Dissonance of Formal and Informal Planning Styles, Or Can Formal Planners Do Bricolage?

Abstract

Formal planners tend to justify their plans with non‐operational information and to rely upon power to implement them. "Generative" planning in informal enterprises tends to be based on operational information and implementation tends to be incremental and experimental. Formal interventions seeking to overcome disabilities of the informal sector not only fail but in many cases exacerbate them. This is due to dissonance that occurs between the two planning styles. Failure to plan generatively results from systemic constraints on the institutions sponsoring the interventions, including values and goals, and in part from the training, values, and world view of the formal planners. It is possible for formal planners to engage in generative planning, but joining informal players in generatively pursuing mutually defined goals may prove unacceptable, [planning styles, generative and regulative planning]