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

12 
Bioregional 
Planning
 
From choosing among 
current options to 
designing futures
Land-use planning is central to a sustainable future. Land-use decisions change the environment for 
all time and are often not ecologically reversible. This is partly because traditional planning methods 
and practices did not engage seriously with sustainability.
1
Planning was initially instituted to protect 
public health and hygiene by, in effect, replacing nature with engineering infrastructure. Over time, 
planning methods evolved that channel us into predicting problems and choosing pathways or 
prototypes – none of which have been sustainable. ‘Predicting’ usually means projecting current 
trends. ‘Choosing’ usually means eliminating alternatives among presently available options. The 
concept of intergenerational equity has no meaning if development decisions lock future generations 
into unsustainable living patterns. The alternative, we have said, is ‘designing’ to expand future 
options. Given the ongoing reduction of natural carrying capacity, urban development must be 
re-designed to support, catalyse and re-generate the region. We can do this through reversible, 
adaptable, diverse Positive Development, which provides for ‘ecological infrastructure’ at the building, 
community and regional scales. However, this also requires new planning methods, which are the 
subject of this chapter.
The same patterns have emerged again and again in our Cook’s Tour of environmental management 
methods. Environmental management is designed to predict the negative impacts of future 
developments (assessment and rating tools), compare risks of future policies (risk assessment, scenario 
planning), prepare for contingencies (roadmapping), and/or offset future harmful activities (trading 
mechanisms), and so on. These and other methods purport to deal with ‘wicked problems’ in a 
complex environment. However, they do so in a manner that contradicts the very nature of complexity.
Because design has been subsumed by the dominant planning paradigm, we miss opportunities to 
create net positive (win–win–win) outcomes that counteract the impacts of past resource transfers.
We only try to do better from this point on, or shift various forms of taxes onto harmful products 
and developments. Positive Development would reverse the linear resource flows between humans 
and nature, rich and poor, urban and rural, etc – not trade things off.

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202
Positive Development
To achieve this, planning must be converted to a form of ‘eco-governance’. This would mean the design 
of intellectual, institutional and technical systems that respect a diversity of responsible cultures, 
lifestyles and values, yet protect the underlying ecological and democratic platforms that make these 
possible. Bioregionalism is a possible contender. It aims to design place-based, participatory systems 
of governance that synchronize with the natural ecology of the region. But can bioregionalism:
• 
Address the gradual loss of public decision-making oversight and influence resulting from
ongoing resource transfers (eg globalization and privatization)?
• 
Offer a pro-active framework that can tackle problems in the existing built environment?
• 
Help us move from ‘choosing’ among current options to ‘designing’ environments that
increase future options?