Clear evidence of this shows in town planning, where decisions made are going to affect an entire community. Under these circumstances planning becomes a far more complex process. More input is needed from many different perspectives followed by a decision made to best fit the wants and needs of all those on whom it impinges.
The reasons why we plan are extremely complex and wide in scope and the complexity of Dror's simple definition is revealed and examined throughout the rest of this report.
Analysis of the definition.
Dror himself breaks down this definition into parts and examines each individually to give body to the definition, this report will now analyse each of these parts using different perspectives in an attempt to re-illustrate planning as a human activity.
Planning as a Process.
Dror describes planning as a continuous activity that requires input of resources and energy in order to be sustained. This description is a little vague in that it leaves out some fundamental ideas about processes, although in terms of the given definition it is satisfactory as what is left out is described later on. Davidoff & Reiner give a more detailed description of planning as a process. They describe the planning process as having "Three fundamental levels: value formulation, means identification, and effectuation" (Davidoff & Reiner, cited in Faludi (1974)). Value formulation they suggest stems from the relationship and inherent difference between facts and values. Values are described as a set of moral statements, preferences, ends or goals, while facts involve definitions and truth. It is this fact and value that creates the basis of planning. The "fact" is a problem that needs rectifying while the "values" are reasonable solutions or opposition to the problem. An example of this can be seen in my hometown of Whangarei, for years there has been a great need for a forestry port to be built at Marsden Point due to the overwhelming capacity at the port in town (fact) however Resource consent has taken years (I did a project on it in seventh form Geo, 1995) due to strong local and environmental opposition (values).
