‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

But surely impact assessment cannot actually impede systems re-design?
EIAs and SAs were developed for project approval purposes. They were not intended to design better 
futures. They were only to make decision-makers more aware, in the belief that good information 
would lead to good outcomes. Over time, these project review and assessment activities – measuring, 
mitigating and monitoring – have eclipsed planning processes that might have evolved to design 
sustainable futures.
15
Instead, project approval systems, supported by EIAs or SAs, have been taken 
to be almost synonymous with ‘environmental protection’. As long as there is a planning process 
that takes environmental issues into account, environmental issues must be under control. In effect, 
development control ‘writ large’ has suppressed sustainability planning. Moreover, both development 
control and advance planning tend to respond to and accommodate the market. To the extent that 
‘comprehensive’ planning exists, it is still largely concerned with promoting growth, even where lip 
service is paid to conserving nature. Also, its approach to the environment still reflects its origins 
in zoning: keeping development off landslide areas or flood plains, or encouraging more growth in 
certain areas like central business districts. There are, of course, also ongoing efforts to physically 
improve and revitalize existing urban areas. However, these tend to be limited to promoting infill 
development, mitigated by public investment in a shrinking public estate. Investment in better 

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Positive Development
streetscapes – with sidewalk cafes, street trees, signage and bus shelters – supports business in the 
outdated belief that business ‘growth’ will then solve all our other problems. 
Has the character of comprehensive planning today changed?
Today, the focus is on developing better 
assessment
criteria, guidelines and indicators by which to 
measure private proposals, and sometimes even government performance. But this performance 
orientation is not new, as sometimes implied. In San Francisco among other places, for example, a set 
of broad policies were developed in the 1960s to ensure urban design, environmental, social, transport 
and other considerations were taken into account in new development. These were adopted by San 
Francisco’s legislative body, so that staff were able to implement these relatively ‘subjective’ criteria 
in a design review process. This enabled an interactive approach to design review, where staff could 
suggest to developers means by which the criteria could be better met.
16
At the same time, urban 
design guidelines for 
specific
sites were prepared to ensure developers were aware of the range of 
applicable design criteria that projects should meet before the design process began. Planners could 
then assist or discourage the siting and/or basic design of proposals through a variety of informal 
but relatively open and flexible means. If there was an impasse, developers, as well as community 
groups, could take the matter to a discretionary review hearing. Today, we are increasingly trying 
to replace 
engagement
by reducing things to formulas, ‘point’ systems, or web-based forms. These 
processes only encourage ‘best practice’ (ie professional price-fixing). In point systems, for example, 
there is still little indication of how projects can improve existing urban environments or conform to 
regional carrying capacity. Planners need erasers as well as rulers.