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

Question assumptions [Chapter 4]
We tend to limit analyses by excluding long-term social and environmental consequences that appear 
ambiguous. The impacts of planning policies on the concentration of wealth have generally been seen 
as too ‘remote’ to include in analyses. This is despite the fact that they are an inevitable consequence 
of planning and other resource-allocation processes. What is excluded is as important to think about 
as what is included: 
•
Because we reduce everything to energy and/or money, we have devalued time, space and
human resources. Hence we ignore ecological waste – the time and space it takes to recover
the resource base – not to mention ‘brain waste’ (lost human resources and talent).
• 
The focus on mitigating impacts of standard buildings and products has meant that we have 
largely ignored the inefficiencies of the development supply chain (eg resource extraction)
and building life-cycle (eg maintenance) that are driven by design.
Question ‘system’ boundaries [Chapter 8]
As we know, in nature and society there are no real boundaries. To conduct a quantitative analysis, 
however, it is usually necessary to determine the key parameters, relevant scope and boundaries of the 
project area. Yet boundary definitions can obscure recognition of some causal issues. Community–
expert workshops, focus groups and charrettes can assist in determining boundaries, salient issues, 
flows, parameters, obstructions and limits. A couple of examples are:
•
Catchment planning often just looks at one part of a river system, whereas the supply of
water to the catchment is affected by development elsewhere (eg global warming, tree
clearing, salination, and terraforming through mining and infrastructure).
• 
Sciences often look at a problem from a disciplinary base. (For example, salinity is shaped by 
rock formations, as well as by the water table and other geographic, tree and climatic
phenomena. Therefore, physical barriers to salinity have sometimes failed.) 
The assumption has been that the boundaries must coincide. The boundaries of the region, industry 
or material to be analysed may have very different kinds of parameters (eg a bioregion versus a river 
system). Therefore various maps in a regional audit may not need to have the same boundaries.
Comparing maps of different orders and scales (social, economic and environmental) can be of 
heuristic value by exposing both contrasts and parallels. Different maps might include:
•
A geographical area (eg industrial system, region, river system)
• 
Critical social issues (eg access to space, concentration of wealth) 
• 
Specific material or energy flows in relation to their source in nature
• 
Changes to ecological conditions (eg biodiversity) over time due to development
• 
Privatization of basic resources over time 
• 
Reduction of the public estate (or increase of negative space) over time
• 
Waste or other impacts in the supply chain
• 
The impediments to change (eg lack of public transport)