Chapter 30: Planning for Sustainable Environmental Futures

Planning for sustainable environmental futures cannot be treated in isolation from the planning process of which it is a part. Here, the planning process is defined as the statutory system that regulates the development process which brings forward proposals for the use and development of land (Rydin, 1998). The aim of this chapter is to identify the principles under which planners manage the development process, how those principles reflect the adoption of sustainable development, and, through the medium of selected transport-related case studies, explore attempts to deliver sustainable environmental futures.

This form of planning, often referred to as land use or physical planning, is a characteristic of all nation states that claim to pursue principles of liberal democracy through a representative government. In this sense, land use planning is an integral, if contested, feature of advanced capitalist societies where the private ownership of land is just one, albeit important, attribute of property rights and the privatized ownership of socially produced wealth. Although the private ownership of land is a characteristic of advanced capitalist societies, the rights over what an owner can do with it are heavily circumscribed – indeed, the rights to the use and development of land are effectively owned by the state. As a consequence, all proposals for development require the permission of the state. In theory this is a transfer of private property rights to the state; in practice, although the state retains ownership, the requirement to seek permission for development is subject to statutory relaxations that may and do change from time to time.