COMMENTS on Golden and Assad

Abstract

The proposed framework provides in sane sense an open-ended, evolutionary planning instrument. But this framework seems to be particularly suited to planning the construction of a new suburb on “virgin” land, the disclaimers of the authors notwithstanding. This is of course the problem defined in the call for papers. But it is not really the normal planning problem, nor is it the situation where the occurrence of sleeper effects is becoming a problem, instead of an opportunity. It is peculiar to the “virgin territory” planning exercise that those that do the planning are likely to do it for, and not with the future inhabitants. Columbia is probably a success because only those people have come to live there who want to live there. The reversal of this favorable situation likely to minimize the emergence of sleeper effects is however only a question of time until the children of the first generation of inhabitants grow up and voice their desires and discontents.