Human Nature and Sustainable Development: A Strategic Challenge for Planners

Sustainable development has been accepted as a conceptual framework for local planning. However, there continues to be difficulty incorporating the full range of its components (i.e., balanced consideration of environment, economy, and equity) into local planning in the form of policies and programs. Apart of the reason for this difficulty is the continuing competition between two worldviews, the expansionist and ecological. The author proposes the incremental integration of the two worldviews through an overall strategy of action and the use of a decision model that incorporates project and context information to identify appropriate method and role. As the ecological worldview becomes more institutionalized, it is likely that its components will be increasingly reflected in community development strategies.