The Antiplanner

Welcome to the Antiplanner

1st January 2007

Welcome to the Antiplanner

posted in Mission, Why Planning Fails |

They say someone starts a new blog every second, so let me present one of the first 80,000 blogs of 2007. The Antiplanner is the public face of my new mission: to promote the repeal of all federal and state planning laws and the closure of all state and local planning offices.

Seventeen years ago, most Americans celebrated the fall of the Soviet empire as a victory of free markets over central planning. Yet most American cities and counties have planning departments and Congress requires that most federal agencies prepare costly, time-consuming, and ultimately worthless plans.

It is time for someone to say that the planning emperor has no clothes. The Antiplanner will show why government planning fails, document planning disasters, comment on planning news, and present new research and information related to transportation, urban areas, and public lands.

Of course, everybody plans. We plan our work day, our vacations, our education and careers. But these plans tend to be short term, flexible, and affect mainly ourselves and our families. To distinguish this from the planning I criticize, I prefer to call such activities organizing: we organize our time and resources as efficiently as we can based on what we know. If we learn something new, we change our organization.

What I object to is what I will sometimes call government planning, which includes three things:

  • Comprehensive planning that attempts to account for both quantifiable (though not necessarily comparable) and non-quantifiable things;
  • Long-term planning that attempts to look ahead for many years or decades; and
  • Planning of other people’s resources.

Planners who say they can do these things are misleading the public and themselves.

  • Comprehensive planning attempts to compare apples with oranges, yet no one can really say which are more important.
  • Long-term planning impossibly requires that planners accurately predict what the future will want or need.
  • Planners who try to control other people’s resources won’t pay the costs of their mistakes and so have little incentive to find the right answer.

I will try to post to this blog at least five days a week. Your comments are welcome and I will not censor anyone other than spammers and foul language. To keep out spam, you have to register and your first post must be moderated, but once I have approved one of your posts, you can add as many more comments as you like. I look forward to hearing from you.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 1st, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Mission, Why Planning Fails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 9 responses to “Welcome to the Antiplanner”

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  1. 1 On January 1st, 2007, sseffern said:

    Hi Randal,

    One thing I’ve learned from watching government initiatives as a Libertarian is the inefficiency and counter productivity of those efforts in almost every attempt.

    Isn’t “Government Land Use Planning” just another example of the inevitable result of reversed government worker incentives with little accountably and no competition?

    Having said that, is not planning and loose organization necessary to fulfill the collective goals of building large nation-wide infrastructures like the major highways and court systems, and defend the country with a national military? Do we not have to tolerate and constantly expose the inefficiency to some degree to provide a basic level of organization in an otherwise free nation?

    If so, then the question becomes:

    “What do you think the proper level/role of government is?”

    Very Best Regards,

    Stu Seffern
    Libertarian Party of Wisconsin

    posted on January 1st, 2007 at 4:12 pm

  2. 2 On January 1st, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    Planning a highway or a military operation is different from the long-range, comprehensive planning that I am criticizing. The former is focused on a single, clear goal and has a relatively short-term time horizon. The latter has multiple and often indefinite goals and a lengthy time horizon.

    I am not arguing for the elimination of government, though many things that government does today such as roads and water could be privatized. I am arguing that government should not hire planners to do comprehensive, long-range planning or planning of other people’s resources or property.

    posted on January 1st, 2007 at 4:48 pm

  3. 3 On January 2nd, 2007, pdxf said:

    “Comprehensive planning that attempts to account for both quantifiable (though not necessarily comparable) and non-quantifiable things”

    I don’t quite understand this one, can you elaborate on this a little bit? I get the comprehensive planning part, but I don’t understand what you mean by both quantifiable, and non-quantifiable (or I guess rather why you are explicitly stating thse), and I’m not sure what you mean by “things”.

    It seems as though you are saying that you are just against comprehensive planning?

    posted on January 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm

  4. 4 On January 2nd, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    I planned to elaborate about comprehensive planning in future posts, but I can do so here. Comprehensive planning claims to account for a “comprehensive” set of benefits and costs.

    Some of those benefits or costs are quantified, but not always in identical units. For example, forest plans quantify such things as wilderness recreation visitor days and “driving-for-pleasure” visitor days. You can’t have roads in wilderness, so the two conflict with one another. Is one wilderness day equal to one driving day? Or is one more important than the other? How do you balance them?

    Other benefits or costs are not quantifiable, such as “a sense of community” or “the knowledge that a rare species will not go extinct.” How do we balance such non-quantifiables with quantifiables such as recreation days or affordable housing?

    The answer is that none of these things can be balanced. So comprehensive planning is a sham. It simply cannot be done.

    posted on January 2nd, 2007 at 9:48 pm

  5. 5 On January 3rd, 2007, Planner said:

    Well… The Anti-Planner…
    In my opinion, it seems that your blog is dedicated to the ever-present
    population of property owners and developers who will always yearn
    for the best of both worlds. To have their cake and eat it too, so
    to speak. There are many property owners who want to have total control
    over what they may do with their land, yet are quick to complain when
    an adjacent land-use infringes upon any of their perceived rights.
    Someone who is enjoying their quiet little slice of America on a large
    wooded lot will not want a quarry moving in next door. The adjacent
    land-owner wishes to make maximum profit on their land,
    however. How are we ever to reconcile such conflicts?

    Given the long history of supreme court cases and legislative rulings,
    it seems as if this topic may have come up before… The answer
    has been that planning is a necessary tool to ensure the public
    health, safety, and welfare.

    I look forward to your reply.

    posted on January 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 am

  6. 6 On January 3rd, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    Planner,

    Zoning was developed in the 1910s as a way of resolving the conflicts you describe. At almost exactly the same time, protective covenants (CC&RS) were developed for the same purpose. Most American cities today use zoning, but a few–Houston being the largest–rely on covenants.

    As they were originally designed, it isn’t clear that one system works better than the other. But cities that use zoning soon realize that zoning means power. Instead of using zoning to protect neighborhoods, they use it to shape neighborhoods–often in ways the neighborhoods don’t like. So I prefer the Houston method.

    I will post on this in more detail later. For now, suffice to say that the 2007 Preserving the American Dream conference will be in San Jose, a city strongly influenced by restrictive zoning, while the 2008 conference will be in Houston. So we can see together which system works best. I hope to see you there.

    posted on January 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 pm

  7. 7 On January 8th, 2007, Tad Winiecki said:

    “Failing to plan is planning to fail”.
    The most notorious recent example of this is the Iraq war, where the Republican administration failed to plan for the occupation.
    Some examples of good government planning include the transport projects Panama Canal, Interstate highways, and Apollo moon project, all of which had a good return on investment. The return on the Apollo project was mostly in inspiring young people to greatness and in the advances in automation technology which increased productivity. Other good federal planning examples are the Bonneville Power and Tennessee Valley river basin projects which provided clean, sustainable power, flood control and economic development in the regions where they operate. The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII is another good example.
    Where I live in Clark County, Washington, planners had the foresight fifty years ago to plan an east-west corridor and the county purchased the right of way. Construction on the Padden Parkway started decades later and is now almost complete. If the government hadn’t acted early the cost of right of way and studies would have been much higher and it would have been more difficult.
    Congratulations on your new blog, Randal.
    I know there are many examples of bad planning, especially when the result is dictated by politicians before the planning process begins without regard for engineering, economics, science or anything except rewarding their campaign contributors and satisfying their own egos.
    As a designer I know how hard it is to predict the future of a project. The only reliable source I know for long range predictions is the Bible. When I start a design I know I should only do about 70% of the design before starting construction, because I know there will be changes and I need to try things before completing the design. I can never get it all correct the first time I try something no one has done before.
    Randal, I hope you don’t get caught in too narrow a focus of just being anti or negative. For balance, I recommend you take a look at Ian Ford’s website http://www.abqtransp.org/ on how to do good transport planning.

    posted on January 8th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

  8. 8 On October 1st, 2007, Not Unmentioned said:

    Hello,

    I’m particularly young and for years now have been interested in pursuing a career in urban planning. Needless to say, I agree with little of the argument that you present, but that is not the nature of my inquiry.

    I just came across this blog today, and have been perusing for several hours now, and I’m sure I could find something to this effect either in one of the blog entries or one of your books, but as of right now I have not the patience to hunt – my curiosity presses me to just ask forthrightly.

    Thus I ask if you could briefly delineate how a locality would function and physically manifest itself without zoning and planning and other regulation. What is to prevent uses from coming into extreme confliction with their surroundings? How is the quality and safety of the built environment to be ensured? What would places like this most resemble? How would cities thrown up in absolute free-market chaos function? How would the provision of utilities and infrastructure be handled? How could this work?

    Again I apologize if I beg redundance of you; as I said, I’m sure you’ve answered questions like this many times. But I must know, for the nature of this blog and your viewpoint have been thought-provoking in the utmost. I sincerely appreciate the time you may put in response.

    Thank you,

    Not Unmentioned

    posted on October 1st, 2007 at 4:11 pm

  9. 9 On March 22nd, 2009, the highwayman said:

    The Antiplanner said:
    Planning a highway or a military operation is different from the long-range, comprehensive planning that I am criticizing. The former is focused on a single, clear goal and has a relatively short-term time horizon. The latter has multiple and often indefinite goals and a lengthy time horizon.

    THWM: That makes no sense, even roads are long term projects.

    The decision to build a road is a permanent commitment to the traveling
    public. Not only will a road be built, but it must also be routinely
    maintained and reconstructed when necessary, meaning no road is ever
    truly “paid for.”

    O’Toole: I am not arguing for the elimination of government, though many things that government does today such as roads and water could be privatized. I am arguing that government should not hire planners to do comprehensive, long-range planning or planning of other people’s resources or property.

    THWM: Though at times this has to be done.

    posted on March 22nd, 2009 at 2:40 am

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