Relationship between futures studies and planning

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European Journal of Operational Research 33 (1988) 200-211 North-Holland

Relationship between futures studies and planning Abdul K H A K E E

Department of Geography/Urban and Regional Planning, University of Umeh, S-901 87 Ume2t, Sweden Abstract: Futures studies vary all the way from artistic and philosophical descriptions of the future to quantified socio-economic analysis. They differ with regard to their relationship with planning and decision-making--from autonomous studies to integrated parts of a planning document. There is no one single way of developing a model for futures-oriented planning. In fact, there is very little in the literature about how the results of a futures study can be used in operational plans and how futures studies need to be modified in order to be useful in a planning system. An important requirement in such a model, however, seems to be that futures studies should provide perspectives for policies or proposals in a plan. Linking futures studies to planning and decision-making processes is not only a matter of providing results to serve as inputs in the processes but also a question of organizing futures studies in such a way that experience of new ways of thinking can be transferred to planners in the course of the studies. The aim of this paper is to examine some important aspects of the relationship between futures studies and planning and to present a model where futures studies have been developed as an integral part of urban planning. The paper is divided into four sections besides the introduction: The first section discusses differences and similarities between futures studies and planning. The second section presents some features of models which were useful for connecting futures studies to planning. The model is presented in the third section which is divided into two subsections: the first deals with methods and the second with experience of integrating futures studies in the planning efforts of the urban government in V~ister~s, Sweden. The final section of the paper presents some general conclusions about the requirements of imaginative and normative focus in urban planning, the improvement of the conceptual framework and operative features of the V~ister~s Model, and the role of analysis in policy-making.

Keywords: Adaptive processes, decision, forecasting, planning, urban affairs

1. Introduction In recent years a great number of futures studies on global, national and regional development have been published. Few of them have become integral components of planning for the future. Part of the reason has been that the envisioned future has often been depicted "in a vacuum Research supported by the Secretariat for Futures Studies, Stockholm as a part-study in the project 'The Municipalities and the Futures'. Received September 1986; revised March 1987

rather than at the end of a path commencing in the present" [15, p. 180]. This lack of relationship to planning and policy-making is regretable especially because an increasing number of private and public organizations regard futures studies as an important and complementary activity to planning of current operations. For example, an increasing number of urban governments in Sweden have become aware that amid the current political and economic uncertainties, the middle-term planning (normally for four or five years) has become more and more like crisis management and has to be supplemented by long-term structural studies [25, pp. 84-91]. Similar examples can be found among

0377-2217/88/$3.50 © 1988, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

A. Khakee / Relationship between futures studies and planning

the large number of American impact assessment studies and studies of regional and local development in North Western Europe [14,16]. Since the first real attempts were made at institutionalizing futures research in the early 1960's a good deal has been written about constructing the images of the future--with emphasis on forecasting, modelling and scenario-generation [2, p. 290] but relatively little is known about how to link these images to the present and to successfully implement the delineated transition strategies. There is hardly any general knowledge or systematic experience about how futures studies are organized [33, p. 138]. This paper presents the futures study carried out by the municipal government in V~ister~s, Sweden. The V~ister~s study has focussed not only on the construction of likely futures but it also specifies ways of delineating transition strategies that link future images to the present and of implementing strategies by getting them incorporated into the decision-making process.

2. Differences and similarities between futures studies and planning

There are many variations in futures studies as well as planning with regard to aims, use of methods, organization and presentation of the results. The literature therefore is not unanimous with regards to similarities and differences between these activities. Some authors [15,32] feel that the boundary between the two is often blurred, while others point out that there are differences between futures studies and planning [9,28,35]. But even where conceptual frameworks are presented to illustrate differences between the two activities, it is recognized that in reality the demarcation between them will be far less sharp and that the two approaches should be regarded as complementary [35, pp. 646-648]. In the planning literature various conceptual frameworks have been proposed to distinguish between long-term and strategic planning on the one hand and operational and management planning on the other. A comparison between the conceptual framework constructed by Anthony [3, p. 67] distinguishing strategic planning and management planning and the conceptual framework suggested by Shani [35, p. 647] distinguish-

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ing planning and futures studies show a considerable amount of closeness between strategic planning and future studies. In this paper, planning is defined to include a systematic making of decisions, preparation of programs for their implementation and a measurement of performance against the program. Futures studies, on the other hand, clarify the range of possible futures and create images of attainable and desirable futures. Defined in this fashion there is a well-established tradition of middle-term planning in Swedish municipalities. By law or as a result of specific recommendations from the central authorities, the municipalities are required to prepare land-use plans, economic plans, housing programs and a variety of sectoral plans [19, pp. 59-74]. This planning system has developed with the growth of the welfare state. As political and economic uncertainties have increased in Sweden, so has the recognition about the inadequacies of these planning instruments to develop long-term strategies for development. Futures studies at the urban level are of a much more recent date and there is no well-developed approach to these activities. The tendency in Sweden has been, however, to follow the European tradition of futures research with the emphasis on studying a number of alternative scenarios to provide a basis for the public debate and for long-term political decisions [12, p. 29]. Shani's conceptual framework showing differences between planning and futures studies (see Table 1) provides a useful starting-point for analyzing a proper relationship between futures studies and planning. In fact several of the characteristics have been useful in developing the V~ister~s model. The output of planning activities is a set of decisions to be implemented by the organization whereas a futures study results in a knowledge base on which the present policy alternatives can be evaluated. The output of futures studies, if properly handled, can be used as input in the planning process. Since planning is action-oriented, it has to be fairly detailed whereas futures studies provide a broad perspective of futures and need not to be detailed. In an organization where futures studies are used as a complement to planning activities, the degree of detail for both can be adjusted to obtain a proper feedback between the two.

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Table 1 Schematic presentation of differences between planning and futures studies [35,p.647]. Characteristic

Planning

Futures studies

1. Output 2. Extent of detail 3. Organizational location

Set of decisions Fairly detailed Within the policy-making organizational setting Relatively limited High involvement Up to 5-10 years Mainly data-based, rigorous, analytical and quantitative techniques Internal, occasionally public Mainly based on performance

Background and context for decisions Relatively undetailed Usually outside the policy-making organizational setting Relatively unhmited Low involvement Usually beyond 10 years Mainly methods involving imagination, intuition and tacit knowledge Public, occasionally internal Mainly based on anticipation

4. Time element 5. Involvement in power struggle 6. Time-span 7. Techniques 8. Mode of publication 9. Evaluation

In Shani's framework the organizational location of futures studies is usually outside whereas that of planning inside the policy-making organization. This is one of the central issues for obtaining a suitable relationship between futures studies and planning. If the same persons are responsible for both futures studies and management planning, it is quite certain that routine would drive out analysis. On the other hand, an autonomous group while being innovative may lack a real understanding of development alternatives which are more relevant for the organization. In order to assure the integration of futures studies and planning process, one can for example supplement the internal recruitment of a futures studies group with special project groups, brainstorming sessions and external reference groups [33, p. 141]. As regards to the time element, planning has to be carried out within time constraints and with reference to the ongoing activities. Futures studies is relatively free from these constraints. Even if the differences in the time available for these two activities is of significance, the use of results from futures studies in the planning process makes it necessary that futures studies are carried out in some kind of temporal relationship to planning. Planning activities are usually subject to political bargaining, compromise and reconcilliation of conflicting interests, whereas the relative independence of futures studies from policy-making settings can remove them from power struggle. However, since normative aspects are inseparable parts of futures studies, it is desirable to involve policymakers in these studies, provided proper arrangements are made to take into consideration the subjective values and alternative scenarios are pro-

duced in order to cover ideological differences [24, pp. 55-61]. Planning is associated with a relatively short time-span whereas futures studies with a long time-span. The difference in time horizon has not only quantitative but also qualitative implications since in the short-run the future is viewed on the basis of quantitative and usually linear changes whereas the long-run is defined by the relative lack of constraints and commitments so that consideration can be given to a qualitatively different society. While there are obvious reasons for the differences in the time-span between futures studies and planning, future scenarios can be so constructed that development is envisioned in suitable time intervals corresponding to the planning periods [11, pp. 72-73]. Shani contends that the most appropriate techniques for planning are data-based and rigorous, emphasizing analytic and quantitative approaches whereas techniques for futures studies are based on intuition and tacit knowledge. There are, however, many examples of futures studies which successfully combine the use of intuitive and rigorous techniques [34, pp. 7-11] whereas planning requires methods involving imagination and intuition as well as quantitative data and rigorous analysis. In fact there is a considerable common ground with regard to the choice of techniques in policy analysis and futures studies. In the public sector there is a need to stimulate public debate and increase public awareness of the future. These are among the most important objectives of futures studies. Not only should the results of futures studies be widely available; citizens or their interest groups should also be en-

A. Khakee / Relationship between futures studies and planning

courged to participate in these. A systematic citizen participation is necessary, both for planning and futures studies. One basis for evaluating a plan is its successful implementation. Futures studies are more difficult to evaluate. They can eventually be appraised on the basis of their impact on planning and policymaking. In an organization where planning and futures studies are regarded as complementary activities, two things have to be kept in mind: (1) Futures studies should not be regarded as a direct prolongation of planning activities, or else many of the restrictions that surround planning activities will also be included in the futures studies; (2) Futures studies should not become an autonomous activity, or their interplay with the policy-making framework might thus be easily lost, making their results unrealistic and of little use in planning and policy-making.

3. Models of linking futures studies to planning Linking futures studies to the present by means of transition strategies has engaged only a few futurologists. The models available for this purpose can be roughly classified into two categories: (1) general models which present guidelines for such linkage, (2) models for developing specific transition strategies. Among the general models can be named the French Prospective model [7,10], Ozbekhan's 'futures-creative' planning approach [30,31] and Jantsch's technological forecasting model [17,18]. The second category of models are concerned with mechanisms for establishing priorities among alternative ends, developing policies linking the future to the present, and bringing about necessary organizational change [4,5,8,13]. Since the readers of this journal are familiar with these models, it is not necessary to recapitulate them. Interested readers are referred to the references mentioned above. It would be sufficient to present some aspects from the above-mentioned general models which have been important in developing the V~isterhs model. According to the Prospective model, the future is not a part of a predetermined temporal continuity but an entity quite separate from the past. It takes on meaning only insofar as it is related to

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present actions. The model emphasizes the need to isolate 'future-bearing facts' (that is, factors from which future realities emerge). In the V~ister~s model this idea has been used in the construction of alternative futures of the municipal government's environment as well as in the discussion about the alternative futures of urban services. Ozbekhan's model introduces the concept of 'ideal ends' which are indicative of the most desirable outcomes. The alternative futures are evaluated in terms of these ends. This normative emphasis has been important in deriving a desirable image of the municipal government's future. In order that forecasting would guide planning, Jantsch distinguishes between exploratory forecasting which leads from the present situation to future states and normative forecasting which leads backward from normatively assessed future states to action in the present. The feedback processes between these two forms for forecasting which Jantsch proposes have been useful in the V~isterhs study where futures autobiographies [15], scenario-writing and trend extrapolation have been used for constructing alternative futures.

4. The V~ter~s model Methods

V~ister~s, like the majority of large towns in Sweden, was in the beginning of 1970s in the midst of planning for urban expansion. The decline in the rate of urbanization and immigration to industrial areas in 1972 came as a shock to most of the politicians and the planners in the municipality. This break in the postwar trend gradually led the politicians and the planners to look for alternative methods for planning. The available middle-term planning instruments had always operated in terms of growth. With the onset of economic and social stagnation, these were found to be inadequate for the issues politicians and planners were interested in namely the problems of supply, scarcity of resources and revamping the social structure under no-growth conditions. The focus of the V~ister~s model has been threefold: (1) to generate knowledge about the future so as to evaluate possible consequences that action

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taken in the face of future uncertainties will have on the present, (2) to enhance the insight of planners and politicians through their direct participation in the futures studies which would also increase the possibility of implementing the images of a more desirable future (3) to establish futures studies as complementary activities to the existing urban planning system. In order to reach these objectives, the V~ister~s model emphasizes a successive choice of techniques as the issues under study are clarified and as planners and politicians involved in the study obtain better understanding of the approaches to solve various problems. The object of the futures study in V~ister~s has been to generate several possible futures of the urban services and the urban government in the year 2010. The study has been carried out since autumn 1983 and will be completed during autumn 1987. The V~isterhs model was constructed as six interrelated operations (see Figure 1) [21, pp. 63-83].

forward some major ideological, methodological and organizational shortcomings in the municipal planning process [20, pp. 82-93]. The report stirred so many feelings in the V~ister~s' City Hall that it paved way for a group of planners to meet regularly but spontaneously to discuss long-term planning problems. This group (later called 'the futures group') came to play an important role in the consequent operations of the V~ister~s model. (2) A majority of the planners and politicians involved in stage one of the model felt that the then available futures studies especially the internationally well-known studies (e.g. Herman Kahn's 'The Year 2000' or the Club of Rome's global prophecies) created an impression that futures studies involve extremely complicated methods of analysis and lead to radical changes in the content and direction of decisions. The methodological orientation involved brainstorming sessions with politicians and planners in order to elicit their reactions to various methodological issues. The characteristics in Table 1 were starting points for these discussions. At the end of this operation, the politicians and the planners felt that after all futures studies involve a broad analysis of available data combined with a more through examination of structural problems and of values and value changes. The methodological orientation was complemented with an exercise where the planners and politicians were asked to express their thoughts about the future in terms familiar to them (a

(1) The review of current planning and decision-making was undertaken by means of a questionnaire-survey among politicians elected in executive positions, heads of departments and other civil servants occupying important positions in the planning system. The answers were analyzed with the help of four techniques: cross tabulation, multi-dimensional scaling, semantic differential and behavior classification. The review brought

Review of current

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Alternative scenarios of the municipal government's environment

A l t e r n a t i v e futures of urban services and the municipal government

Figure 1. Operational features

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A. Khakee / Relationship between future studies and planning

that the futures study becomes innovative and imaginative, it was recognized that the formal organization should be complemented by such activities as making interviews among the rank and file of the municipal employees, arrange workshops and brainstorming sessions and publicize the results of the study in order to obtain the necessary reactions from the staff and politicians not directly involved in the futures study. It was also decided to appoint an advisory reference group representing interest groups and citizens' organizations in the municipality. The formal organization of the municipal futures study was made up of: (1) a futures studies unit, (2) a leading politicians' group (3) the futures group, and (4) a working group. All these units were responsible to the municipal executive council (see Figure 2). The composition and functions of the different groups are as follows: (a) The leading politicians' group has been made up of some fifteen politicians who are either members of the municipal executive council or the various departmental committees with the responsibility for making long-term decisions. Its members have been required to read and comment all reports prepared in the course of the study, participate in workshops and brainstorming sessions, take part in the implementation of various techniques like the Delphi, futures autobiographies and self-anchoring striving scale. (b) The futures studies unit consists of two persons: the head of the Planning and Statistics Department who has been relieved of his ordinary duties to work full-time on the futures study and an externally recruited research adviser (the author of this paper) working on a part-time basis. The unit has been responsible for the overall conduct of the study, analyzing and organizing all information gathered during its various operations, and coordinating the activities of the various groups. (c) The futures group was originally a

modified version of self-anchoring striving scale technique) [6]. (3) Problem formulation constitutes a vital activity in futurs studies which very much depends on how those involved in the study conceive the problems. A very much modified version of the Delphi technique was used to obtain opinions on different problems facing the urban government. The politicians and planners were asked to consider a number of possible events and to answer questions regarding their implications and preferences for policies. One of the more important observations from the above investigation was the paramount importance of the changes in the municiplity's external environment for the development of the municipal services. Environment was defined as the national and world conditions affecting municipal development. It was realized that it was not realistic to study every small and specific aspect of the environment. By means of metaplan technique [1] the politicians and planners were able to select ten key variables. They are: national and international economic development, labor market, information technology, political structure, regional structure, societal values, commercial services, education, demographic changes and transportation. Several factors were taken into consideration while organizing the futures study. It was realized that the operational organization of the futures study should combine some of the advantages of organizational independence while retaining a close relationship with the planning and decisionmaking functions. It was also agread that most people working with the different aspects of the study should be recruited from within the municipal organization (which during the postwar expansion period had built up a large management capacity). Since futures study would be a recurrent feature in the planning system, this would give good training to the personnel. In order to ensure

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Futures unitstudies i ~ Figure 2. Organization of municipal futures study in V~isterhs

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The

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spontaneous and loosely organized group of planners interested in the problems of long-term planning. Its members come from nearly all the departments and reflects the whole variety of municipal interests and activities. The main task of the group has been to prepare background studies of the environmental factors from available research reports and other publications. They have also participated in all the exercises conducted during the implementation of the V~ister~s model. The members of the group have also acted as 'liaison' between the futures studies unit and the planning and decision-making processes. (d) The working group consists of 13 civil servants, each representing one of the 13 municipal departments. It's main task has been to carry out the backview mirror analysis. (4) The backview mirror analysis has been conducted for three reasons: (a) it helps to increase interest among the employees in futures problems by letting some of them examine how their own involvement in the organization's past activities has affected the development of the organization, (b) it provides an opportunity to examine the common ground between past, present and future beyond a few quantifiable variables, and (c) it provides an analysis of the strength and weakness of the existing organization. The backview mirror analysis involves trend studies and case studies of discontinuities and contingencies with regards to the development of municipal services during the entire postwar period. The studies cover six variables which constitute the municipal government namely goals, resources, personnel, structure, technology and environment. The trend-system technique employed during this phase of the model has had some very important methodological and policy implications for urban planning in V~ister~s [23,26]. (5) The construction of alternative scenarios of the municipal government's environment has made use of three techniques: futures autobiographies, scenario writing and trend extrapolation. Members of the leading politicians' groups were requested to write futures autobiographies covering the period 1985-2010. These biographies describe what the urban government would be like in the year 2010 and what forces have paved the way for such a development. Futures autobiographies serve as a basis for deriving normative objectives. The members of the futures groups produced

background studies for all the ten environmental variables while the futures studies unit carried out trend extrapolation of the quantifiable factors of these variables. These studies were then discussed at several workshops arranged for politicians and civil servants. On the basis of these discussions, the futures studies unit has prepared four alternative scenarios: (a) a reference scenario which assumes that the present 'stop-go' development will continue until the year 2010, (b) a scenario which assumes economic expansion on the basis of a strong public intervention in industrial development, (c) another growth scenario which assumes that unfettered market forces would be responsible for a new economic boom, and (d) a scenario depicting radical economic rethinking in the face of long-term stagnation and leading toward smallscale, ecologically-oriented private and public production of goods and services. At this stage various discontinuities and contingencies in future development have been analyzed together with strategies to influence the development [27]. (6) The evaluation of alternative futures for the municipal services and urban government on the basis of backview mirror analysis and the alternative scenarios of the environment are in the process of implementation. So far two techniques-process analysis and goals-policy analysis [29] have been examined by the politicians and planners. The use of these would enable them to determine the potential development of the municipal services, their effectiveness in the different future situations and the most important actions to achieve the alternative futures.

Experience The implementation of the V~ister~ts model has given rise to a large number of methodological, organizational and other observations. Some of them have already been reported [20,21,22,23,24]. Here, the experience from implementating the model will be discussed with regards to four aspects: (1) output and feedback in the planning process, (2) techniques, (3) organization, and (4) political involvement. The emphasis in this discussion is on the relationship between futures studies and planning. (1) Output and feedback in the planning process: Two sets of proposals have resulted during phases

A. Khakee / Relationship between futures studies and planning

four and five of the V~ister~s model. The first set of proposals include development strategies to stimulate the local industry, to increase infrastructural investments and to engage the municipal government in R and D by constructing a large R and D-center in co-operation with local industries and the university college. The other set of proposals identify key areas which need more detailed and specific strategic studies, for example, the renewal of a substantial part of the city's physical infrastructure, the impact of increasing use of computers on municipal administration and production of urban services, and youth unemployment. In the face of the current stagnation in employment in the municipality, it is not surprising to find that the majority of politicians and planners have shown tremendous interest in the first set of proposals. The municipal executive council has appointed several working groups to work further with the proposed development strategies. So great has been their interest in these results of the futures study that some of the civil servants have voiced their fear that this engagement is occurring at the cost of the municipal government's traditional role in providing urban amenities and enhancing social welfare of the citizens. The interest in specific strategic studies of key areas that are precursors of particular futures has not been as keen in the case of development strategies. One reason is that many of the participants seem to be uncertain about the effects of such studies. Moreover, these studies require redirecting administrative resources from traditional tasks to new kind of work. In the course of the V~ister&s study, a questionnaire survey among administrators showed that nearly one-third of the investigations made in connection with the presentation of budgets, statements of account and middle-term planning had very little or no use in the decision-making process. The personnel working with these tasks could be redirected to the new studies after a suitable retraining programme. However, the trade unions and politicians are very cautious of making changes in the planning system which has over decades followed institutional historical rules and unquestioned preconceptions. One of the premises of the V~ister&s model has been that the future images are so presented that the analysis of the development is phased out in five-year-intervals corresponding to the middle-

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term planning. The planners mean that the information could then be used directly to formulate the common planning framework for all the middle-term plans. Since the middle of 1970s, all Swedish municipalities prepare such a framework (in Swedish, it is called the GPF-plan). A prerequisite for preparing this framework is that politicians define goals for the long-term development. Evaluation of this type of planning shows that politicians are unwilling to do so or when they do so, the goals are presented in such a vague manner that they are hardly useful for preparing the plans [20, p. 90]. The planners in V~ister~ts have outlined the following planning system (see Figure 3). It is too early to say if it would be possible to put this system into practice. Some planners fear that this would lead to changes even in the departmental structure of the municipal government. The majority of the planners, however, feel that this system of planning is the only right one in the current political and economic uncertainties. (2) Techniques: One of the aims of the V~ister&s model has been to develop a procedure that includes both an analysis of the present and its restrictions and images of alternative futures. The model makes use of exploratory and normative techniques as well as it provides for a feedback between the two. For example, in the fifth phase of the model, trend extrapolation, futures autobiographies and scenario-writing have been combined to generate the information on the alternative development in the municipality and to stimulate the realization of options in various systematic contexts. An initial difficulty was to convince the politicians and planners to appreciate that the futures study was n6t just a kind of forecasting. It also involved envisioning of ends that are indicative of desirable outcomes and making explicit values that define ends. The next problem was to reconcile the political values of the participants. Initially the futures studies unit proposed to develop only one scenario picturing economic expansion. However, the social democratic members of the political group has a different vision of economic expansion from the fight-wing parties. This type of value conflicts have not always been easy to solve during the other phases of the futures study. Another difficulty was to specify criteria for

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Common Planning Framework j

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Figure 3. Futures-creative planning system in V~ister~s

evaluating the feasibility of prefered future images and transition strategies. For example, very few of the politicians (mostly women) were in favour of the fourth scenario with its emphasis on small-scale socioeconomic development. The majority of them found the scenario to be too unrealistic. This is strange since a considerable amount of public debate has been going on in Sweden during the last few years about this type of development as a solution to long-term economic stagnation in the economy [36, pp. 71-114]. It was only the presence of an external adviser who could prevent the abandoning of developing such a future image. A model for evaluating the alternative futures of an urban government depends very much on how the development of its external environment is analyzed. Limiting the environmental studies to ten factors meant that some environmental issues are rather summarily studied or not studied at all. One important variable is the ecological considerations including the supply of raw materials. This depends on the fact that municipal governments employ very few natural scientists. Moreover they have no important positions in the planning process. As a result the methodological problems raised with regards to the long-term resource conservation problems receive very little attention compared to the problems of urban development. The pedagogic approach in the V~ister~s model required the participants to acquire a good understanding of the applied techniques. This implies that these techniques have more lasting impact on the policy by achieving consensus on the assump-

tions of the techniques as well as arriving at an agreement about the conclusions. It took a great deal of effort to get the politicians and planners to think this way but the model on the whole provides an interesting example of the education of planners and model-builders in each others' science and art. An important by-product of this model has been that many planners feel that the techniques used in futures studies are also useful in the middle-term planning. For example, the planners in the Social Welfare Department have used the modified version of the Delphi technique to evaluate the social assistants' opinions about implementing the new social welfare legislation. The Budget Department has initiated a process to let the departments prepare the annual budgets on the basis of the six system variables (enumerated in the backview mirror technique) instead of an exclusive emphasis on the financial resources. (3) Organization: The fear that the participation of politicians and planners would result in that the routine tasks would predominate has not turned out to be the case in the V~ister~s study. The organization of various activities (brainstorming, work-shops, interview surveys, etc) in conjunction with the implementation of the techniques has been an important factor to prevent such a development. Another factor was the use of interdepartmental groups of planners with a keen interest in future problems. A basic assumption for the recruitment of the members of the futures group and the working group was that all the departments had an excess

A. Khakee / Relationship between futures studies and planning

capacity of administrative personnel (recruited during the years of urban expansion). This was not without problems. The heads of some of the departments who felt that their departments had not received adequate resources got the opportunity to demonstrate their grievances by refusing to nominate their representatives. A letter from the executive council emphasizing the importance of the futures studies and the demonstrated effects from the participating departments finally solved this problem. The members of the groups were supposed to participate in the futures studies on a part-time basis. It was assumed that the participants would delegate some of their normal duties to others in their departments. However, the planners became unwilling to delegate their tasks for which they felt that they might harm their own positions in the departmental hierarchy. Thus the participation was not as great as originally assumed leaving a greater burden of work to the futures studies unit. Another important premise in the recruitment of persons to the groups was that such individuals were held to be inter alia creative, imaginative and intuitive. However, the heads of the department were not always enthusiastic about such recruitment. They wanted themselves to be group members or appoint one of their principal subordinates in order to have a full insight in the futures study. (4) Political involvement: Typically the images of the future are derived by individuals or small groups of academics. In the case of V~ster~ts, they have been advanced by people having policy-making authority. This fact has been important in the implementation of the transition strategies and goals. The political participation has not been without its problems. The politicians have been quite cautious in approaching the future issues. This is evident from the contents of the alternative scenarios. Another example of their cautiousness is the lack of interest in encouraging the rank and file of municipal employees and municipal citizens to participate in the futures study. The participation of the former has been limited to a questionnaire survey where all the employees were asked to write out a scenario indicating what for them the urban government would be like in the year 2010. About 2% of the staff wrote out such scenarios but no steps were taken to encourage

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this group into further activities. The important results of the futures study are, however, reported regularly in the municipal personnel newsletter. It was originally decided to increase public awareness in the futures study by appointing a reference group made up of representatives of interest groups and citizens' organizations in the municipality. This group would have acted as a discussion partner to help and collect information and other relevant material. Uncertain of the results of the study and its implications, the politicians were not enthusiastic about the idea of such a reference group. At the final stage of the model, the politicians seem to be more confident about its importance and have proposed to prepare a popular book summarizing the important results of the futures study. Conflicts between political personalities and between the parties have also affected the implementation of the model. The most notable example was in the preparation of the futures autobiographies. All members of the executive council were asked to write such autobiographies outlining the major events which would occur between 1985 and 2010 in the municipality. These would then serve as the basis for isolating the nature of images of the local future and for providing political visions with regards to the interrelationship of past, present and future, the interrelationship of means and ends and the concept of social change as viewed by different political parties. The politicians were requested not to publicize these autobiographies but let the futures studies unit have them to prepare a synthesis. Unfortunately the leader of the Communist Party allowed a journalist to write about his autobiography in which he had predicted that the Liberal Party would be the smallest party in the municipal assembly in the year 1995, but in order to avert a further decline in its electorate, the Liberal Party would propogate for special financial support to sexual minorities! The leader of the Liberal Party decided to withdraw her participation in the futures study. It took a good deal of convincing but above all the very good election results for the Liberal Party in the 1985 elections which made the Party to be active participants again. This incident was unfortunate since the publicity "frightened" away even other members of the executive council from preparing futures autobiographies.

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The municipal politicians come from all sorts of vocations. This has been apparent especially in appreciating the role of futures study as means for providing an understanding of the underlying process of change. The leadership of the Conservative Party in V~isterhs is made up of several academics, one of whom is the head of the strategic planning division in a multinational electronic corporation. The Party's 1985 election pamphlet was entitled "V~ister~s 2010" describing the life of a family in V~ister~s in the year 2010 and showing how the conservative policies would lead to such a future! Political involvement in the V~ister~s study has made it ' value-loaded' and its contents and implementation have been affected by party conflicts and ideological differences. But on the whole, this involvement has also removed some important impediments of putting images of the future into action. It has created opportunities for politicians for routinely considering long-term possibilities. If this exercise was made a permanent part of the planning system, it would offer a normative basis and an operational means of developing broad visions of the f u t u r e - - a vital requirement in the current political and economic uncertainties in the Swedish municipalities.

5. Concluding remarks The V~ister~s study indicates that in the long run urban planning would benefit from an imaginative and normative focus on the future. Such a study fulfils the needs and functions for which middle-turn planning is not suited. It makes decision-makers aware of the great variety of possibilities lying ahead. The V~ister~s model provides a self-feeding application of analysis and synthesis whereby the present processes of the urban society and of the urban government can be constantly guided with reference to the future. It provides thereby a new framework for decision-making apparatus and a basis for redirecting its institutions. The process model with its various techniques outlined in this paper has so far been applied in only one urban government. There is a considerable need to improve the operative features of the model and the conceptual framework of the techniques by applying the model in other contexts. The knowledge generated by such applications

would provide for the improvement of the model as well as contribute to the development of research in long-term urban planning. Another important issue for further research is the role of analysis in policy-making. The implementation of the V~ister~s model shows that the role of analysis in futures studies of urban government and its environment is full of uncertainties. It is difficult to draw general conclusions about the relationship between futures studies and policy-making processes. Further research is required to analyze this relationship especially with reference to the organizational aspects of futuresoriented studies, the choice of approaches and the presentation and utilization of the results. The V~isterfas model puts considerable emphasis on defining what is desirable and on appreciating the interdependence between goals. The development of a process approach to do this has proved essential for devising effective links between the present and the distant ideal ends as well as helping a coordination between sectors.

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A. Khakee / Relationship between futures studies and planning

[13] Hahn, W.A., and Gordon, K.F., (eds.), Assessing the Future and Public Policy, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, New York, 1973. [14] Holling, C.S. (ed.), Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management, Wiley, New York, 1978. [15] Huber, B.J., "Images of the future", in: J. Fowles (ed.), Handbook of Futures Research, Greenwood Press, London, 1978, 179-224. [16] Jain, R.K., Urban, L.V., and Stacey, G.C., Environmental Impact Analysis: A New Dimension in Decision Making, Van Nostrand-Reinhold, New York, 1981. [17] Jantsch, E., Technological Planning and Social Futures, Wiley, New York, 1972. [18] Jantsch, E., "Forecasting and the systems approach: A critical survey", Policy Sciences 3 (1972) 475-498. [19] Khakee, A., Planning in a Mixed Economy: The Case of Sweden, Swedish Council for Building Research, Stockholm, 1979. [20] Khakee, A., "Town planning in Sweden: national officials versus local politicians", Long Range Planning 17 (1984) 82-93. [21] Khakee, A., "Futures-oriented municipal planning", Technological Forecasting and Social Change 28 (1985) 63-83. [22] Khakee, A., "From master planning to structural planning: The Swedish town planning dilemma", Cities 2 (1985) 318-330. [23] Khakee, A., "Backview mirror analysis in futures studies", Omega 14 (1986) 391-399. [24] Khakee, A., and Dahlgren, L., "Values in futures studies and long-term planning", Futures 18 (1986) 52-67. [25] Khakee, A., and Wiberg, U. (eds.), Kommunala framtidsstudier (Municipal Futures Studies), Ministry of Industry, Stockholm, 1982.

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[26] Khakee, A., and Ytterberg, O., Viisterds kommun i framtiden (V~ister~s Municipality in the Future), Report no. 9, Planning Department, Municipality of V~.ster~ts, Vaster~s, 1986. [27] Khakee, A., and Ytterberg, O., Viister&s kommun i framtiden (Viister~s Municipafity in the Future), Report no. 10, Planning Department, Municipality of V~ister~s, V~ister~s, 1986. [28] McHale, J., "Typological Survey of Futures Research in the U.S.", Center for Integrative Studies, State University of New York, Binghampton, 1970. [29] Nilstun, T., "Att identifiera mhl i offentlig politik" (How to identify goals in public policy), Statsvetenskplig tidskrift 88 (1985) 321-330. [30] Ozbekhan, H., "The triumph of technology: 'can' implies 'ought', in: S. Andersson, op. cit., 204-233. [31] Ozbekhan, H., "The emerging methodology of planning", Fields Within Fields 10 (1973-1974) 63--80. [32] Schwarz, B., "Long-range planning in the public sector", Futures 9 (1977) 115-127. [33] Schwarz, B., "Organisation av en kommunal framtidsstudie" (Organization of a municipal futures study), in: A. Khakee and U. Wiberg, op. cit., 137-144. [34] Schwarz, B., Svedin, U., and Wittrock, B., Methods in Futures Studies: Problems and Applications, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1982. [35] Shani, M., "Futures studies versus planning", Omega 2 (1974) 635-649. [36] ~,kerman, N., "Can Sweden be shrunk?", Development Dialogue 2 (1979) 71-114.