, there were numerous causal uncertainties at the commencement of planning. Addressing causal uncertainties constituted a major part of the work of the Committee planners through surveys, data collection, land use mapping, and analysis of expected outcomes. The initial regional population projections and economic predic-tions and their spatial distribupredic-tions formed the basis for fur-ther causal analysis and predictions of future regional land use, housing, parkland, transportation, and infrastructure requirements. The plan was innovative in addressing causal uncertainties, and, for the first time, expert knowledge of social and economic factors and a systems approach were used in metropolitan planning (Morrow 1945, 26; Johnson 1996, 1, 4). Although Perry’s proposal to investigate two alternative patterns of growth was not acted on, he was aware of the causal and other uncertainties involved as he noted that “these two sketch plans would be . . . tenta-tive . . . representations of what will or of what might hap-pen” (Perry, quoted in Johnson 1996, 133).
(Johnson 1996, 147). The social and housing policies and satellite city proposals were areas of organizational uncer-tainties because there were no existing legal provisions for implementation and no organizations wishing to implement them (Johnson 1996, 133).
Value uncertainties include uncertainties about political and community values. Political power over the prepara-tion of the Plan rested with the Committee. Uncertainties about its values and views were addressed by Adams’s regu-lar meetings with the Committee. Johnson says, “Adams had constantly to take into account those views as he worked towards the final version of the Plan” (1996, 139). He says planning reflected the “aims of the business leader-ship: an economically competitive and efficient region, whose decision environment would be stabilized and rationalised” (1996, 278); that is, uncertainties about the future would be reduced. Broader community values were explored in the social and living conditions inquiry that examined “human values and social welfare” (Johnson 1996, 70). A Regional Council of 250 prominent citizens did exist briefly in 1925-1926, but this was viewed as “a fail-ure.” The Committee and its planners were not interested in community input as they operated on an expert model of knowledge (Johnson 1996, 129).
Reaching Agreement about the Plan
The preparation of the 1929 NY Plan did not involve get-ting the formal agreement or endorsement of governments. The only agreement required was that of the Committee. The idea of a better future involving the planned decentralization of people and employment to new satellite cities was pro-posed by Unwin, by Mumford and the RPAA, and by Perry and was actively discussed by Adams, the planners, and the Committee. However, the satellite city proposal was not evalu-ated in the planning process and was not supported by the Committee (Johnson 1996, 140). There are two reasons for this. First, the proposal raised additional uncertainties: causal uncertainties about its effectiveness as “a general solution” to metropolitan growth (Hall 2002, 166); organizational uncer-tainties about implementation, as no legal provisions existed for new towns and no government authorities were support-ing this proposal (Johnson 1996, 133, 136); and community value uncertainties about “the public’s willingness to absorb new ideas” (Johnson 1996, 135) and whether people would move to new satellite cities, where they would have reduced mobility and access to job opportunities (Johnson 1996, 82). Second, the proposal did not advance the interests and busi-ness agenda of the Committee. The Committee acted to avoid these uncertainties. The plan would “ride with the trends” (Johnson 1996, 140). Adams accepted this decision and defended it in later disputes with Mumford. Hall (2002, 165) says that
Adams was “a businessman’s planner” and that he accepted the Committee’s decision as reflecting “the art of the possible.”
Some prominent planners were not happy with the trend riding nature of the 1929 NY Plan, and in 1932 Lewis Mumford made a “devastating” criticism of it. For Mumford, it was “a synthetic collage of concrete proposals from many sources unrelated by a unified conception” of a better future (Mumford, quoted in Johnson 1996, 190). Johnson (1996, 193) says the views of Mumford and Adams represented a “visionary” versus a “pragmatic” approach to preparing the Plan.
The 1929 NY Plan was not endorsed by governments, and no agreements were signed about its implementation. Johnson (1996, 173) asks, “Who would carry it out? Informal accept-ance by the Governors of the three States and the Mayor of New York was hardly a guarantee that the plan would be fol-lowed.” The Wall Street crash, five months after the plan’s launch, also made its implementation look more uncertain. The rise of Robert Moses and the role of the Port of New York Authority in promoting and implementing public projects from the plan would prove to be “critical to its implementa-tion” (Bromley 2001, 234; Hall 1989, 279). Moses used federal government money, made available for public works in the depression, to implement the preexisting “agenda of realiza-ble projects” from the Plan (Johnson 1996, 135, 247).
Discussion of the 1929 NY Plan
The 1929 NY Plan increased knowledge and confidence (i.e., certainty) among its business and professional backers about likely future regional growth and thus achieved one of the primary aims of the Committee, namely, “the creation of a stable climate for business” (Johnson 1996, 7). Bromley (2001, 234) says that it “promoted no major and dramatic change in the region and it is very difficult to disentangle what the plan produced from what would have happened anyway.”
causal, organizational, and value uncertainties of the satellite cities proposal. Overall, it is clear that the 1929 NY Plan deliv-ered a more certain future rather than a better one.
Fighting Them or Working with
Them: The SEQ 2001 Project
The SEQ 2001 Project (SEQ 2001) prepared a metropoli-tan plan for the SEQ region of Australia (see Figure 4) between 1990 and 1995. The commonwealth (national), state, and local governments were actively involved. In 1990, no overall regional plan existed; by 1995, the South East Queensland Regional Framework for Growth Management 1995 (the 1995 SEQ Plan) had been prepared and endorsed by all three spheres of government (Abbott 2001, 116). The steps in preparing the 1995 SEQ Plan are summarized in Figure 5.
Origins and Scope of the Planning Process
SEQ has been the fastest growing region in Australia since the 1970s. Between 1981 and 1990, the population grew from
1.48 to 1.89 million people, or 28 percent (Queensland Department of Housing and Local Government [QDHLG] 1991, 24-25). New population projections in April 1990 pre-dicted continued rapid growth and spelt out the infrastructure implications (Applied Population Research Unit [APRU] 1990). Other potential implications of continued rapid growth, such as the loss of natural environment and farming areas, were unclear but were raising concerns for many people (Abbott 2001, 115).
A new state government had been elected in December 1989 and the minister responsible, the deputy premier, the Hon. Tom Burns MP, wanted a regional approach to plan-ning. He took the initiative and met all the councils at their Moreton Regional Organization (MRO) meeting in July 1990. He says, “The Councils saw it [regional planning] as a government take-over . . . [but] we could either fight them or work with them, and the simple answer was to work with them. . . . I said, we are going to have to work together and plan this area . . . if we don’t, the government will have to step in and do it. . . . Everyone said yes” (interview 1/25/2006). The state initiated a community conference about regional growth management, held in December 1990, called SEQ 2001—Framework for Managing Growth.
The twenty local governments, the state and common-wealth governments and many of their departments, and a large number of community, business, professional, and aca-demic groups attended the conference. The state premier, Wayne Goss, expressed a strong view that growth trends had to change. He said that “under current arrangements” there would be a “relentless spread of urban sprawl” and a regional strategy was needed to “prevent this” (Goss 1990, 4). It was agreed the regional strategy would be developed by a coop-erative partnership between the three spheres of government and the community and that it would “not include an addi-tional level of government or decision-making” or a statutory regional plan (Goss 1990, 6). Participants also agreed the scope of the strategy would cover the area of the MRO coun-cils and would include land use, infrastructure, environmen-tal, and social aspects of growth management (Regional Planning Advisory Group [RPAG] 1992, 3).
Steps in the Planning Process
Councils (SEQROC). Its main purpose was to coordinate the views of local governments and their input to SEQ 2001. Subregional organizations of councils, called Northern Sub-Regional Organisation of Councils (NORSROC), Southern Sub-Regional Organisation of Councils (SouthROC), and Western Sub-Region Organisation of Councils (WESROC), were formed soon after, as indicated on Figure 4. RPAG estab-lished five working groups in late 1991 and 1992 covering the following: environment, urban futures, human services, trans-port, and infrastructure. Their roles were to develop policies and actions for sixteen regional policy areas (minutes of RPAG 6/11/1992). Governments and community sectors were actively involved on all the working groups.
In November 1992, a Mid Term Review workshop was held to review the progress of SEQ 2001 and to clarify the nature of its outputs. The state government and professional sector proposed the development of a “regional concept plan” of urban development. Local governments supported this pro-posal but wanted to build it up from local and subregional planning. These approaches were termed “top-down” and “bottom-up,” respectively. The workshop agreed to do a top-down regional concept plan first, followed by bottom-up sub-regional planning (RPAG 1992, Appendix 2).
Work on identifying the regional concept plan com-menced in early 1993. The RPAG planners and a subcommit-tee of RPAG (the Ssubcommit-teering Commitsubcommit-tee) developed five 20-year regional growth scenarios and evaluated these. The scenarios were a Trend Pattern and three alternative patterns based on the following variables: population distribution, employment distribution, residential densities, transport mode split, and location and size of major centers. Based on these results, a Preferred Pattern of development was defined by the Steering Committee that produced substantially better outcomes than the Trend Pattern. It was a compact urban pattern with higher residential densities (fifteen dwellings per ha for new areas), higher population growth in the center of the region, higher public transport usage, and employment growth in outer urban areas (RPAG 1993a). In July 1993, RPAG released its proposals for public comment. These included a report on
the Preferred Pattern of Urban Development for South East Queensland (RPAG 1993a), a report on ongoing institutional arrange-ments, and fifteen sectoral policy papers.
These reports, and the review of comments by organiza-tions and the community, provided the policy basis for the first SEQ regional plan released in April 1994, titled the Regional Framework for Growth Management for South East Queensland (the 1994 SEQ Plan). The regional framework title reflected the vol-untary, rather than statutory, nature of the plan. Local govern-ments had many unresolved concerns about the 1994 SEQ Plan, such as the population distribution, housing densities, funding implications, and priorities for action, that needed to be addressed by subregional planning (RPAG 1994, 2). The implications of new regional and local government population projections (Queensland Department of Housing, Local Government and Planning [QDHLGP] 1993), that had been released in late 1993, also contributed to doubts about the 1994 SEQ Plan. One area where there was broad agreement was institutional arrangements. The state government estab-lished a new Regional Coordination Committee (RCC), in July 1994, to replace RPAG, with ministers and mayors as members and a technical support group.
Four subregional planning processes, coordinated by the sub-ROCs and Brisbane City, commenced in April 1994. They were to review the 1994 SEQ Plan and the Preferred Pattern at the subregional level and to make recommendations for changes. While new proposals were developed for open space and industrial land, in relation to key policies the subregional reports were conservative. On population distribution they adopted the new 1993 trend medium or high series projec-tions (the 1993 Trend), and on residential densities they sup-ported an increase but no specific targets. The subregional reports, produced in early 1995, were used to review the 1994 SEQ Plan. The state and commonwealth governments did not take strong positions on the population distribution and den-sity issues. These inputs or lack of them, and the consensus process used by the RCC, resulted in the 1995 SEQ Plan being based on the 1993 Trend rather than on the Preferred Pattern population distribution (RCC 1995a, 41).
Figure 5. The 1995 South East Queensland Plan—Steps in the planning process. Source: SEQ 2001 Project reports and plans.
1989 New State Government elected.
1990 SEQ 2001 Community Conference held in December.
1991-92 RPAG, SEQROC, Sub-ROCs and five Working Groups established and meeting regularly. 1992 Mid-Term Review workshop held in November.
1993 Alternative growth scenarios and the Preferred Pattern of Urban Development prepared. 1993 RPAG releases its policy papers and reports in July.
1994 Regional Framework for Growth Management (1994 SEQ Plan) released in April. 1994 Regional Coordination Committee (RCC) established in July.
1994-95 Sub-Regional Planning processes review the 1994 SEQ Plan.
The 1995 SEQ Plan was endorsed by the RCC and all three spheres of government and launched in December 1995. At the launch, the state and commonwealth govern-ments and seventeen of the eighteen local governgovern-ments in SEQ (four local governments had been amalgamated into two in early 1995) signed a memorandum of agreement endorsing the Plan as “the primary regional planning strat-egy” for SEQ and committing to its “implementation, moni-toring and review” (RCC 1995b, section 4.1).
Understanding and Addressing Uncertainties
The preparation of the 1995 SEQ Plan recognized and addressed the five dimensions of uncertainty outlined in Figure 2, as discussed below. The collaborative approach and consensus decision making at all levels, which flowed from the initial MRO agreement with Minister Burns, were critical to managing uncertainties in SEQ 2001.
For the December 1990 conference, major sector groups were invited to make prior written submissions about issues facing the region and how to address these (Queensland Government 1990). Using content analysis, the twelve sub-missions by major sector groups have been reviewed for refer-ences to unknowns and uncertainties. As shown in Table 1, the most common type of uncertainties identified were organizational uncertainties, with 39 percent of instances, but causal and value uncertainties were also commonly iden-tified. Local governments identified organizational uncer-tainties as the most common (67 percent); these were uncertainties about the intentions of other local governments and of state and commonwealth agencies.
Throughout SEQ 2001, it was recognized that the level of migration into SEQ, and associated external uncertainties, would influence future population growth (see Table 1 and Figure 6). The initial population projections in 1990 addressed these external uncertainties and created confi-dence that growth would continue (APRU 1990). This was confirmed by subsequent state government population pro-jections in 1991 and 1993. No specific work was done to explore external uncertainties, and no events occurred to dent confidence about growth.
Uncertainties about the occurrence of chance events, such as natural hazards and social and political disruptions, also existed during SEQ 2001. Participants did not perceive these as being important or needing to be addressed at the regional level (see Table 1). No major chance events affecting regional planning occurred up to December 1995.
SEQ was a new planning region with no existing plan or regional data base. Therefore, causal uncertainties were numer-ous at the start of the process (see Table 1), and data had to be collected and created at the SEQ level to better
understand the nature of the region and its trends. When work on the Trend Pattern of growth was initiated, causal uncertain-ties had to be addressed to develop local population and land use predictions and the impacts of these on social and environ-mental factors. Causal uncertainties also had to be addressed in developing and evaluating alternative growth scenarios including the Preferred Pattern (RPAG 1993a).
Community value uncertainties were important to address in the early stages of SEQ 2001 (see Table 1), as community concerns about the impacts of growth played a part in the initiation of planning. In 1991-1992, the working groups, with their strong involvement of community representatives in face-to-face meetings, were important in addressing uncer-tainties about the values of community and business groups. The Mid Term Review noted that the working groups “have performed very well in . . . facilitating the input of a wide range of community views and values” (RPAG 1992, 23). Uncertainties about how the community would respond to proposals for higher densities were a significant considera-tion throughout the alternative growth scenarios work.
Political value uncertainties were important and needed to be addressed in 1990 before the planning process could start. Uncertainties about the approach of the new state govern-ment were addressed by the agreegovern-ment between Minister Burns and the MRO. Uncertainties about the political accept-ability of policies, such as residential density targets, had to be addressed in preparing the fifteen policy papers, the Preferred Pattern, and the 1994 and 1995 SEQ Plans. High-level and active political representation on RPAG, the RCC, and the Steering Committee and the involvement of councilors on the working groups were important in addressing political value uncertainties. Cr Noel Playford, local government rep-resentative on the Steering Committee, described its work as follows: “It was a group that things could be bounced off . . . it was a good sounding board for the professionals, who were putting stuff together, as to what might fly and what wouldn’t fly” (interview 2/22/2006).
uncertainties, to be addressed and managed (Abbott 2001, 119). This evolved into permanent organizational arrange-ments with the establishment of the RCC in July 1994.
Uncertainties before and after Planning
In the research, participants were questioned about their knowledge of matters relevant to planning outcomes before and after SEQ 2001; these dates were taken to be December 1990 and December 1995. A semistructured interview and a response scale were used. Participants’ perceptions of the state of knowledge provide a surrogate for changes in unknowns and uncertainties. The results are shown in Figure 6, and some of the reasons participants gave for their assessments are discussed
below. Overall, Figure 6 indicates that the preparation of the 1995 SEQ Plan increased knowledge and certainty about future outcomes for those involved; that is, it reduced uncertainties.
Most participants considered in-migration to be the main external factor affecting SEQ and the main source of external uncertainties. Knowledge of this factor increased because of the new population projection work, and it became well known. The areas where the biggest improvement in knowl-edge occurred were in the current state of the region and the likely future trends of the region: both increased from much less than somewhat known to well known. This indicates a reduc-tion in causal uncertainties. This occurred because new regional data were collected and new analytical and modeling tools, such as a regional GIS and transport model, were used to develop the growth scenarios.
Table 1.
Types of uncertainties identified in 1990 conference submissions.
Sector or Number of External Causal Organizational Value
Organization Instances Uncertainty Chance Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty
State government (2)a 36 0 0 13 13 10
Local government (2) 21 1 0 4 14 2
Business sector (2) 24 1 0 6 12 5
Community sector (2) 20 1 0 7 5 7
Commonwealth government (1) 4 0 0 1 3 0
Union sector (2) 19 1 0 7 6 5
Professional sector (1) 18 4 0 7 3 4
Total 142 8 0 45 56 33
% of total 100 6 0 32 39 23
Source: Content analysis of 1990 conference submissions. a. Number of submissions by sector.
Figure 6. Participants’ knowledge of various matters before and after the SEQ 2001 Project. Source: Semistructured interviews with participants (see the appendix).
3 - Very well known; 2 - Well known; 1 - Somewhat known; 0 - Not known; Don’t know was not scored.
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Exter
nal
Factors Current State of Region Future Trends in the Region Local Go
vt
intentions State Go
vt
intentions
Comm Go
vt
intentions Pr
iv
ate
Sector
intentions What the community
valued
Community
visions Political visions
Knowledge of the intentions and plans of local governments and state agencies increased greatly during SEQ 2001. This indicates a reduction in organizational uncertainties. On the other hand, knowledge of the intentions and plans of commonwealth agencies and private developers increased only slightly and remained very low. These plans were never introduced into the process for discussion (author as participant observer). The 1995 SEQ Plan was a voluntary plan, not a statutory plan, and was to be implemented through other statutory plans of govern-ments. Local governments had to modify their planning schemes, and organizational uncertainties existed in December 1995 about how willingly or effectively this would be done. Key state agencies were actively involved in SEQ 2001 at all levels. However, unlike local governments, they did not have existing plans to promote. The 1995 SEQ Plan required state agencies to prepare sectoral plans for regional issues including, trans-port, air quality, and open space. Some agencies had com-menced this work by December 1995, but others were more indifferent, and organizational uncertainties remained.
Figure 6 shows that knowledge of the values and visions of the community and of politicians also increased. This indi-cates a reduction in community and political value uncertainties. The involvement of community organizations in working groups led to increased knowledge of community views and values (RPAG 1992, 23). Although visioning processes were carried out by working groups and by RPAG itself, no broad community visioning process was carried out in SEQ 2001 (author as participant observer). State and local politicians were actively involved, and knowledge of their values and visions increased greatly during the SEQ 2001. However, con-stant turnover in political representatives because of the electoral cycle meant uncertainties about political values remained in December 1995. Peter Mackay, the planning coordinator of WESROC, noted that after involvement in SEQ 2001 local mayors “became more aware” of regional issues, but one of “the major problems was the turnover of political leaders” (interview 8/20/2005).
Reaching Agreement about the Plan
While other sectors played important parts, the key play-ers in SEQ 2001 with power to reach agreement were the state and local governments. This is demonstrated by the initial agreement between Minister Burns and the MRO, the lead role of local governments in subregional planning, and the final negotiations about the 1995 SEQ Plan. Minister Burns agreed in July 1990 that there would be no statutory regional plan and the plan would be prepared on a partner-ship basis. This meant, first, that local statutory plans would have to be prepared or amended to implement the plan, introducing an element of organizational uncertainty from
the start, and, second, that all decisions would be made on a consensus basis. At the 1992 Mid Term Review workshop, the state government threatened to prepare a top-down regional plan on its own and could have vetoed the local government’s bottom-up proposal outright. However, it wished to maintain the partnership and agreed to the bottom-up subregional planning process (RPAG 1992).
The Preferred Pattern scenario developed by the RPAG planners and the Steering Committee was accepted by them as a better future because it delivered better regional out-comes across a range of criteria (RPAG 1993a) compared to the 1991 Trend Pattern (QDHLG 1991). The 1991 census figures allowed for an updated projection, the 1993 Trend, to be prepared (QDHLGP 1993). The Trend Pattern is, by defi-nition, the most likely or certain growth pattern to occur given current demographic and land use trends and no change to policy settings. The Preferred Pattern raised many uncertainties for the sub-ROCs. This discussion focuses on responses to uncertainties raised by the distribution of popu-lation growth and density targets.
In developing their subregional planning reports, the sub-ROCs were expected to evaluate the Preferred Pattern in rela-tion to some alternative subregional pattern (author as participant observer). Their responses varied as indicated in Figure 7. SouthROC made no effort to consider the Preferred Pattern or any alternative population distributions and was “comfortable” with the new 1993 Trend (SouthROC 1995, 40). WESROC did develop an alternative growth pattern based on the 1993 Trend or higher figures. This did not pro-duce better subregional outcomes than the Preferred Pattern; however, it was chosen. NORSROC developed and evaluated four alternative growth patterns. The benefits of the Preferred Pattern were recognized, but NORSROC considered that this required “substantial intervention” by the state government, and thus the “most likely,” that is, most certain, outcome was the 1993 Trend Pattern (NORSROC 1995, 13). Brisbane City did a comprehensive review of alternative scenarios, including the Preferred Pattern figure of 980,000 people in Brisbane. The advantages of this option over the 1993 Trend were con-firmed. However, a planning figure of 900,000, which was close to the QDHLGP high series, was “adopted as a realistic estimate.” Brisbane City also assessed the Preferred Pattern as requiring “significant intervention” by the state and that the likelihood of this was uncertain (BCC 1995, 12).
Preferred Pattern. Given the consensus decision making process used by the RCC, this meant the 1995 SEQ Plan would be based on the 1993 Trend rather than on the Preferred Pattern alterna-tive: a more certain future rather than a better one.
Discussion of the 1995 SEQ Plan
The SEQ 2001 process was about developing a metropolitan plan and institutional arrangements for ongoing planning. The agreement in July 1990 about a nonstatutory partnership approach was critical to getting the planning process underway. The development of forums for communication and informa-tion exchange, in the form of RPAG, SEQROC, the sub-ROCs, and the RCC, was also required to address organizational and political value uncertainties. The evolution of these arrange-ments allowed for an ongoing process of metropolitan plan-ning to occur in a complex multiorganizational system.
Work on the growth scenarios by the Steering Committee addressed causal, organizational, and value uncertainties about the Trend Pattern and alternative growth patterns. A better future was identified in the form of the Preferred Pattern and accepted by the committee. However, in the sub-regional planning, the sub-ROCs opted for the expected, that is, more certain, future of the 1993 Trend. SouthROC and WESROC chose the certainties of a growth pattern close to their own plans: NORSROC and Brisbane City rejected the uncertainties of the Preferred Pattern.
A population distribution closer to the Preferred Pattern could have been achieved if the state government had negoti-ated strongly for this or had imposed it by statutory means. However, this would have threatened the partnership approach. To ensure an endorsed plan and ongoing regional planning arrangements with local governments, the state government also agreed to the 1993 Trend as the basis for planning. Thus, the 1995 SEQ Plan delivered a more certain future rather than a better one.
Conclusions
This article has examined how uncertainties about future outcomes were dealt with in two cases of metropolitan plan-ning. The research shows that planning can deal with uncer-tainties in three ways: addressing them in the process (by data collection, modeling, information exchange, political guidance, developing new institutional arrangements, public consultation, etc.), avoiding them (by rejecting possible futures with many uncertainties), and deferring and refer-ring them to future planning processes (by recommending future studies or plans). To refer uncertainties, ongoing institutional arrangements for regional planning and coordi-nation need to exist.
Work on the 1929 NY Plan did not seriously investigate the satellite cities future proposed by Mumford and the RPAA. This was discussed but was dismissed as being too “visionary” (Johnson 1996, 192, 193) and uncertain. The Plan sought to better understand and elaborate socioeconomic trends in the region and the plans and intentions of key organizations. In elaborating these in a comprehensive way, it provided a more certain future for its proponents and others in the region.
In SEQ, a better future was identified in the form of the Preferred Pattern. Local government representatives were partners with the state and community groups in a collabora-tive process of “co-production of knowledge” to define the better future (Rydin 2007). However, when the wider local government community was given the Preferred Pattern to consider and evaluate (through subregional planning), they systematically avoided the uncertainties that it raised. The state did not seriously challenge these responses. Thus, the future being planned for in the 1995 SEQ Plan was the greater cer-tainty of the 1993 Trend.
Given the initial aspirations of the New York planning proc-ess to solve the region’s physical and social problems in a com-prehensive way and the aim of SEQ 2001 to change urban growth patterns to prevent urban sprawl, the adoption of trend Figure 7. Sub-ROC responses to the Preferred Pattern scenario
Source: Subregional reports (Southern Sub-Regional Organisation of Councils 1995, 40; Western Sub-Region Organisation of Councils 1995, 85; Northern Sub-Regional Organisation of Councils 1995, 13; Brisbane City Council 1995, 12).
SouthROC - ‘Councils are comfortable with the 1991 (Census) based medium series projections which are identified as reasonably reflecting land availability and current policy directions’.
WESROC – the WESROC Alternative was chosen as the ‘overall numbers are only slightly higher than the RPAG totals and accommodate … the results of the 1991 Census … which were not available to RPAG’.
population patterns as the basis of planning in both cases could be seen as disappointing outcomes. These outcomes reflect the dilemmas of decision making under uncertainty, particularly where organizations involved have existing plans. Dewey (1929, 227) says people have a fear of uncertainty and will try to get “rid of it by fair means or foul.” These means can include staying with current solutions and avoiding uncertain new ones. Proposals that raise uncertainties for those preparing a plan may simply be avoided, as happened with the satellite cities proposal in New York and with the Preferred Pattern in SEQ. Cyert and March’s (1963, 119) behavioral theory indicates that organizations come into decision making with existing intentions and plans and are generally reluctant to change their “negotiated environment” for more uncertain alternatives. Kahneman and Tversky (2000) examined decision making under uncertainty and found people to be far more averse to losses than inspired by possible gains and thus inclined to stay with the certainty of their current plans rather than the uncertainty of “better” ones. The evidence of these two case studies is that organizations involved in metro-politan planning behave similarly.
The case studies show that understanding how uncertainties were addressed, avoided, or deferred in metropolitan planning processes provides insights into the nature of plans produced and has implications for planning practice. Planners need to be more aware of the uncertainties in the situation (Christensen 1985) and anticipate the avoidance of uncertainties by powerful organizations. The research confirms that planning is inherently political (Benveniste 1989). In both case studies, organizations with the power to affect the planning outcome acted to protect their interests and plans and avoid new uncertainties. In New York, the Committee overseeing the plan acted to create more certainty about a desired trend future and a “stable climate for
business” (Johnson 1996, 7). In SEQ, local governments acted to protect their current plans and avoid the uncertainties of the Preferred Pattern by adopting the 1993 Trend. Through the consensus process, the state also accepted the 1993 Trend. The state could have pushed for the “better” solution of the Preferred Pattern, but this would have threatened agreement about the 1995 SEQ Plan and the ongoing planning process.
The outcomes of these two processes and the plans produced are, in many ways, inherent in the organizational and political context that produced them. The 1929 NY Plan was produced by a conservative private sector organization that wanted more cer-tainty for business and had little power or inclination to try to influence governments in an ongoing way. In SEQ, a reformist state government was negotiating with conservative local govern-ments, and, in the end, the Trend-supporting views of local gov-ernments prevailed. In a consensus process, as advocated by Innes and Booher (1999, 151) for metropolitan planning, there will be a tendency to revert to the trend growth pattern as organizations avoid uncertainties. However, this is not inevitable and depends on the powers, political resolve, and leadership of key players to achieve better futures. In SEQ, after five years of plan preparation, the political will of the state had waned, and there was a desire by all stakeholders to finalize the plan and move to implementation (Abbott 2001, 116).
This article has indicated how uncertainties, the inten-tions and plans of organizainten-tions, and processes of agreement interacted to affect the initiation, scope, and outputs of two metropolitan planning processes and to weaken the efforts of visionary individuals, planners, and governments to deliver a better future. The challenge of planning for complex metro-politan regions remains how to develop plans that deliver a better future with more certainty.
Main plans and reports reviewed:
Brisbane City Council (BCC; 1995)
Northern Sub-Regional Organisation of Councils (NORSROC; 1995)
Queensland Department of Housing and Local Government (QDHLG; 1991)
Queensland Department of Housing, Local Government and Planning (QDHLGP; 1993) Queensland Government (1990)
Regional Coordination Committee (RCC; 1995a) RCC (1995b)
Regional Planning Advisory Group (RPAG; 1994) RPAG (1993a)
RPAG (1993b) RPAG (1992)
Southern Regional Organisation of Councils (SouthROC; 1995) Western Sub-Region Councils (WESROC; 1995)
Appendix
Research Sources for the SEQ 2001 Case Study
Appendix (continued)
Jane Bertelsen
The Hon. Tom Burns MP
Roger du Blet
Barry Gyte
Robyn Hesse
Des Hoban Adrian Jeffreys
Cr Bill Laver
Gary Lee Peter Mackay Cr Noel Playford
Jim Reeves Ian Schmidt
Paul Smith
Bob Stimson Greg Vann
Stan Wypych
9/15/2005
1/25/2006
8/31/2005
9/5/2005
8/23/2005
8/26/2005 8/23/2005
9/6/2005
9/9/2005 8/30/2005 2/22/2006
2/9/2006 9/14/2005
8/25/2005
9/16/2005 8/9/2005
8/16/2005
Senior officer of Brisbane City; secretary of SEQROC; regional coordinator for Brisbane City; and member of various working groups
Deputy Premier of Queensland; Minister for Local Government and Planning; and chair of RPAG
Member of RPAG (business representative); member of the Steering Committee; and member of various working groups
Senior officer of the Commonwealth Department of Community Services and Health; and member of various working groups
Senior officer of Environmental Protection Agency; member of the Environment Working Group.
Technical director of RPAG planners
President of the Wildlife Preservation Society; member of RPAG (environ-ment representative); chair of the Environ(environ-ment Working Group; member of the Steering Committee
Shire President of Albert Shire; chair of SouthROC; member of RPAG; chair of the Urban Futures Working Group
Senior RPAG planner; and coordinator of the Transport Working Group Regional coordinator for WESROC; member of various working groups Shire President of Noosa Shire; member of RPAG; member of RCC; chair of
NORSROC; member of the Steering Committee; and member of various working groups
Coordination director of RPAG planners
Senior officer of Queensland Department of Local Government and Planning; and director of the RCC planners
Senior officer of Queensland Department of Local Government and Planning
Senior officer of Brisbane City; director of the Brisbane Plan
President of Royal Australian Planning Institute; member of RPAG (profes-sional sector representative); member of Steering Committee; and member of various working groups
Senior officer of Queensland Department of Local Government and Planning; member of Steering Committee; and member of various working groups
(continued) Committee minutes reviewed:
Minutes of RPAG meetings: No 1 (7/23/1991) to No 18 (3/3/1994) Minutes of RCC meetings: No 1 (7/26/1994) to No 10 (12/12/1996)
Minutes of Steering Committee (under RPAG): No 1 (12/17/1992) to No 18 (2/9/1994) Minutes of Steering Committee (under RCC): No 1 (5/17/1995) to No 5 (5/31/1995)
Content analysis of:
Submissions of major stakeholder groups (12) to the SEQ 2001 Conference (12/7/1990) Submissions of major stakeholder groups (9) to the Mid-Term Review Workshop (11/19/1992)
Participants interviewed:
Author’s Note: I am very grateful to Ernest Alexander for his detailed comments on earlier versions of this paper. Helpful comments from Lew Hopkins and the reviewers are also acknowledged.
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Conferences, workshops and committee meetings attended by the author:
SEQ 2001 Conference (12/7/1990) Mid-Term Review Workshop (11/19/1992)
RPAG meetings: No 4 (10/17/1991) and No 8 (6/11/1992) to No 18 (3/3/1994) RCC meetings: No 1 (7/26/1994) to No 10 (12/12/1996)
Steering Committee meetings (under RPAG): No 1 (12/17/1992) to No 18 (2/9/1994) Steering Committee meetings (under RCC): No 1 (5/17/1995) to No 5 (5/31/1995) Urban Futures Working Group meetings 1991 to 1993
