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Forecasting the Future:
An Overview of the Strategic Planning of the Bournemouth and Poole Conurbation
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Doug Hart
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Working Papers
in Real Estate & Planning 18/04
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pp 18
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Abstract
An important part
of strategic planning’s purpose should be to attempt to forecast the future,
not simply to belatedly respond to events, or accept the future as inevitable.
This paper puts forward a conceptual approach for seeking to achieve these
aims and uses the Bournemouth and Poole area in Dorset as a vehicle for
applying the basic methodology. The area has been chosen because of the
significant issues that it currently faces in planning terms; and its future
development possibilities.
In order that alternative
future choices for the area – different ‘developmental trajectories’ –
can be evaluated, they must be carefully and logically constructed.
Four Futures for Bournemouth/Poole have been put forward; they are titled
and colour-coded:
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Future One is Maximising
Growth – Golden Prospect which seeks to achieve the highest level
of economic prosperity of the area;
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Future Two is Incremental
Growth – Solid Silver which attempts to facilitate a steady, continuing,
controlled pattern of the development for the area;
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Future Three is Steady
State – Cobalt Blue which suggests that people in the area could be more
concerned with preserving their quality of life in terms of their leisure
and recreation rather than increasing wealth;
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Future Four is Environment
First – Jade Green which makes the area’s environmental protection its
top priority even at the possible expense of economic prosperity.
The scenarios
proposed here are not sacrosanct. Nor are they simply confined to the Bournemouth
and Poole area. In theory, suitably modified, they could use in a
variety of different contexts. Consideration of the scenarios – wherever
located - might then generate other, additional scenarios. These
are called hybrids, alloys and amalgams. Likewise it might identify
some of them as inappropriate or impossible. Most likely, careful consideration
of the scenarios will suggest hybrid scenarios, in which features from
different scenarios are combined to produce alternative or additional futures
for consideration. The real issue then becomes how best to fashion
such a future for the particular area under consideration.
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