FUZZY LOGIC: A RULE-BASED APPROACH, IN

SEARCH OF A JUSTIFIED DECISION-MAKING

PROCESS IN URBAN PLANNING

vorgelegt von
Dipl.-Ing.
REZA PIROOZFAR

Von der Fakultt VI - Planen Bauen Umwelt

der Technischen Universitt Berlin
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doktor der Ingenieurwissenschaften
Dr.-Ing.
genehmigte Dissertation

Promotionsausschuss:
Vorsitzende: Prof. Dipl. Ing. Regine Leibinger
Berichter:
Prof. Dipl. Ing. Klaus Zillich
Prof. Dr. Ali Modarres
Tag der wissenschaftlichen Aussprache: 24. Juni 2010

Berlin 2012
D 83

FUZZY LOGIC: A RULE-BASED APPROACH, IN

SEARCH OF A JUSTIFIED DECISION-MAKING
PROCESS IN URBAN PLANNING

REZA PIROOZFAR
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN STUDIES

INSTITUTE FOR ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN STUDIES

FACULTY VI (PLANNING BUILDING ENVIRONMENT)

BERLIN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (TU-BERLIN)

BERLIN, 2012

 In memory of my uncle Maestro Manouchehr Ehterami

To my mom and dad

Abstract
The decision-making theory and process within planning is involved with peoples daily lives and
involves many interest groups. In most cases, it determines peoples destinies and misfortunes.
Any, even small, changes or discretions in a plan may cause big changes and problems in
individuals lives and private sectors successes. The logic of using a single method, idea, truth,
and so on for decision making therefore comes under serious question. Now, some other
disciplines, this question is asked in a multiobjective environment and activity like planning and,
clearly, the question has greater meanings, implications, and applications for the whole discipline.
This thesis sets out to answer two major questions. With regard to the nature of planning, is the
preceding logic of decision making in (urban) planning justified to be applied to the discipline and
its subdisciplines? Is it possible and basically necessary to formulate a new logic which is
capable of orchestrating a justified decision making theory, and improving performance of
decision making process when applied to planning?
To answer the questions, the research begins with reviewing the history and nature of planning
and decision making theory. Based on historical analysis, it reveals that three different
conceptualizations of planning and decision making have been coined and conceptually
advanced since 1945: design-based view, system-based view, and person-based view.
Analytical scrutiny and epistemological studies, along with the study of the logic of decision
making show that the theory of decision making suffers from the development of binary,
reductionist and iconic models of reality and decide based on these types of models, and
illuminate the nature of planning. The study explains that planning is a multidimension,
multiobjective, multijudgment, and multiparties activity with which it is necessary to deal
accordingly. Otherwise, the process would face serious problems in gaining justification. In other
words, the process should follow justification necessities of the decision-making process, which
needs to be formed and developed by a justified or justifiable method of decision making. With
consideration of the decision-making process in such an atmosphere, the current research
discusses binary logic (as the logic of the precedent decision-making methods) and its limitations
and studies the alternatives. The renowned multivalued logic (infinite-valued logic), namely, fuzzy
logic, along with its school of thought (i.e., fuzzy thinking) and its application tool (i.e., the fuzzy
set), are explained, and through this window, the decision making aspects are explained. Then a
comparison between these two logics is made, their benefits and limitations are highlighted, and
the research argues that those theories that are based on or benefit from merely a bivalued
evaluation method entail arbitrariness and selectiveness that result in unjustified means of
decision making.
Then, the research argues that the three aforementioned conceptualizations of planning are vital
to decision-making theory, but each of these aspects acting individually will not be able to resolve
the decision-making problems in a justified way, and they should be utilized simultaneously. It
deduces that some other conceptualizations should yet be added to these preceding views of
planning.
The research concludes that understanding the interactions between fuzzy systems (and
fuzziness in systems) and urban planning lays a solid foundation for better applications of the
decision-making theory and processes, and that their integration offers a great number of
interesting possibilities in their interplay and future developments.

Table of Contents

Abstract........................................................................................................................i
Preface.........................................................................................................................1
Acknowledgment.........................................................................................................5
1 Introduction...........................................................................................................7
1.1

ResearchBackground.................................................................................................7

1.2

ResearchProblem......................................................................................................7

1.3

ResearchQuestions...................................................................................................8

1.4

ResearchFocusandScope.........................................................................................9

1.5

AimsandObjectives................................................................................................10

1.6

SummaryofContents..............................................................................................11

2 Planning,PlanningSphereandPlanningTheory..................................................13
2.1

Introduction............................................................................................................13

2.2

ProblemDefinition..................................................................................................14

2.3

Definitions,Expansions,andRelations.....................................................................14
AmericanPlanningAssociationDefinitionofPlanning_____________________________15
ExtremesofPlanningTasks,Responsibilities,andDefinitions_______________________16

2.4

PlanningDefinition:DistinctionsandValues............................................................16
BargainingwithOtherSpecializations:OtherValues______________________________17

2.5

MajorPlanningApproachesandMilestones;MatterofPracticality.........................21
OngoingProcessandComprehensiveness______________________________________21
Justification;ModernismtoPostmodernism ____________________________________22

2.6

PlanningAccount.....................................................................................................23

2.7

PlanningTheory,Modifications,andPatterns..........................................................24
TypesandCategories_______________________________________________________27
ModeofThoughtsandPatterns:Induction,Deduction,andIntuitioninPlanningTheory_29

2.8

Conclusion...............................................................................................................30

2.3.1
2.3.2
2.4.1
2.5.1
2.5.2

2.7.1
2.7.2

3 Concentration,TheoreticalFramework,andMethodology..................................33
3.1

Introduction............................................................................................................33

3.2

MethodologiesinPlanning......................................................................................34
AbouttheTerm___________________________________________________________34
KnowledgeinPlanning:KnowWhatandKnowHow______________________________34
DiversityofMethodologiesinPlanning ________________________________________36
DifferentPathsoraSinglePathMorphing______________________________________37

3.3

MethodologyoftheCurrentResearch.....................................................................37
GeneralVisionoftheResearchsPath:SettingtheScene,Development,andAnalysis ___38
TypeofFramework:Theoreticaland/orPractical ________________________________39

3.4

PossibleCriticism.....................................................................................................40
StudyofLogics____________________________________________________________40

3.5

TheNecessityoftheResearchandItsContributiontotheKnowledgePool.............41
CurrentContradictionsandNeeds ____________________________________________42

3.6

Premises..................................................................................................................43
GeographicalPremisesandPoliticoEconomicAtmosphere ________________________43

3.2.1
3.2.2
3.2.3
3.2.4
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.4.1
3.5.1
3.6.1

ii

3.6.2
3.6.3

3.7

LacksandFaults(Data,Time,Corruption,InstitutionsStructureandRelation)_________43
PhilosophicalPremises _____________________________________________________44

Conclusion...............................................................................................................45

4 AnalyticalStudyofResearchContext:DecisionMakingAspectinUrbanPlanning47
4.1

Introduction............................................................................................................47

4.2

DecisionandtheNecessityofDecisionMaking........................................................48
Etymology _______________________________________________________________48
DecisionMakingSituations__________________________________________________48

4.3

DecisionMakingandUrbanPlanning.......................................................................49
Decisions ________________________________________________________________49
TheRelation______________________________________________________________49
TheRootofImportance_____________________________________________________51
WhereDothePlanningDecisionsHappen?_____________________________________51

4.4

MajorMilestonesforDecisionMakingTheoriesBasedonObjectives......................52
TransferringtheDecisionMakingtoCitizens;ArnsteinsCitizensControl_____________52

4.5

DecisionsinPlanning...............................................................................................54

4.6

Complexity..............................................................................................................57

4.7

Uncertainty..............................................................................................................59
TypesofUncertainty_______________________________________________________59

4.8

DecisionTheory.......................................................................................................61

4.9

DecisionMaking,DecisionMakers,theCityandUrbanPlanning..............................62
DecisionMakingandPlanning________________________________________________63
DecisionMakingasaMeansofControl ________________________________________64
TheRoleoftheDecisionMaker ______________________________________________64
TheCity,Planning,andtheMethodsofDecisionMakingandTheirImpacts ___________66
MechanismofDecisionMaking ______________________________________________66
EvolutionofDecisionMaking ________________________________________________68

4.2.1
4.2.2
4.3.1
4.3.2
4.3.3
4.3.4
4.4.1

4.7.1

4.9.1
4.9.2
4.9.3
4.9.4
4.9.5
4.9.6

4.10
PlanningDecisionMakingandBusinessBasedDecisionMaking:Multiobjective,
Multivalue,MultijudgmentNatureofPlanning..................................................................69
4.10.1 MultiobjectiveDecisionMakingProcess _______________________________________69
4.10.2 BusinessofPlanningVersusPublicPlanning_____________________________________71
4.11

DecisionStructuresandDecisionMakingBodies..................................................71
TheProblemsoftheEstablishedMethodsofDecisionMaking______________________77

4.12

ChangingtheModeofPlanning:ChangingtheModeofDecisionMaking.............83
DecisionMakinginModernistandPostmodernistSenses:DualismofThoughts________85
TraditionalDualContradictionoftheDecisionMakingProcess _____________________86
MixedScanningMethod____________________________________________________87

4.13

SlavingPrincipleandNormativeReductionismofDecisionMaking......................87

4.14

AnAlternativeLogicinDecisionMaking...............................................................88
AttemptstoMitigatetheProblem ____________________________________________88
EmergenceofanAlternativeWay_____________________________________________91
PlanningAuthoritiesandDecisionMakingActors________________________________92
IntegratedDecisionTakingandMakingParties _________________________________93
AdditionalExplanation______________________________________________________94

4.11.1
4.12.1
4.12.2
4.12.3

4.14.1
4.14.2
4.14.3
4.14.4
4.14.5

4.15
JustificationofDecisionsandDecisionMakingCompartments(Justifications
Required)...........................................................................................................................94
4.15.1 TheImportance___________________________________________________________95
4.15.2 ProcedureVersusConsequences _____________________________________________95
4.15.3 JustificationoftheConsequences,theMethodologies,andtheProcesses_____________96
4.16

Conclusion............................................................................................................98

iii

5 ClassicalandInfiniteValueLogic:ImplicationsforDecisionMaking..................101
5.1

Introduction..........................................................................................................101

5.2

ClassicalLogic........................................................................................................102
TypesofLogicalReasoningandTheirApplications_______________________________102
IncapabilityofClassicalLogic________________________________________________103
ClassicalSetsTheory ______________________________________________________106

5.2.1
5.2.2
5.2.3

5.3 Many(Infinite)ValuedLogics:EpistemologicalSimilaritytoandDifferenceswith
ClassicalLogic..................................................................................................................108
5.4

SystemsTheoryandSystemicApproach................................................................109

5.5

UncertaintyandComplexity..................................................................................110
UncertaintyofScaleandMeasurement_______________________________________111
Information,Uncertainty,andComplexity_____________________________________111
TypesofUncertainty______________________________________________________113

5.6

FuzzyandCrispSets...............................................................................................116
CrispSetsinPlanning______________________________________________________117
CrispnessinDataGathering ________________________________________________117
TheBinaryFramedSetsandValues __________________________________________117

5.7

FuzzyLogic.............................................................................................................118
EtymologyofFuzzy _______________________________________________________118
Logic___________________________________________________________________119
UncertaintyandFuzzyLogic ________________________________________________122
TheoreticalApplicationsofFuzzyLogic________________________________________123
FuzzySets_______________________________________________________________126
FuzzyModels____________________________________________________________128
PracticalApplicationsofFuzzyLogic__________________________________________129
LimitofInfluence_________________________________________________________131
Thinking________________________________________________________________131
ProblemSeekingandProblemDefinition______________________________________132
ProblemSolvingMethods__________________________________________________132
Conclusion______________________________________________________________133
GeneralizationandDevelopment____________________________________________133

5.8

FuzzinessinPlanning.............................................................................................134
NoncrispnessofPlanning __________________________________________________136
TheIssueofWickedProblems_______________________________________________136
TheResponseofthePlanningDiscipline_______________________________________138
AnExample _____________________________________________________________140
Fuzziness _______________________________________________________________142
TypesofFuzziness________________________________________________________143

5.9

JustificationofOperationsinFuzzyEnvironments.................................................147

5.5.1
5.5.2
5.5.3
5.6.1
5.6.2
5.6.3

5.7.1
5.7.2
5.7.3
5.7.4
5.7.5
5.7.6
5.7.7
5.7.8
5.7.9
5.7.10
5.7.11
5.7.12
5.7.13
5.8.1
5.8.2
5.8.3
5.8.4
5.8.5
5.8.6

5.10

FuzzinessofDecisionMaking..............................................................................147
FuzzinessoftheTermDecisionMaking _______________________________________148
FuzzinessofProcessofDecisionMaking_______________________________________150

5.11

DefuzzificationofDecisionMaking.....................................................................151
ImplicationsofFuzzyThinking_______________________________________________152
TheRealityandtheTheory_________________________________________________154
ImplicationsofFuzzyLogic _________________________________________________155
ImplicationsofFuzzySets__________________________________________________156

5.12

DecisionsinaFuzzyEnvironment.......................................................................157

5.13

FuzzyNegotiationinPlanningDecisionMaking..................................................159

5.14

ParadigmShiftVersusAlternativeWay..............................................................161

5.15

Conclusion..........................................................................................................162

5.10.1
5.10.2
5.11.1
5.11.2
5.11.3
5.11.4

iv

6 Analysis..............................................................................................................166
6.1

Introduction..........................................................................................................166

6.2

ThePremises.........................................................................................................167

6.3

DesignBasedViewofPlanning..............................................................................167
AnalysisoftheDesignBasedViewofPlanning__________________________________168

6.4

SystemBasedViewofDecisionMaking.................................................................169
AnalysisofAttributes______________________________________________________170
DimensionsoftheView____________________________________________________173
EnvelopmentandInclusivenessofDecisionMaking _____________________________173
SubjectiveReductionismandExogenousModel ________________________________174
ImportedFuzzinessintheSystemBasedView__________________________________174

6.5

PersonBasedViewofDecisionMaking..................................................................175
AnalysisofAttributes______________________________________________________177
ObjectiveReductionismandEndogenousModel________________________________179
EnvelopmentandInclusivenessinthePersonBasedView ________________________180
UnstructuredJudgment____________________________________________________181
ReductionistAction_______________________________________________________182
ImportedFuzzinessinthePersonBasedView__________________________________182

6.6

Conclusion.............................................................................................................183

6.3.1
6.4.1
6.4.2
6.4.3
6.4.4
6.4.5
6.5.1
6.5.2
6.5.3
6.5.4
6.5.5
6.5.6

6.6.1
CommonProblems,ProblemofLogicUnderlying:ConsequencesoftheLackofAttentionto
FuzzinessinPlanning______________________________________________________________183
6.6.2
DualIntellectualContradictionsVersusFuzzyBinarySets_________________________184
6.6.3
TheUnjustifiedReductionismfortheFuzzyEnvironment:ReducingtheDecisionMaking
Parties 186
6.6.4
TurbulenceandDifficultiesofEnvelopment:UnreliableAND______________________187
6.6.5
Comprehensiveness,InclusivenessandSelectiveness,Arbitrariness_________________188
6.6.6
FuzzinessofRationality:InformationandPureRationalityVersusExplanatoryand
EmpiricalRationality ______________________________________________________________189

7 Conclusion..........................................................................................................192
7.1

Introduction..........................................................................................................192

7.2

TheAimsandObjectivesoftheCurrentResearch..................................................193

7.3

Conclusion.............................................................................................................194

7.4

ContributionsandImplications..............................................................................197
ImplicationsattheTheoryLevel_____________________________________________197
ImplicationsforPractice ___________________________________________________198

7.5

LimitationsoftheCurrentResearch.......................................................................198

7.6

FutureResearch.....................................................................................................199

7.4.1
7.4.2

Bibliography............................................................................................................201

Preface
Some twenty years ago, it was believed that the world would be exceptionally different, were the
Cold War and communism over. Forty years earlier, there was even greater optimism about
advancements in sciences and technology, especially about computers and robotics and how
those could ease human life at the turn of the millennium or otherwise dominate or overrule the
world. Twenty years back, the faith in human intelligence, gentility, enlightenment, and civilization
was so profound that the extermination of crime and prevalence of peace as a result were
deemed prophecies certain to be fulfilled, and the Dark Ages world would have never been
expected to be experienced even partially again. In brief, we deeply longed to reach the era of
perfect human sublimity. But none of those predictions have come true. And despite many
hasty and optimistic yet extreme predictions, we still need to deal with primitive problems.
We live in a strange world extremely full of increasing contradictions that confuse us more than
ever before. We queue up at the cinemas to watch the brand-new version of an old movie, such
as Indiana Jones V, Transformers IV, or Harry Potter VI -called the top-money-maker movies
benefiting from proven stories and franchises!-, which defines a new meaning for movies,
cinemas, and TV series as well as the peoples expectations and behaviors. We pay to see a
new adaptation of a TV series on the silver screen not only because the relatively old established
definitions are being redefined almost every second but also for the fact that we have such short
memories and so much less time at our disposal to remember and to rethink that what is now
being introduced to us as innovation was part of a weekly habit of not even our fathers but our
own but a few years earlier. We purchase the new model of the same car, which is only bigger
than the previous version, rather than having anything genuinely novel, and we measure our
iphones and computers memories by the number of music tracks that can be saved on them,
instead of their real capacity. We pay more for recycled notebooks than ones just produced to
show others how green we think and how much we care about nature, and we use so-called
hybrid cars to show off our environmentally friendly gesture, while wasting more energy
repeatedly altering energy from one type to the other (chemical to electrical and vice versa) when
we drive through cities or rev up on freeways. We live in a world where neo-Marxists (whose
position is based purely on socialism) and environmental activists (whose position is based
purely on green initiatives) dream of the latest models of Mercedes and commute with their
personal cars or fly luxury or first class long hauls to attend meetings to discuss socialism and
green policies. We live in a world where antiglobalization protestors prefer to use Starbucks to
warm themselves up while demonstrating and where environmental scholars, a few days before
starting the greatest event on sustainability (the United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Copenhagen), secretly circulate emails that fundamentally question the trueness of global
warming. We live in a world where even planners would rather live in areas of urban sprawl to
avoid the pollution, heavy traffic, and noise of metropolitan areas in order to think more effectively
about planning challenges and to be able to find better solutions for the urban disaster they
themselves have critically tagged urban sprawl. We live where everything seems to have
become confusing and complicated enough to be contemplated and rethought. All these actions
and many others point out that there is a highly complex and uncertain world out there to be
planned and complicated people for whom to plan and to carry out the planning.
Undeniably, this brief preface cannot represent what I think in detail and what has really taken
place in the five-year research represented as this thesis in excess of 110,000 words and to me
(its author) as the researcher who, during his PhD program, experienced planning issues all
around the worldin Europe, North America, and the Middle East. Indeed, this short introduction
will never be able to illustrate what aspects of the thesis have changed and what types of
fluctuations I have faced, nor does it aim to do so. Thus, by writing this preface, I will draw on
only a small part of my long moral and geographical journey in facing the innate reality of such a
vast multidisciplinary and demanding task. Nevertheless, I believe that, years after this, the
existence of this preface will assist me to understand in new ways the topic with which I was

engaged and also help other researchers to trace the references and attitudes that inspired me to
select and build upon particular approaches to the problems under focus in this study.
Planning, in its professional sense, is a wicked semi scientific discipline that is not even as lucky
as computer science, in which the wrong premises sometimes can accidentally result in correct
answers. In planning, even right premises taken from tested theories will, most of the time, bring
unexpected, unwanted, and above all, uninvited outcomes. In other words, there are many wrong
factors that can be connected to any plan. The process of narrowing down the framework through
which questions are explored usually does not bring a more accurate estimate of the condition
and worsens the process of finding solutions. The cumulative effect of literature about human
factors and based on freedom, society-based discussions, legal issues, free market laws,
democratic principles and values, and scientific achievements as well as globalization with
temporal validity is to increase the amount and the extent of unpredicted wrong answers.
Some twenty years ago, the people who celebrated the demise of fundamental Eastern Bloc
thoughts were mostly limited to those living in socialistic countries who felt at the time that they
were becoming free from the manic control of communist fanatical fantasia, but many others in
Western countries also celebrated that historic moment. Though the concept of freedom and its
manifestations that followed were divergent, this concept as a whole was one of the most
common issues among those who were happy overall with that downfall. In addition, many
politicians, economists, and social scientists in the Western Bloc who were the proponents of the
Western doctrine of democracy and freedom were among those who were very proud of
themselves, their schools of thought, and their theories. Under these circumstances, and based
on free-market principles, capitalism was supposed to be a posteriori to any democratic system
and was accelerated in its radical way. Some more conservative political systems, such as that of
Britain, which even up until then were cautious about the ideas and were wavering in their
attitudes, were forced to examine the free market in a more relaxed yet confident way. However,
during a large recession, serious questions arose about whether a free market economy is the
only reliable way of controlling the market, the structure of society, and planning or whether it
needs some control. The history of planning experienced yet another failure caused by a full
commitment to black and white values in planning. I would argue that what happened to
uncontrolled capitalism and globalization in the 2007 to 2010 global economic crisis was as
unexpected as what happened to socialism and communism between 1989 and 1990. It is
explained how, during the period of time, the fall of the extreme free market was announced and
new tidying-ups were hastily arranged for reframing the economic accounts and planning
discretions and regulations. These challenges raised questions not only about current economy
and planning practices but about the very enterprise of planning.
President Barak Obamas characterization of failing to reform health care as truly scary (used
as the title of a CNN article of August 12, 2009), the U.S. governments taking control of 60
,
percent of a corporation like General Motors (GM) on June 1 2009, after 100 years of private
ownership; the bailing out of monetary and financial companies; and many other similar moves
and plans took place when the U.S. government seemed still to be profoundly committed to the
radical principles of the free-market economy. This willbe a big change that held an implicit
confession to inherent fuzziness circulating in the real world of planning and decision-making
concepts, and its contradictory aspects come into existence with no clear-cut boundaries in
between.
With a precise review of planning literature from recent years, we can estimate how wrong many
planning professionals and, particularly, thinkers have been in supposing that follow free market
principles to determine the distribution of resources, and to rule the market, is the only true path
for planning and decision making, at least if we look at it through American pragmatism,
empiricism. These faulty predispositions (used as conclusions) in planning that were pursued in
recent years remind us of the slippery conclusions of planning theory debates in the 1950s and
1960s, in which planning was supposed to have been defined utterly and completely.

These two falls in fewer than 20 years initially brought plenty of information to the surface, but
above all (and in a deeper sense), they taught us severely more than any other lessons that
pushing people to, or pursuing, any ultimate ideology (and theory of control) cannot work for good
and can potentially result in as unsafe a solution in planning as any type of political dictatorship.
Therefore, there is no more profound a lesson to be learned than that there is no other way than
compromising between fundamental ideas rather than dedicating to absolutism. And the only
winner of these two human misadventures is the human circle of experience and knowledge.
Everything seems to be more complex than ever, although still many would tend to deal with the
current complexity in the simplest possible manner.
For this research, many planning professionals and academics have been interviewed about their
empirical and theoretical problems, and many different responses have been experienced, yet
the common denominator of all seems to be there is no single denominator. On one hand, those
who believe in technical accounts of planning are still concerned with public participation and
public rights. On the other hand, it is evident that those who believe in postmodern accounts with
emphasis on the peoples role would not ignore the ethical and technical aspect of planning. In
other words, even those who subscribe to the avoidance of comprehensiveness in planning in
order for it to be justified would not like to abandon some points and deal only with some others.
An academic joked, When Le Corbusier was to plan his cities, he had a fun job because he was
not as involved with both values and technical issues as we are; and then he knew what right
was. When planning professionals were asked how they spend the majority of their time, they
replied, Dealing with people problems, legal and technical issues. We all know that this difficult
profession and activity is made even more complicated by the myriad of problems associated
with the human dimensions, which probably extend back to the planning of primitive settlements
where no well-developed technical possibilities or social values existed. The dilemma is that no
one has come up with an effective way, if there is any, to solve these complex problemsat least
as of now.
My engagement with fuzzy logic definitely dates back to years before 2004, during which I was
planning to examine not only the logic itself but the whole thinking for applying it to planning. I
had closely followed successful applications of fuzzy logic in many other specialties and
disciplines even where there was no sign of pure linguistic dilemma similar to what prevails in the
planning discipline. Then I decided to introduce the fuzzy standpoint to planning and develop the
subject within it. Although, in 2004, I contacted Professor Bart Kasko from the University of
Southern California (USC), as one of the leading figures in fuzzy thinking, logic, and sets, in order
to enquire into his opinion about the subject, I could not have guessed the attention I would turn
to the subject. At the time, there was no significant record of research containing the idea of fuzzy
logic in planning. Even the most common uses of the word fuzzy were limited to the meanings
vague, cloudy, and unclear. Then I published the first article on the issue, which I presented
at the Urbanism and Urbanization Conference in Barcelona, Spain, in 2005. Two years later, the
second publication on the subject of fuzzy in planning came to the market as a book under the
title of Fuzzy Planning, by a team of academics at TU-Delft. Now, I cannot hide my happiness
about the development of the subject by many other scholars, especially because a flourishing of
papers on fuzzy in planning that illustrate the growing attention to it was seen a few years after
my initiation of the subject.
And last but not least, I would not hide my happiness for the fact that the current research lasted
until the world came to experience the recent financial problems and recession that have been
extremely significant in challenging clear-cut planning ideas. As a researcher who is neither for
nor against any system, however, I believe in general that the problems have supported the
trueness of the researchs hypothesis, a hypothesis that challenges the extreme binary
tendencies towards opposite sides of the work. And evidentially, in human sciences and activities
interlinked with them, this black and white observation of phenomena will need to fade to gray;
otherwise, it will be doomed to fail. By picking up between the two binary and fuzzy approaches,
whereby a paradoxical situation will take shape, I express how and why fuzziness is the true
state.

I hope the current research can light up the ways in which our approach should be formed, an
approach as complex and sophisticated as the reality itself.

Acknowledgment
It is difficult even to imagine listing all the people who, over the past several years, in more than
50 cities around the world, have contributed to the thinking that I present in this thesis; this
includes some who have been very influential and helpful.
I am pretty sure this program has been and will forever be one of the most unforgettable
experiences and events in my entire life. Moving to three different counties did, on its own, make
this experience unique, and I admit the relocations were hard to tolerate at some points. But
there is no doubt that being able to reach this stage and present the work at this level would have
been impossible if not especially for the support of my supervisors, Professor Klaus Zillich at the
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin) and Professor Ali Modarres from California State
University, Los Angeles (CSULA). I was introduced to the current attitude and course of thought
because they, with their massive experience in architecture and urban studies and, more
importantly, in life, tried hard to make a real PhD program from the current program. Their
knowledge cast an astonishing light on this valuable and philosophical journey by making me
rethink the entire bases of my argument over and over.
This PhD program to me was more like a journey within philosophy, ontology, and epistemology
during which I became familiar with many places, grew to know myself better, and met with a
number of great and supportive scholars, including but not limited to Professors Peter Herrle,
Fritz Neumeyer, Enrico Gualini, Harald Bodenschatz, Karim Mardomi, Sohrab Mashhoodi, Neil
Ravenscroft, Roger Plank, Ali Madanipour, Garuth Chalfont, Mr. Andrew Irving, and Ms. Francis
Chaplin. Here I would like to thank them all.
I thank my mother, Roghiyeh Ehterami, for her moral support; my inspiration and the most
influential man in my life, my uncle Maestro Manoochehr Ehterami, whose extraordinary
philosophical, intellectual, ethical, and moral attitude has been the most supportive for me; my
brother, Dr. Poorang Piroozfar, who supplied all kinds of philosophical and intellectual help to me
and was one of the my most important motivations for finishing this research; my soul mate,
Sami, who patiently waited to see the current work at this level and stage.
Finally, I would like to thank Ms. Laura Haupt from Department of English at University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who professionally and cautiously helped me to have the work at
its current level of eloquence.

Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere

and Planning Theory

Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning

Classical and Infinite-Value

Logic: Implications for
Decision Making

Analysis

Conclusion

1.1. Research Background

1.2. Research Problem
1.3. Research Questions
1.4. Research Focus and Scope
1.5. Aims and Objectives
1.6. Summary of Contents

1 Introduction
1.1

Research Background

The tradition of classical logic, which generated predicative sets and thinking, has been the most
accredited logic for a long time. This logic has affected almost the entire human attitude and has
entangled in human activities like seeking the ultimate truth. To be able to traverse the
uncertainty of nature, mankind has had to hold on to this logic, a logic that suffers from drastic
deficiencies in tackling the problems in the matter of prediction (Faludi, 1987, p. 21). Establishing
new logics and studying their capabilities has revealed new viewpoints to help cope with the
more complex and contemporary problems (Faludi, 1987, p. 104) and with even old paradoxes.
Planning, as an independent profession, has a documented history of 100 years in its modern
sense. Peter Hall (2002b) suggests that it is a response to problems that emerged as a
consequence of the industrial revolution: Modern urban and regional planning has arisen in
response to specific social and economic problems, which in turn were triggered off by the
industrial revolution at the end of the eighteenth century(Hall, 2002b, p.11).
Urban and regional planning, which he modifies with the adjective modern, is an attemptin the
modern erato solve the problems of 18th-century bureaucratic systems (which on their own are
by no means negative assets) and also to handle conflicts caused by changes of ownership
patterns that happened prior to, during, and after the industrial revolution. It is evident that this
new remedy was instituted to answer the ever-increasing complexity of human societies and the
complications of cities and the built environment. James Conrad in The Secret Agent (1906)
represents the related frustration via one of his characters eyes:
the enormous town slumbering monstrously on a carpet of mud under a veil of raw mist. It was
seen crossing the streets without life and sound, or diminishing in the interminable straight
perspectives of shadowy houses bordering empty roadways lined by strings of gas-lamps. He
walked through Squares, Places, Ovals, Commons, through monotonous streets with unknown
names where the dust of humanity settles inert and hopeless out of the stream of life. (p. 406)

After the era in which the physical attributes of planning had been the major concern for the
profession, planning was reoriented, from building the physical environment to building up the
intellectual aspects of planning and to addressing the rights of interest groups and individuals for
pursuing their utility. Recently, in the late 20th-century, the process of the magnification of
democracy, public policy, and public participation permeated planning debates. The democratic
plan and decision making supposedly give rights to the spatial stakeholders to participate in the
processes. Consequently, the traditional task of the planner, as well as planning, planning theory,
contemporary responsibilities, and the participatory accounts, has shaped a new atmosphere in
which the justification of decision-making processes faces new challenges (for further discussion,
see Faludi, 1987).

1.2

Research Problem

The modern school of thought was to leave the ramification of disciplines to the profession to
develop only through the creation of new branches of the professionnew occupations within the
larger professions (as opposed to through deeper development of existing aspects of the
profession) The evolution and expansion of such a profession over the last two centuries has
drawn a long, ramified list of definitions, duties, and responsibilities, making such a tradition vast.
Is the discipline innately as simplistic as it is usually described or as it should be? How can the

various aspects of planning be dealt with in such a fragmented and extensive atmosphere? Are
reductionist approaches in such an environment justifiable?
The current turbulence in planning, planning theory, and theories in planning is completely
evident. There is no consensus on any specific thing in planning, whether a task, responsibility,
definition, or description. Most theories in planning act prescriptively to deal with the existing
problems single-handedly. Those theories (and planning theory itself) endeavor to influence their
relevant fields by identifying the roots of problems and concerns for which they offer specific
remedies and prescribe timeframes for correcting. Some, by slight contrast, try to assign planning
only to a certain discipline and ignore its interconnections with, and/or conformity to, any other
disciplines. Theories mostly accuse the others of being outdated and shortsighted, to take into
account some parts of the human societies and built environments requirements and cast out
the others. At the same time, they themselves act in a selective manner. Campbell and Feinstein
(2003) offer this overview of the evolution of planning theory:
Over a generation, the most significant advances in planning theory are a changing
understanding of power (Brindley et al., ; Flyvbjerg, 2003), of communicative action and the
planner's role in mediating interactions among stakeholders (Healey, ; Baum, ; Fischer, 2003), of
modernization/modernism (Beauregard, ; Scott, 2003), and of the complex links between
diversity, equity, and community (Young, ; Thomas, ; Sandercock, 2003).(Campbell and
Fainstein, 2003, p.10)

The old bivalent discussion of black and white, right and wrong, correct and incorrect has been
widely impinging on planning theory ever since late nineteenth century. The bivalent values within
the cities, including all types of intellectual and physical musts and mustnts, have been
brought to an upper level where the debates on the nature of planning are conducted. As a result,
what aspects of human society and planning are the most important ones and which tendency is
right and which one is wrong (or useless) are concerns. This type of debate is even permeating
planning and decision theories, where the questioning is so developed merely at a pure level of
theory that even planning about what can be done (especially wherever it cannot be seen as a
whole) is coming into question. The crisp boundaries are flourishing within the extensive
planning, causing dichotomies, in the modernist or reductionist sense. The reductionist approach
to a notion like the political nature of planning as well as the dualist contradistinctions such as
postmodern versus modern planning, incremental versus comprehensive, and so forth have been
raised, even as it is assumed we live in the postmodern era. How are decisions being made and
taken in such an atmosphere? What are the justifications?

1.3

Research Questions

The theories concerning decision making are not rule-based in their current sense. They change
as the interpretation of planning and the requirements for a certain problem change, whether a
change occurs with the planner, as a person who has unique individual and professional
dimensions; with the institution (e.g., the planning agency); or with the chronological or
geographical specification of the application. Therefore, turbulence within decision-making
theories is expected and accepted. Planning theory questions the processes of planning more
than it does any other matters with which it is concerned.
With all kinds of uncertainty and complexity involved at different levelsin the flow of planning,
within decision theories and processes, and with the main role players or contributors in any
decision-making situation (which are not usually very well-systemized)many questions about
the core attributes, mechanisms, and methods within the decision-making domain remain to be
answered.Quite evidently, a method is considered legitimized in decision making if it is able to
deliver, offer, or envisage democratic values fairly evenly while, at the same time, being capable
of effectively handling private sectors difficulties and the technical aspects of planning in
justifiable ways. What kind of qualities and specifications should the decision theory have to be
justified? and How is it achievable? are two of more fundamental questions for planning theory.

Is the decision making, in the way that it is seen now as a part of planning theory, coherent
enough? And is it justified currently? What kind of decision-making action can be justified? Who
should be the decision-making process actors, agents, and parties in planning the built
environment? How large are their portions or shares in the decision-making processes? Does
planning in its current sense concern various aspects of the profession that should play a role in
decision-making processes? To answer the above questions belonging to the decision-making
theory realm, we need to investigate the questions below first.
Is decision making in planning a multiobjective, multivalued, or multicriteria activity? If the answer
is yes, from what kind of logic should it benefit to deal with this diversity? Does a many-value
approach to decision making facilitate the justification of decision-making processes in planning,
and how? Does it exist? If yes, which theories are benefiting from it, and if not, why not? What
possible tool(s) is necessary to achieve the multicriteria decision-making process in a coherent
sense? Can the multiobjective decision-making process benefit from fuzzy logic to improve this
process? And last but not least, can fuzzy thinking with its applications be introduced to planning
as an alternative way of thinking for targeting the logic of planning?
The answers to some of these questions are fairly evident. However, there are a few thinkers
who persist in distancing from epistemological accounts by an old-fashioned pragmatist response
to these questions (such as There is no need to deal with these questions from this certain point
of view). They typically tend to adhere to traditional bivalent logic as well as the issue of
practicality. Trying to overcome the challenges and logical misconceptions briefly addressed here
and those that will be addressed in more detail later, the research scrutinizes the subject and
attempts analytically to present one of the alternative options through questioning the logic of
decision making in planning.
In an effort to overcome the challenges and logical misconceptions briefly addressed here and
those that will be addressed in greater detail later, the following analysis presents one of the
alternative options by questioning the logic of decision making in planning.

1.4

Research Focus and Scope

The research starts with the study of planning both as a scholarly activity and as a profession in
its 20th-century setting. Throughout the existing literature on planning theory, it will be indicated
that planning is a multicriteria activity. Hence, as an intrinsic feature of a multiobjective/fuzzy
activity, it should engage with an infinite-multivalued method of study. There is no exception to
this rule for the process of decision making in planning. Furthermore, the study will introduce the
epistemology of fuzzy logic (as a multivalued logic), fuzzy issues, and the human minds fuzzybased methods of looking into definitions and problems. Also it will highlight fuzzy logics
contradictions with classical logic wherever appropriate. To do so, the study will examine the
bivalent tradition of classical logic, through dualism and reductionism, and its shortcomings in
dealing with complex problems. In parallel and to set the main scene for the current study,
different notions of planning will be investigated; these will be notions with various origins
categorized into different groups with distinct levels of generalizability and applicability, for
example, tendency, theory, method, and so on. The theories that have a stake in the decisionmaking process have been selected for this purpose. For obvious reasons, those theories that
have no direct effect on the decision-making process or those in which decision making did not
play a substantial role are exempt. Although the main aim was not to be comprehensive, the
main theories were classified in order to narrow down the subject area. The selected theories and
their components and principlestheir maxims, premises, values, and so forthwill be analyzed.
The theories and their implications for decision making are studied in general categories of (1)
design-based, (2) system-based, and (3) person-centered notions. At the next stage, the
methods to tackle the issue of the complexity and uncertainty of decision making will be pursued
in order to take into account the problems of the methods used within many-value operations.
The final analysis will be conducted to prove that dualism of theories in decision making and the

arbitrariness of established reductionism dominating the decision-making operation cannot be

justified for legitimizing this type of process as a reliable decision-making theory. Considering its
application in other fields, fuzzy logic will be presented as an alternative way of thinking through
which a system can be provided for decision making in planning. This can then be adjusted to
include influential actors or parties and agents in decision-making processes. Then a model of
multilayer decision making will be introduced for application in its further progressive form.
Finally, further research will be suggested to establish the investigated hypothesis that fuzzy logic
can be utilized to redefine the planning sphere, where fuzzy logic can be deemed as an
alternative path to decision-making theory in urban planning.

1.5

Aims and Objectives

The human mind can comprehend fuzzy situations, evaluate fuzzy problems, analyze their
factors and components, and then find an appropriate solution in order to deal with them. This
method was nevertheless forgotten for a long time, and the complexity of this method did not let
thinkers apply it in nonhuman-based cases. This takes place using human reasoning for making
decisions in fuzzy situations in any fuzzy cases. However, this hope was delayed for years. Even
after being formulated, fuzzy logic took another 30 years to be accepted by scholars. Progress
has been made to some extent due to technological progress in recent years and to the
establishment of mathematical concepts by Lotfi Zadeh and others since the 1950s. The first
applications were introduced in late 1980s. The idea that truth can carry membership values was
only partially accepted and reluctantly acknowledged after a long period of opposition and only
with practical applications. After 20 years of the application of fuzzy logic in technology, the time
has come for its application in planning, one of the widest and most complicated human activities
with many different values (with different epistemological justifications as well as technical,
political, economic aspects). Planning is so turbulent that there is no single (yet dynamic and
flexible) answer to it.
The current research aims to develop a framework to investigate the fuzziness of decision
making in planning and to establish an alternative solution to deal with the complexity inherent in
planning in a more justifiable manner.
To improve upon the existing knowledge and to achieve the main aim, the following objectives
are to be pursued:

to examine classical logic as the main underlying thinking framework in planning and the
loopholes attributed to it that make this logic subject to criticism;

to analyze and map out the problems that decision theory is facing as a result of this
method of thinking;

to explore how fuzzy the aspects of decision making in planning are and how
unjustifiable the decision theory being committed to non-fuzzy accounts and unstructured
defuzzification methods can be;

to investigate what is already in use as an alternative to a bivalued system, thinking, or

logic in other fields of science and technology when dealing with multivalued situations;
and

to outline an alternative logic and way of thinking in decision making to handle complexity
in order to integrate the known factors and/or roleplayers in a structured way.

10

1.6

Summary of Contents

Chapter 1 of this document provides a brief introduction to the research topic, multivalued
decision making, the background of the research, its scope, its rationale, and the aim and
objectives of the research as well as to the structure of the thesis.
Chapter 2 lays out the context of this research. It includes planning, planning theory (and theories
of planning), and the decision-making processes and theories as conceived, comprehended, and
conveyed mainly in the 20th century and, more specifically, in the post-WWII era. They will,
however, be traced back from time to time to periods before the 20th century, as required.
Once the scene is set, chapter 3 will continue with discussion of the theoretical framework and
methodology and by clarifying the general path of the research; the possible criticism that could
arise; and the premises, fallibility, and justification for the research.
Chapter 4 will focus, in particular, on decisions and decision making in general. It will consider
types of decisions, theories of decision-making, and the influential subjects in this process and
will then more closely examine these factors in the context of urban planning. In the second part,
central issues, namely, complexity and uncertainty will be examined, and their implications in
decision making for planning will be explored. This chapter also deals with possible alternative
routes to tackle the problem of decision making and will investigate the advantages and
disadvantages of those methods. The systemic approach and operational research are among
those that will be scrutinized to figure out the possible limitations of these binary alternative
routes. This part aims to highlight the three general types of decision making and their analyses.
In chapter 5, many-value logic and, specifically, fuzzy logic will be studied, and the question of
planning as a multivalued and fuzzy activity will be examined. The epistemological issues of
bivalent and many-valued logics, similarities, and differences will also be tested out. Fuzzy
thinking will be studied as an alternative logic and way of thinking to decision-making theory with
its application in other fields. The chapter will also compare the differences between fuzzy
problems in those fields and in planning. The type and number of values and variables in
planning and their relationship are the focus of another part of this chapter. Questions the chapter
will put forward include whether the decision making in planning, in its current form, is a coherent
process and whether decision making in itself should be considered as a multivalued process.
The chapter will consider complications of different stages of planning with a focus on plans and
decision making and their boundaries. In addition, the nature of wicked problems as fuzzy
problems will be examined, as will their roots and implications. The prescriptive planning theory
and dealing-with-planning theory, in line with the problems, will be discussed.
Chapter 6 will provide a complete analysis of the entire work, based on the current trends of
planning, by summarizing the styles of decision making (namely, design-based, system-based,
and person-centered views). By categorization of the problem from each point of view, the
research will analyze the entire path of decision making and problems engendered by employing
bivalent logic.
Chapter 7 will conclude the research by summarizing its findings, contribution, implications, and
outcomes and will also project future research on this topic based on the findings and outcomes
of this research. This chapter will also render the whole idea of the alternative roadmap based on
fuzzy logic for planning as a whole that is not limited to the decision-making process but
applicable to the entire planning sphere.

11

Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere and

Planning Theory

Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning

Classical and Infinite-Value

Logic: Implications for
Decision Making

Analysis

Conclusion

2.1. Introduction
2.2. Problem Definition
2.3. Definitions, Expansions, and Relations
2.4. Planning Definition: Distinctions and Values
2.5. Major Planning Approaches and Milestones;
Matter of Practicality
2.6. Planning Account
2.7. Planning Theory, Modifications, and Patterns
2.8. Conclusion

12

2 Planning, Planning Sphere and Planning Theory

2.1

Introduction

This chapter addresses the feat of planning as it has been envisioned at an erudite level during
the last 100 years. The current and prior definitions of planning will be investigated in brief. This
will also include definitions of planning theory that have been widely yet indirectly accepted by
various groups of thinkers. In this part, the discussion of planning theory is articulated in order to
provide the background for pivot points of research and the decision-making process. This
chapter will also examine different planning theories (theory of planning and planning in theory)
and their mutual relations with decision making. In this regard, the chapter aims to answer certain
questions:

Is there a widely accepted definition of planning?

Is there any general planning theory?

Additional questions to be approached at various levels include these: what the alternative
definitions of planning and planning theory are, what is seen as a theory, what sorts of patterns of
planning theory could be considered, why planning theory needs to be pursued and how it can
contribute to the concept of decision making as a whole, and basically, where the position of
decision making is in different planning structures developed in different schools of thought. The
discussions will outline the possible concerns and bases used for framing decision-making
theories.
This part will provide the firm ground for the main theme of the research to be investigated: the
issue of logic in planning and decision-making theories as applied to planning. Through studying
the planning theories, this work aims either to tackle the problems or to define the possible
justified decision theory from different points of view.
By giving a different standpoint and categorizing the theories of planning in a new arrangement,
this chapter will pursue an explanatory approach rather than a descriptive or narrative one. In this
sense, no historical account is of any benefit to the current research. Thus, the impartial position
of the researcher will be kept as the key factor in this part as well as in the entire research. This
will contribute to the concept and concerns of the research as an analytical study of what can be
promoted in this specific area of planning theory. It is also worth mentioning that what has been
examined in this chapter is based on an either rational or empirical approach but that the
reasoning is based on an analytical approach rather than on outcomes of the toolkit-based (see
the proceeding chapter) theories in planning.

13

2.2

Problem Definition

Hall (1973), in his inquiry, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, into British urban planning systems
and their effects on urban fabrics, wrote,
It certainly was not the intention of the founders that people should live cramped lives in homes
destined for premature slumdom, far from urban services or jobs; or that city dwellers should live
in blank cliffs of flats, far from the ground, without access to play-space for their children.
Somewhere along the way, a great ideal was lost, a system distorted and the great mass of
people betrayed. (Hall, 1973, Vol. 2, p. 433)

He referenced some urban issues of the planning system that was not, at the time, well-defined
and well-practiced. Perhaps at the time, establishing a theoretical roadmap was deemed
essential for the practice of planning; perhaps it seemed necessary to theorize attempts that were
to be articulated over a few decades to come.
And 40 or so years later, under an extremely bold title of Expanding the Scope (of Planning
Theory) Too Much, Archibugi claims that the current turbulence in planning is because of
excessive extension given to this subject. He also contests J. Friedmanns vision of planning,
presented in the introduction toPlanning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action
(1987).Archibugi argues that Friedmannhas not provided a definition of the terrain of planning
here (Archibugi, 2007, p. 6):
A comprehensive exploration of the terrain of planning theory must cull from all the relevant
disciplines those elements that are central to an understanding of planning in the public domain.
The theory of planning is an eclectic field, bounded by political philosophy; epistemology; macrosociology; neo-classical and institutional economics; public administration; organization
development; political sociology; anarchist, Marxist, and utopian literature.(Friedmann, 1987, pp.
39-40)

How have planning, physical planning, and urban planning been distinguished and defined? How
have their theories and methods shaped planners decisions?
Based on what was assumed to be true or false for each tendency, what are the problems and
issues, and what are the reasons and results of those problems? Who is responsible for what,
and who under what circumstances is entitled to make the decisions and how? These issues,
among many others, are subject to questions that need to be answered (or are merely studied) in
the scope of planning theory, either in order to clarify them to be implemented or utilized in a
course of action, or simply to justify them in substantial scopes. These all also include
discussions about planning, in its recent sense as a whole, and what it probably has in common
with the aforementioned terms. This can be examined at the purely theoretical level, at the purely
practical level, or through an amalgamation of both. Beyond that, the ways in which they will be
pursued will contribute to the understanding of planning as a complex phenomenon.

2.3

Definitions, Expansions, and Relations

To start, outlining the differences between ordinary and technical usages of the word plan opens
up discussions on the complexity of the subject. However, the technical usage of the word does
not merely illustrate the concepts physical and objective meaning but recently emphasizes the
intellectual and subjective aspects of plan and planning, in turn. Those meanings involve
concepts such as forethought; a process of human forethought and action based upon that
forethought (Chadwick, 1971, p. 63) is suggested by the terms plan and planning.
When planning is seen as physical planning, it has completely different dimensions compared to
when it is deemed an activity carrying legal, ethical, environmental, social, economic, and political
concerns on top. Then the expansion of such a relative activity, from one point of view, is an

14

opportunity for the whole profession to make a better environment in an integrated manner, while
from another sense, it is a threat to the ever-increasing complex drivers of the planning sphere
that need to be seen in an exhaustive way. It is crucial to find out when the planning definition
changes based on the scale from the local through regional levels and then to a global level, as
many aspects, attributes, and methods change. Those include duties, tasks, responsibilities, and
rights. Therefore, to achieve any definition, studying the scope of planning and the context in
which it is taking place has always been crucial even though the dominant mindset may
constantly be changing over time.

2.3.1

American Planning Association Definition of Planning

There is no doubt that the roles of academic institutions and, specifically, professional planning
associations are crucial in giving a definition of planning. As Schn (1983) asserts, The
institutional context of planning practice is notoriously unstable and there are many contending
views of the profession, each of which carries a different image of the planning role and a
different picture of the body of useful knowledge(Schn, 1983, p. 204).
For many obvious reasons, not necessarily all quantitative, the American Planning Association
(APA) is an important planning organization worldwide. Located in a country with a free-market
economy (which intrinsically brings about many economic challenges), where cities are dense,
numerous, and complicated (with 200 metropolitan areas having populations greater than
200,000 persons and a dominant cosmopolitan atmosphere), and where there are also different
leading planning institutes, APA has a unique situation and must deal with a long list of
interwoven complex tasks. What this organization presents as a definition for planning gives the
planners and thinkers a basis for facing such a complicated and vast activity.
APA is the organization that informs and educates American planners and planning students
what is defined as planning in the United States. This organization, in its mission statement, says,
The American Planning Association provides leadership in the development of vital communities
by advocating excellence in community planning, promoting education and citizen empowerment,
and providing the tools and support necessary to meet the challenges of growth and change.
They also claim,
When government officials, business leaders, and citizens come together to build communities
that enrich people's lives, that's planning.
Planning, also called urban planning or city and
regional planning, is a dynamic profession that works to improve the welfare of people and their
communities by creating more convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient, and attractive places for
present and future generations.
Planning enables civic leaders, businesses, and citizens
to play a meaningful role in creating communities that enrich people's lives.
Good
planning helps create communities that offer better choices for where and how people live.
Planning helps community members envision the direction their community [sic] grow and will
help them find the right balance of new development and essential services, protection of the
environment, and innovative change. [what is planning?]

Although those definitions seem to be more realistic, compared to most definitions presented in
planning theory, they are not failure free or comprehensive enough to be justified. For instance,
nothing in this definition relates to nature, the built environment, or foresight for future
generations (the expression future generation in the first part of the definition is based on a
posteriori knowledge of the current generation, and there is no commitment to it visible within the
given definition). Among the statements presented by the APA, some seem to be adopted to
emphasize creating physical places, in the sense of urban design, rather than carrying general
notions of planning. Another point in this definition is that the APA sets planning equal to urban
planning or city and regional planning, although each of these forms of planning confine it in
some ways. The next concern is that this definitiondespite being put forward in a country
whose economy is built around the principles of a free market and free economyoffers nothing
to clarify the role of planning with regard to this matter. Instead, the only thing that stands out
here is to enrich peoples lives, which is expressed in a very vague way. This point has been

15

asserted as the final goal of planning, although democratic methods are highlighted (for more
details, see the section Our Vision, which is more focused on planning issues).
Apart from what has just been pointed out, for its multidimensional and updated coverage, the
definition can still be used as a proper source for illustrating the institutional approaches to
planning.

2.3.2

Extremes of Planning Tasks, Responsibilities, and Definitions

Although it broadly covers the concepts of planning, the APAs restricted definition of planning is
not ubiquitously accepted by planning theorists. On the contrary, many claim to have imagined a
wider range of tasks and responsibilities for planning. Hence, There is still confusion over how to
think about planning (Campbell &Fainstein, 2003, p. 143).
Among all definitions of planning, the following two are significant, because they bring the
planning sphere to types of expansion within two extremes of everything, namely, an
unbounded activity, and nothing, in other words, a restrictedly bounded one:
(

"If Planning Is Everything, Maybe It's Nothing. Wildavsky, 1973)

"If Planning Includes Too Much, Maybe It Should Include More." (Lucy, 1994)

These extremes of inclusiveness and exclusiveness affect planning lists of tasks and
responsibilities in an extreme manner. Although this kind of discussion about the definition of
planning has its own proponents, some have considered that presenting any general definition in
this way is by no means imaginable or possible, nor is it practical or even useful in any course of
action. However, in practice, it has been seen, sometimes and in some places, that the
definitions above are picked up by people to show planners scopes of operation.

2.4

Planning Definition: Distinctions and Values

It is evident that there is a direct relation between what planning is and what it needs to do, as the
existence of a phenomenon is closely associated with its purpose. The process that started with
defining a city, moved on to study the city structure, and was later expanded to the meanings of
planning (of whatever) has taken place through a process. The Process involved,
debates as whether planning was best conceived as an exercise in solving problems or achieving
goals (see, for example, Faludi, 1971; Gutch, 1972; Needham, 1971). Likewise, much attention
was devoted to plan and policy-making (how best to generate and specify alternatives), and to
policy and plan evaluation (there was a debate about Morris Hill's goals achievement method of
evaluation as compared with cost-benefit analysis or Lichfield's planning balance sheet).(Taylor,
1998, p. 112)

Definitely, planning as an activity has a long history that has lasted ever since urbanization was
first formed. However, as a profession, planning is young. In a fairly short but eventful period, a
wide range of evolutionary alterations have occurred. But the whole process can be summarized,
while recognizing intervening aspects of work, into three distinctive stages: first, planning was
considered a continuation of what architects and technicians pursued; second, the first expansion
of planning involved taking social factors into account; and finally, the general expansion of
planning has involved all bargaining fields and their criteria.
It is evident from a chronological point of view that many other minor shifts have also happened
in planning. As mentioned before, planning alterations can be considered and categorized, for
instance, from the degree to which planning remains loyal to methodological points in tackling
problems. However, the study of the definition of planning changes from the aforementioned
point; considering bargaining with subspecialties can reveal the multiobjective nature of planning

16

this current research. In the next part, some of these different accounts will be briefly introduced
and examined.

2.4.1

Bargaining with Other Specializations: Other Values

Planning has been defined many times, from different points of view and through different
dimensions and notions. It has been described by imagining the human and societal values
(utopian thinkers, ethic of city and society); by observing the nature of cities; by looking at
requirements, defects, and deficiencies (technocrats); by considering the shape of city buildings
and spaces (artists and architects and todays urban designers and town planners); by defining
the relationships within the city (functionalists); by governing the structure of power (practitioners
of the politico-economic approach); by defining the gerund form of planning in courses of action,
including methods of management (rational planners, managerialists [see Taylor, 1998, p.38]), by
criticizing whatever exists in planning, such as tasks, responsibilities, and possibilities, and also
through discussion of the ethic of planning (planning theorists; ethic of planning); and by
advocating people (practitioners of socio-humanistic and behavioral approaches), among other
approaches.
As Beauregard (1986) explains, In the 1960s, planning practice diversified into a multitude of
specialties: environmental, manpower, social planning, health planning, transportation, energy
planning, and regional planning along with the traditional land use and housing. He further
describes the fields evolution:
Being a planner no longer meant regulating the spatial arrangements of land uses and providing
housing. A variety of social planners challenged the increasingly specialized physical planners.
As a result, planning practice underwent centrifugal disintegration. The common object of
interestthe citythat had initially attracted "progressive" reformers was lost. (Beauregard,
2003, p. 110)

Observation of the methodological issues of theories in planning, discussion of the planners role
as the central point in planning, or the study of the nature of the principles within different
mindsets of planning are some other methods to pursue the definitions of and distinctions within
planning. Although all abovementioned categorizations help the study of planning and the
decision-making process, they are not as capable of exhibiting the mindset and mode of planning
with its specialties and subspecialties because changes have affected all aspects of planning.
Therefore, to start examining the challenges of planning (in theory and practice), it is necessary
to consider changes to the field, including the expansion of its principles. This view emphasizes
the expansiveness of planning in different senses and studies various schools of thought to
integrate whatever has been suggested for the planning sphere.
Therefore, a summary of distinctions will be pursued in this part, based on this view, which
brought many other changes to planning. On the one hand, these distinctions (made based on
the interventions of other fields in planning) contribute to the entire research. On the other hand,
they help the decision making in both theoretical and practical senses to be categorized by
planning actors and compartments developed within each field. These compartments have been
transformed and redefined over the years and have absorbed various types of approaches to
tackle the problems of planning.
Notwithstanding the differences, what is evident is that the subject of planning and decisionmaking theory and its evolution has a strong interconnection with the history of planning and its
chronological developments. The developments have usually been accompanied by changes to
the contexts in which knowledge about planning has been illustrated.

2.4.1.1 Town and Physical Planning and the Technicalist/Technocratic Point of View:
Scientific Values

17

The most dominant picture of planning was town planning inherited from the modernist school of
thought. Although many attempts related to political development, economic organizations, and
social engineering were made before the 20th century, the strongest force in the early 20th
century was the artistic (aesthetic) and technicalist sense of urban planning in the way architects
(and architect-technicians) were pursuing it but on a larger scale as the architecture of the city.
Taylor (1998) explains,
As town and country planning was only one form of planning activity, the question naturally arises
as to what made town and country planning different from other forms of planning. The prevailing
view was that, with the possible exception of regional planning controls over industry, town and
country planning was concerned with the physical environment and was thus most appropriately
described as physical planning, as opposed to social and economic planning. (p. 5)

Before the methodological and effective engagement of planning with social, political, and
economic drivers, the first attempt in the early 20th century to redefine planning in a new sense
was to establish distinctions between what was happening in a design-based view of planning
and in physical planning. Planning shaped with developing geographical and environmental
concerns into the planning domain. This can be considered the first attempt at theorizing
planning. This approach to planning, including the concepts of land-use, zoning, and physical
planning in a general sense, was later considered the inheritance of the modernists view of
phenomena and activities such as planning (through rational and positivist methods of thinking);
however, it was still far from the physical planning based on the architect-planners view of
planning, the postwar mindset through which, Taylor (1998) ascertains, town planners saw town
planning as essentially an exercise in the physical planning and design of land-use and built
form (p. 35).
However, in this postwar period, with the dominance of some particular tools or movements,
everything in planning would be only defined through those. For example, considering the
dominance of planning by land-use Fagin (1959) asserts,
[To] limit the scope of planning to land-use arrangements is a harmful effort to limit the common
word planning for exclusive use of a narrow segment of the planners' role in government" (p.
110).

The mindset, however, has been considered as serious tendencies first. Later on, some of the
tendencies changed to serious ones in planning, as was seen with land-use, which is now an
inseparable aspect of planning, but, after that, this was also proved that those tendencies could
serve only as a single tool to tackle specific problems of planning and decision making and they
need to be articulated in association with other tools.
This mode of thought caused decision-making methods and theories to be pursued mostly
through pragmatic methods and those who were developing methods and theories did so by
studying and relying on the pragmatic outcomes witnessed in other branches of planning. In
addition, this period, with its emphasis on technical issues, can be considered the era of the
development of the technicalist view and theory of planning through the managerialist approach
to the course of action. Then, in this period, the planner who tried to propose some ideas and
plans to planning institutions, in a vertical order, was below the city councils and decision-taking
institutions. This implies that the decision theories were indirectly imbedded in the hierarchically
elitist technocratic view of decision making.

2.4.1.2 Social Dimensions and Community Diversity: Sociological Values

Town and Country Planning might be described as the art and science of ordering the use of land
and the character and sitting of buildings and communicative routes . . . . Planning, in the sense
with which we are concerned, deals primarily with land, and is not economic, social or political
planning, though it may greatly assist in the realization of the aims of these other kinds of
planning (Keeble, 1952, p. 1).

18

This prevailing view of planning in the first half of the 20th century illustrated a reductionist image
and seemed justifiable to many when modernist planners with socialistic optimism emerged. The
approach was supposed to justify why modernist architect-planners tried to reorient the social
concerns through physical planning, whereby, it was imagined, many social problems would be
wiped out. Then planners only responsibility was envisioned to be organizing the physical
environment, without need to legitimize social and economic concerns.
But this type of resistance to other aspects of planning and to the factors that go into decision
making, with the intervening social aspects of planning, was soon to expire.
Then, in line with expanding planning, to make it more inclusive and effective, at the next stage,
planning theorists literature on planning was to expand the planning definition and distinguish
between planning and whatever town planners were dealing with, as a transition from town
planning to planning.
However, many notions related to planning were given birth, well before that time. For instance,
the idea of planning as an activity improving citizens quality of life and participation in decision
making indicates the progressive nature of planning but was presented by late-19th-century
social activists and political theoreticians.
The expansiveness of planners tasks and responsibilities, and hence, planning as a whole, is
one of the key points in discussions conducted since the 1960s and probably the most common
idea with which planning thinkers deal. The expansion of planning resulted in connecting
planning problems to social issues; therefore, physical planning (from the modernist era) was
expanded with social interpretations of problems and somehow replaced with socio-spatial
planning. This involved a considerable level of expansion of the planning sphere.
In this period, in Britain and America, the very important aspect of planning, which was seriously
taken into account in calculations and formulizing better communities, was social resultant. Both
social resultant and technicalist view of planning were focused on at the same time but that the
technicalist view followed the social resultant in degree of importance. Consequently, planning
implied an activity with wider aspects than what was realized in a physical or town planning
sense. However, the decision-making picture was still centralized and pursued in a managerialist
way, and any related efforts at theorizing were shaped around this general notion. It is also worth
mentioning that Europe was struggling with the economic and social shock of WWII in this period,
while America was examining different ways of developing urban spaces.

2.4.1.3 Political-Economic Trends, Ethics, and Democratic Values

Davidoff (1965) suggests,
The prospect for future planning is that of a practice openly inviting political and social values to
be examined and debated. Acceptance of this position means rejection of prescriptions for
planning that would have the planner act solely as a technician.(Davidoff, 1965, p. 331)

And Taylor (1998) states,

In the town planning systems of all western liberal democracies since 1945, public sector town
planning has coexisted with a capitalist land market. Implementing public policies and plans
therefore requires planners who understand and are prepared to work with the initiators of
development, including, obviously, private sector developers. The kind of theory concerned with
understanding the political economic context of town planning in which the market's strong role
was emphasized, ties in with the issue of implementation.(Taylor, 1998, p. 112)

Introducing some evidence of the political controversy of 1947s BritishTown and Country
Planning Act, Taylor (1998) suggests that the idea of planning as political was not new even in

19

the 1960s: The suggestion that town planning was 'political' was not completely new (Taylor,
1998, p. 77).
However, from a rational point of view, it was acknowledged that, even with a physical planning
mindset, when planning operated within a political context, in which there was a requirement for
development plans and decisions controlling development, for the planning to be approved by an
elected local authority and/or central government, the practical and technical exercises were still
dominant. In this mindset, which is still followed by urban designers, the separation of tasks and
responsibilities was exhibited in the distinction between what planning should plan and what
political bodies need to have taken into action. This kept the planning course of action
constrained to the technical part of planning (however, the term technical is used for all principles
applied to planning that are not philosophically visual or empirical, such as urban design criteria).
In substantive planning, the proponents of rational planning such as Faludi are accused of
downgrading politics as subservient to planning. For instance, Thomas (1979) claims that Faludi
asserts a positive value to be derived from a commitment to and involvement in rational
planning . . . The politial process will be substantially replaced by rational planning as the
principal means through which people communicate with each other about the society they live
in. Politics appears as an adjunct to planning (p. 72; cited in Paris, 1982, p. 21).
The idea has been deemed contentless planning and subjected to serious critiques from many,
such as Thomas or Camhis:
The policy, according to Faludi, can only be successful if it conforms with the criteria that specify
the right planning process. Following this line of reasoning the planner is . . . nothing. Too much
preoccupation with procedure or method in the abstract tends to push aside the real issues.
(Camhis, 1979, pp. 5-6)

The technicalist view of planning, including the rational and system view of planning, tries to
overlook the value-laden nature of planning, and hence, the political content (Taylor, 1998, p. 77).
But the differences between planning taking place in Western democracies and planning carried
out in socialistic centralized systems (like the former USSR) indicates that political accounts
intensify the alternative process of plan evaluation decision-making methods and values.
Planning is closely related to the political systems determining planning policy making and to the
degree to which a system is democratic, and to the form of democracy it takes. Prominent points
introduced in this scope include the method of distributing resources and the evaluation of costs
and benefits (pleasures and pains denoted by Jeremy Bentham) of plans for each actor or agent
of the built environment and portion of citizens and interest groups in making plans.
With all the complicated issues regarding the political and economic systems and their
interrelations, it is, therefore, no surprise that one of the first theorists who articulated the political
nature of planning comes from the American planning environment, namely, Norton Long (1959).
He expressed it in these terms:
Plans are policies and policies, in a democracy at any rate, spell politics. The question is not
whether planning will reflect politics but whose politics it will reflect. What values and whose
values will planners seek to implement? . . . plans are in reality political programs. In the broadest
sense they represent political philosophies, ways of implementing differing conceptions of the
good life. No longer can the planner take refuge in the neutrality of the objectivity of the
personally uninvolved scientist. (Long, 1959, p. 168)

And before that, in Banfields literature on housing policy in Chicago (Meyerson and Banfield,
1955), which is mostly known within rational planning (Faludi, 1973b, p. 115; Taylor, 1998, p. 83),
the matter of political debates and decision making was pursued. But, later on, in the early 1960s
and with Paul Davidoff and Thomas Reiner and others emphasis on the value-laden nature of
planning, the examination of the political aspects of planning was brought to a new phase.

20

This was before what Jon Gower Davies (1972) and Norman Dennis (1972) in the British
planning system claimed about the political nature of planning where the traditional freemarket
had been put away for years and the system had been working in combination with socialist and
liberal political-economic accounts and did not expect the New Right era of the late 1980s and
early 1990s.
Behind all these points made by planning theorists, the epistemological nature of politics and its
relationship with economics and ethics has fueled crucial discussions on the political aspects of
planning over the past 40 years.It is why Davidoffs and some others discussions on political
issues are considered as important a subject as the expansion dedicated to planning and not
merely as an adjunct to it.
In fact, the systemic view of planning and subsequently rational planning decision making were
responses to the earlier criticism of postwar planning for its lack of understanding of the sense of
place. But this view, in the 1960s and 1970s, was heavily criticized for being highly conceptual
and abstract, for being far from the reality of what planners were planning. This line of critique
helps, first, to expand the scope of planning and, second, in considering actual intervening
factors and their relationships in the whole process of planning.
This line of discussion needs to be considered within the framework of emerging postmodern
accounts on the one hand and of the grand theory of justice, developed by John Rawlss and
Robert Nozicks utilitarian accounts (See Nozick, 1981, 1974), in line with Neo-Marxist and
Keynesianism thoughts to control the liberalism in democratic societies, on the other hand.
However, many of these discussions have been pursued in highly abstract ways, while, in
practice, the political governing regimes could not bring their systems to those extremes.

2.5

Major Planning Approaches and Milestones; Matter of Practicality

Through the study of planning problems, cities and the built environment issues, defects and
deficiencies, major planning approaches, whether practical or intellectual, have shaped changes
in the quality of planning and societies, as well as ephemeral concerns. Some of the approaches
were abandoned at the first stage of development, and some, in light of professional consensus
or practical applicability, lasted longer. No one could easily say exactly what kinds of theories and
approaches would last and which would vanish. Nevertheless, what is evident is that those that
have had better coalition with the whole planning sphere seem to have survived longer than the
others. Those that are more adaptable and have more flexible principles have a better chance of
remaining longer in use vis--vis those trying to manifest all-inclusive environmental agents and
values in a justified manner.

2.5.1

Ongoing Process and Comprehensiveness

As Cullingworth (1997) asserts, In a world where everything is related to everything else, it is

impossible to deal with all things at once, and therefore problems have to be broken down into
manageable issues(Cullingworth, 1997, p.2). Yet this fact cannot invalidate the justification of
comprehensiveness even though the possibility of keeping all attributes in hand might be
unrealistic. The necessity of plannings moving towards comprehensiveness is a prominent
discussion, with some for and some against it. In either case, it opens up the question of
practicality. As per the analytical approach to the critical literatureon planning that is based on
pragmatic experience, scholars will question a single-core planning theory to be brought into
practice due to the high likelihood of missing criteria. That is the main reason many scholars
suggest that planning pursue comprehensiveness (Beauregard, 1989, 1990; in Fainstein et al.,
1991).
At the same time, there is no doubt that one of the most significant achievements in the planning
process has been to look at planning as an ongoing process rather than an endstate.

21

Detecting problems with the master plan and blueprints in physical planning in contradiction with
the nature of planning created major issues and led planners to consider an ongoing process for
plan and decision making. For the first time in Britain ongoing nature of town planning was
acknowledged under the 1947 Act by the requirement of local planning authorities to review their
development plans every five years. In this respect at least, town plans were not seen as 'endstate' documents (Taylor, 1998, p. 44).
From a phenomenological point of view, the cityas a context in which decisions, the course of
actions, and ultimately planning are supposed to materialize or be utilized to solve a perceived
problem or simply to improve the status quois an enduring existence that lives its life in time
and evolves under the influence of an infinite number of variables. Some of these are perceptible
and evident, but most are invisible, indirect, subjective, or even clandestine; yet in any case,there
are definitely multidimensional, multilayered and/or multilateral variables.
This can be interpreted as the dynamicity of (1) the variables with which planning is involved, (2)
the values which engage planning, and (3) their relationships.
To represent the sensitiveness of planning variables and their relationships Brown (1966)
asserts:
we might see planning in the light of a game of chess, divided into a series of moves each
limited and decisive in its own terms but each striving to secure maximum freedom for successful
maneuver in the subsequent stages (Brown, 1966, p. 9).

Perhaps this is one of the main reasons planning distances itself from planning, the former being
the activity that envelopes the latter, which is the mode of thought about planning.

2.5.2

Justification; Modernism to Postmodernism

The planning changes from being modernist to postmodernist were not pursued merely by
moving from a formal approach to planning to a more intellectual one. The distinction between,
on the one hand, rational reasoning and justification focusing on utilitarianism and, on the other
hand, deontological reasoning and justification shaped the most important controversy in this
transition. Bridge (2005) suggests:
[argumentation] does not rely on universal ways of validating claims but on ways that emerge
from the resources of the participants in the transaction. Whereas it was condemned as a force of
rationalization in modernity, postmodernism sought to banish rationality from the city altogether
(p. 8).

Although this controversy first was introduced in formal contradiction, it played a central role in
debates on the differences of approaches to planning in further stages of planning
expansiveness, even in the most technical sense of planning. Definitely, as far as this research is
concerned, there is no crisp distinction between what modern and postmodern thoughts are
dealing with (consider the concept of freedom or value-laden planning within these two thoughts
and their contradictions), but these types of debates have been followed as prominent points in
planning for years. As Bridge, somewhere else asserts, Planning theory has been vitally
implicated in ideas of rationality. Indeed forms of rationality stand at the heart of two of its main
approachesthe rational comprehensive planning model and the communicative rationality
model (Bridge, 2005, p. 125).
All these attempts ended up with the expansion of postmodern attitudes in planning; other
specialties were introduced to planning, and planning was more radically defined through the
other fields with which it is engaged in an incremental way. This means the specialties have been
applied to planning cases based on their original priorities and preferences to employ
incrementalism. Planning, which was vastly accepted in order to provide master plans and
blueprints (in a comprehensive way, early after WWII), turned into an activity with new economic,

22

political, and social dimensions (in a disjointed manner on account of difference). Planners,
instead of providing blueprints using T-squares and pens, were regarded as social activists. The
transition of planning (and the planner) from modernism to postmodernism had commenced.
Although most of these debates took place in theoretical coursesand with normative and
analytical approaches, there are still many discussions on the issue, and the justification of
planning is still comprehensive. As Campbell and Fainstein (2003) assert, The justification for
planning is often comprehensiveness. Yet the ideal of comprehensiveness has suffered serious
criticism(Campbell and Fainstein, 2003, p. 9).

However, as a result of dispute between the early theorists (the proponents of rational planning)
and the recent generation of planning theory commentators (the proponents of the diversification
of voices and accounts), Beauregard (2003) claims that, in the 1960s, The common object of
interestthe citythat had initially attracted progressive reformers was lost(Beauregard, 2003,
p. 110).

2.6

Planning Account

Notwithstanding all the vagueness inherited in the concept and all the failures in initial attempts at
defining planning, not only has it shaped and been pursued as a human activity, but it also has
been developed into and established as a profession: planning will continue to be a profession
with a lost sense of identity, and purpose, as well as . . . influence and legitimacy in the arena of
policy-making and development" (Brooks, 1990, p. 219).
It is evident that there is no agreement on the definition of planning. Furthermore, and rather a
posteriori, many other concepts within this phenomenon have never been properly defined. With
reference to the issue of relations of power in organizational units Perry (2003) claims, planning
seems to be at once ineffable and ubiquitous . . . it is planners themselves who appear to be the
most confused about the role of planning as an agency/instrument of control enmeshed or
embedded in the relations of power ( p. 143).
But the utilitarian accounts in defining the planning tasks, scopes, and responsibilities, beyond
the meaning of utilitarianism itself and its varieties, are more desirable than other notions among
those theorists who are not fundamentally skeptical about the definition of planning:
Urban politics, in an era of increasing government activity in planning and welfare, must balance
the demands for ever-increasing central bureaucratic control against the demands for increased
concern for the unique requirements of local, specialized interests. The welfare of all and the
welfare of minorities are both deserving of support: Planning must be so structured and so
practiced as to account for this unavoidable bifurcation of the public interest.(Davidoff, 1965)

Considering utilitarian aspects of decision making is so important that it now shapes the major
notions of the ethical principles for planners in many institutional guidelines (for example, see the
AICPs Planning Ethical Principles).
Despite differences, considering as many factors intervening in planning as possible and also
bearing in mind the extremist attempts at defining planning, an expanded definition can be
envisaged that takes into account the actors of the built environment.
Planning, in ethical sense, is a utilitarian activity: utilitarian planning, that aims to process (and
calculate if required and possible) different variables of the built environment and their
relationships in such a manner that the share of each stakeholder in this process can be secured
in a coherent and fair way. Whether this is possible in reality is open to debate (Also planning, in
moral sense, is a libertarian activity: libertarian planning, that is completely involved in costs and

23

benefits).1 Yet more importantly, the general question remains of how to achieve this or how
close planning can get to this definition in practice, both in theory of knowledge (know-what) and
in practice of action (know-how). Planning is all about striking a balance between give and gain,
both physical and intellectual, in which as few stakeholders (current or future) as possible suffer
from the plans implemented and the decisions made and as many stakeholders (current or
future) as possible benefit from them. It implies commitment to the reductionist school of thought
and to the justification of goals (utilitarian aspects) versus the justification of process
(deontological or libertarian). Planning theory has recognized for a long time that, as a result of
such an approach, many influences, which could have otherwise been pursued simultaneously,
are destined to be ignored. Given the lack of ability to respond to planning requirements, the
reductionist idea cannot be justified any more. But the alternative approach keeps the record of
the necessity of the justification of both integrated accounts of planning at the same time.
Therefore, the factors that are under debate with regard to planning are utilitarianism, variables of
the built environment, relationships between variables, the implementation method(s), plans and
decisions and hypotheses (theories) that try to identify these factors. Therefore, the whole
literature ensuing and related to these issues is summarized in discourse on planning theory.
This definition, which is more clarified regarding the justification issues, presents a coalition
among different tendencies (political, economic, technical, and also ethical and moral). It can be
set up to suit different types of approaches to planning by changing the parameters through
modifying the degree of effectiveness of each compartment. Therefore, having an impartial
position in this definition and avoiding employing any ideological stance (except utilitarianism,
which can intrinsically be flexible) bestows a high degree of flexibility to the definition through
which planning can be interpreted even in the most diverse ways.

2.7

Planning Theory, Modifications, and Patterns

Different thoughts and expressions about planning, like planning is the application of scientific
method ... to policy-making (Faludi, 1973a; Jay, 1976), are important to planning and even more
important to planning theory. This type of comment on planning and its attributes, processes, and
relationships has been modifies with the planning mode of thought, yet it is used by some
organization units across as a valid approach to decision making (This specific approach may be
traced back in Poppers work on scientific method once planning was to be comprehended as
science. That is what Magee (1973, p. 75) puts forward when he writes about Popper in relation
to policy: A policy is a hypothesis which has to be tested against reality and corrected in the light
of experience [p. 75]. This mode of thinking about planning arises from scientific findings of true
or false in the fields in which there is no dealing or compromising with different options.)
The definition of planning theory is as vague and complicated as the definition of planning. The
expansion of planning that has been the issue of debate within planning theory has been
substituted with expansion of planning theory itself. Now after about five decades of providing the
literature about planning theory, the question is what is planning theory? And is planning theory in
its own meaning a substantive theory or not? Is there any general theory of planning?
Perhaps, what planning should consider at the beginning is the central subject of planning theory.
With Jane Jacobss methodology of criticizing planning (not to consider the citys problems), the
systemic view of the problem within the city and the systemic view of what the city is were
examined. Later on, within rational planning, the technicalist through managerialist views
1

Debates on the terms utility and preference and their differences have a long history, as discussed by Kathleen Bawn in
2008 in her lectures, named Political Science: Politics and Stratedies, at University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).
Bawns lectures contain a great deal of discussion on the originality of preferences rather than utility. The preferences
seem to be more useful where the outcomes should be accrued in the abstract form. However, the concept of utility is still
more fitting for discussion in social or human sciences. This issue was highlighted in the session of Simultaneous
Games, which is supposed to be set up based only on pure preferences.

24

concentrated on planning theory. More recently, the planning methods for controlling and
improving came to the question, yet the issue of planning has not been able to provide enough
initiatives to change the actions under consideration for the central issues of planning theories.
Planning theory, with its dynamic nature, has been seen in different ways, with temporal changes
within various modes of thought, and has been treated in different manners, respectively.
Perhaps this is seen as the best reason for rejecting the idea of general planning theory.
However, the opponents may reason that any umbrella theory can be inclusive to gather all the
theories stemming from various viewpoints.
Perhaps, the separation between rational and empirical approaches to planning is the most
important divergence in the history of planning theory. Along with this main divergence, either
prior to this deviation or subsequent to it, many other issues have been categorized, including but
not limited to definitions, tasks, and attributes.
Supposedly, one of the most considerable efforts at articulating the theorizing literature on
planning is Faludis. It was Faludi who initiated discussion on this matter in the 1960s, and he has
been followed by others ever since. This type of discussion was later labeled rational thought on
planning. He offers two types of planning theory, the first being theory in planning, and the
second theory of planning. The former, in which the practical aspects of planning (substantive
planning) are highlighted, describes the theories used in planning to achieve whatever the goal of
the plan is. The main focus of the latter, which is chiefly characterized as procedural planning, is
theorizing what planning would be and what it should beand in many cases, regardless of
whether it is useable and applicable. This idea seems to have resulted in some other thinkers
considering planning theory as a useless subject, as mentioned before. It has raised a lot of
concerns to return to a more realistic view of planning theory that can help planners instead of
confusing them. Between the 1960s and 1980s, significant confrontations between
empirical/emancipatory and rational aspects of planning were pursued to legitimize modernist
rationality and postmodernist accounts. However, scrutinizing the literature of both groups shows
that even the most radical members of each have been borrowing concepts and principles from
their opponents (See Taylor, 1984). To criticize the procedural planning Taylor claims:
First, procedural planning theory was criticized for its abstractness and generalityfor offering
merely an extended definition of planning and not saying anything about how planning in
practice operated or what its effects were, etc. It was thus criticized for lacking any content or
substance, for being empty or vacuous(See, e.g. Scott and Roweis, 1977; Camhis, 1979;
Thomas, 1979). Secondly, the rational model of planning was criticized (e.g. Friedmann, 1969)
for presenting a false top-down view of planning which showed little understanding of the
action end of planning, including how plans and policies were or were not implemented.(Taylor,
1998, p. 96)

This means each view has to be committed to the fundamental reasoning axioms attending what
is supposed to be the opposite agenda.
The other important issue in planning theory has been the characteristics of the planner as well
as his or her tasks and duties (along with discussions of planning ethics), as formulated and
scrutinized from different points of view. In the rational view of planning, the planner carries a
central role in the decision process in relationship to the structure of power and is considered in
the context of the technicalist view of planning. Therefore, this current research has examined [or
examines] the literature on this subject. What Faludi, in the early 1970s, stated seeks to
understand the concept of planning through planners eyes: Planning theory and the practical
interests of planners are thus complementary to each other, despite the occasional tension which
exists between practitioners and theorists(Faludi, 1973a, p. 10).
Because of the defects within the meanings and management system, this idea was pursued up
until recently. This was needed because it has been assumed the most effective way to tackle
problems with a series of principles and criteria. This type of approach to solving planning
problems is not limited to those who are called rational planners and Faludi (1973a) asserts:

25

Davidoff and Reiner (1962) argue similarly that "urban planning education has been excessively
directed to substantive areas and has failed to focus on any unique skills and responsibilities of
the planner". Ten years later, Robinson (1972) voices the same complaint. However, planners
are not alone in depriving themselves of an intellectual basis of their activities. Simon (1969)
argues that departments of engineering, business studies and so on, devote too much attention
to basic disciplines and too little to design, what he calls the science of the artificial. (p. 8)

And also Taylor (1988), in the introduction to his book Urban Planning Theory Since 1945,
claims,
students usually take some course in planning theory. But as I know from my own experience of
teaching this subject, students find the subject difficult. Part of this difficulty may be due to the
intrinsic nature of the subject-matter, which deals with ideas and arguments rather than the
accumulation and transmission of facts about planning. (p. V)

Nevertheless, in more recent approaches, the alternative formulation for the role of planners
implies that they are assumed to act as the mediators between different parties and stakeholders.
Furthermore, the managerial and organizational obscurities reveal the complications of the
practicality of such a perception.
This kind of approach to planning theory is why the gap between planning education and a
course of action is becoming evidently wider and is considered the root of most problems. The
method to tackle this problem is, then, theorizing new or old, rational or non-rational methods and
transferring them to the management bodies. Furthermore, the ways of transfer are a matter of
discussion. Therefore, planners and authorities, as the most technocratic elements of planning
and the best audience for the planning process, would be targeted for modification in this view.
These are all the supports of the school of thought that can be called the planner-based view of
planning.
From another point of view, planning theory is assumed to be literature about planning, variables,
and their relationships at the purest level of theory and incorporating what can be considered
either theory on planning or theory about planning:
There is a widespread acceptance in our mtier that there are significant differences between
theories that are used in planning and are specific to its several specializations (land use,
transport, urban design, regional development, environmental planning, etc.) (theory 1); and
theories that address what is common to all of them, i.e. theories of planning tout court (theory 2).
In addition, I would propose a third category that I shall call theories about planning (theory
3).(Friedmann, 2003b, p. 7)

The last category emphasizes more the political side of planning and the role of knowledge
and/or people in the process; this tries to distance itself from what is called rational planning. The
thinkers who try to establish postmodernism in planning attempt to define the role of people in
political decision making and constantly remind the theoreticians of the importance of the
relationship between these two through incrementalism. To achieve that, a wide range of
premises and notions were employed: from linking knowledge to action (Friedmann, Schoen), to
societal accounts and human factors (Davidoff, Lindblom), to emancipatory practice
(Sandercock), and even to planning as a method of learning from people (communicative
approach), which has been pursued in Habermass and his students ideas (Flyvbjerg, Forester).
The core of discussion in this category is decision-making theory and process as the pivot point
of planning. These methods are well known as a decision-center view of planning (Faludi, 1987).
Attempts have been made to modify the patterns and models based on these types of thoughts.
The modification and clarification include both the variables and their relationships. From an
epistemological point of view, the questions related to this matter can be categorized into four
parts: How are these variables and their relationships? How could they be? How would they be?
And how should they be?

26

Friedmanns statement, quoted above, raises certain questions that can actually help clarify the
issue. What our mtier is and whether this profession has been defined through an experience
or intuition are a couple of the questions that followers and supporters of the approaches ask.
These epistemological and rational (here, rational is used in the sense of rationalism, as opposed
to denoting skepticism and idealism) questions are the basis of the planning sphere recognition
process in different systems.

2.7.1

Types and Categories

2.7.1.1 Major Approaches and Milestones

There are a vast number of theories in planning, either generated or employed.
As a result of those theories, many different models have been shaped based on inductive,
deductive, and sometimes, intuitive methods. But one of the most important parts of the study of
planning, and subsequently the theory of decision making, is the study of tools and approaches
of planning (justified by different reasoning methods for different purposes). Those tools or
approaches were established, during the period in which planning came into existence in its 20thcentury sense, through a series of theories, and these theories typically arose from the
requirements within the planning sphere at the time or those intellectual notions to which planning
had to be committed.

2.7.1.2 Recent Planning Theories in Practice with the Hierarchy of Planning Theories:
Trends, Theories, Methods, and Notions
Among all theories in planning and theories of planning are some that appropriate ideas from
other theories without mentioning or acknowledging this. These ways vary from using
epistemological notions to employing methodological concepts. Some of these theories have
been applied to the fabrics, and some others have affected at least some parts of the planning
sphere. This has happened because some thoughts have the capacity of being applied and some
require a conjunctive method to be catalyzed and employed. As a matter of fact, the latter can
affect the former in a manner that encompasses the values, while the former embodies some of
the latter. This can be true of the fully physical theories and also the theories applicable to the
intellectual part of planning. For instance, in intellectual form, the idea of Marxism concentrated
on social phenomena. Although Marxism was not intended as a planning theory, over the years,
planning manifestations have been derived from it and translated into planning guidelines that
have been used in relation to sociological and economic factors.
Furthermore, New Marxists have been using the axioms to justify fundamentals of the
establishment of the form of planning. Another example addresses the movements with
commitment to physical planning. The movements such as New Urbanism borrow a wide range
of values, from formal values of old European towns to ethical principles, in order to promote the
value of mixing different types of people (within urban contexts) to increase equality within urban
fabrics. Although with the expansion of each way of thinking, the contributors have developed
some objective and practical aspects of such theories and affected planning in direct ways, they
could not be considered the theories holding any inclusive ways of justification for planning.
The following table provides a categorization containing the various planning tendencies existing
in the planning sphere. The very first level contains planning dispositions carrying some general
intellectual notions that can potentially be translated into planning notions by using mediators.
The dispositions may proportionately talk about sociological, economic, and political beliefs or
values and benefit from analytical philosophical approaches that give some explanations about
the targeted notions and concerns. Employing normative statements can be seen as a common
feature in such tendencies being used to clarify the justification. They can also act like general
ethical guidelines or principles holding a wide range of interpretations to be applied. Being

27

developed based on other sciences outcomes at the second level, planning channels target
various sectors to plan the built environment. The technocratic approach of these channels and
the fact that they work individually are significant features of such tendencies. The justification of
the decisions made by using the channels, focusing on the specific aspects of the built
environment, is vastly in debt to other disciplines models and knowledge but can still be seen
through utilitarianism. Planning schemes, which are mostly shaped based on the facts and
experimental processes, are usually being used as guidelines for having more viable cities.
Those schemes are modified and revised using what the existing urban fabrics have being
experiencing. The technicality and practicality of the criteria presented by such schemes become
central to the justification, and the physical, or form-based, approach in the methods prevails.
Planning ideas contain conceptual perceptions of the city and its components. They mostly
pursue highly imaginative ideas in both physical and formal architectural and intellectual senses
to adopt cutting-edge design and spatial organizations. With their commitment to the avant-garde
and their theorization of urban fabrics for the future, they remain at a mostly conceptual level.
They also rest on a justification rooted in ideal beliefs, without going beyond intuition.

Type of
Planning
Tendency

Epistemological Basis

Origination

Mindset

Derivative

Level
of
Application

Type
of
Process

Output Type

Disposition

Truth,
Beliefs,&
Values

Philosophical
Impetus/
Socioligical,
Politico-Economic
Appraoches

Poststructuralis
m/
Rationalism/
Utilitarianism/
Deontology

(Mediators
Required)
Communicative
Rationalism,
Equity Planning

Various

Normative/
Discursive

Thought/
Ethics/
Intellectual
Materials

Channel

Knowledge/
Experience

Sciences/
Technical/
Managerial Fields

Empiricism/
Positivism/
Utilitarianism

LandUse/Spatia
l Planning,
Transportation
Planning

Various:
Regional/
Built
Environment

Positivist/
Experiment
al/
Technical

Discipline/
Criterion/
Principle

Scheme

Facts/
Experienced
Values/

Urban Values and

Actions

Empiricism/
Pragmatism

New Urbanism/
Urban
Renaissance

City/Town/
Suburbia

Technical/
Formal

Principle/
Instruction

Idea

Ideals/Ideas/
Experimental

Architectural
Notions/Physical
Spatial Ideas

Formalism/
Idealism

Radiant City,
Event Cities,
Koolhaass and
Rossis Ideas
on Planning

Architecture
and Urban
Design

Conceptual/
Formal

Idea/
Construction

Table 2.1. Typology of planning tendencies and their aspects.

Each of the aforementioned planning tendencies benefits from various theories, methods,
mechanisms, mediators, and toolkits to manifest its backbone objectives. These tendencies
problems, priorities, solutions, and types, scales, or levels of intervention are vastly different.
Even at a managerial and organizational level, each of them appears with a specific amount of
strength to be applied and legitimized; some act as conductors for some others.
The aforementioned tendencies have been pursued sometimes alongside with and even
simultaneous to their predecessors. And with a few exceptions, they have been institutionalized
in a horizontal way rather than being ordered vertically. In addition, some planning channels or
schemes, like regional and spatial planning, urban renewal, and even New Urbanism, have been
so expanded that they embed some aspects of other tendencies. However, by expanding the
scope and adopting trans-disciplinary approaches, the amalgamated criteria have not come to a
coherent symbiosis. In other words, due to the expansion of planning, imported specialties and
subspecialties to planning, with different premises and values, have raised concerns about

28

various aspects of work including but not limited to social, political, economic, and psychological
aspects. By contrast, although there are some common points, mostly in using ideas that support
theoretical criteria, instead of achieving a coalition between those that are practical or those that
are theoretical at each level, the more practical approaches have either been born from
theoretical ones of the same discourse or have employed the other theoretical tendencies.

2.7.2

Mode of Thoughts and Patterns: Induction, Deduction, and Intuition in

Planning Theory

Different notions of planning theory start with the premises or intuition of definitions of planning
and its variables. They also consider the relationship between these variables as well as the
definition of the planner and his or her tasks at initiative stages. Then, after theorizing the notions
of planning, they typically return to the definition of the profession. This moving process from one
level with premises to another level in which they try to define the premises as a cycle of
knowledge will define different patterns or deductive models of the explanation of planning
theory.
It is evident that this process is also based on personal background and experience, meaning
that every practitioner, theorist, or academic has, more or less, a particular pattern of planning
and specific theories he or she applies to planning. With a review of reasoning in planning
theories, the pattern and deductive model of understanding and explanation can be formulized in
four clusters: (a) a concept-based theory on planning, (b) a toolkit-based theory in planning, (c) a
substantive theory about planning, and (d) an amalgamation of any two or all three of the
aforementioned as a theory of planning.

2.7.2.1 Normative Planning Theory (Concept Based)

Utopian and Idealist Ideas (how planning sphere would be) and Intuition (from life experience and
value-based premises) Induction (to a pattern) Deduction Induction (through pure
theoretical or philosophical notions and revision of the utopian ideas)

2.7.2.2 Functional Planning Theory (Toolkit Based)

Functional or Practical Theories and Premises (of experience and course of action) Deduction
Induction (to a theory) method to apply to Course of Action

2.7.2.3 Substantive Planning Theory (Process Based)

General Theories and Premises Deduction Induction (deduction and induction to redefine
the first premises and methods)

2.7.2.4 A Part of Those Models or an Amalgamation of Two or More of Those Models

The definition and concepts will be used, revised, changed, and modified in these systems. It is
therefore no surprise if some of the elements such as decision making, are considered a process
within the planning or if they are equated by some to the meaning of planning. The process of
making one inferior aspect of planning (like decision making) equal to a superior one (such as
planning as the whole activity) is a well-known reductionist type of approach that is not well
justified or to be easily adopted or utilized.
Therefore, to answer the first question, whether a general planning theory is imaginable, suffice
to say that depending on the view of the observer, the answer may vary. From one point, it is
imaginable, and from another, it is not. This is because if the level of discussion goes to a higher
level, all the discussion considered part of different planning theories would be deemed debates

29

within a single system. Therefore, the whole idea can be comprehended as general enough to
define a general planning theory. On the contrary, if a planning theory remains at the same level
of differentiation as other planning theories, regarding it as a general planning theory does not
make any sense.
This is exactly what Archibugi (2007, p. 4) claims to be a useless (p. 4) planning theory. He
asserts that
if planning theory had limited its fields to this concept, to the method of making decisions which
is to some extent common to all fields and to the logical structure of this method, the
developments in planning theory could have advanced further, and planning could have rescued
itself from its widespread failure. (Archibugi, 2007, p. 4)

Two points in the above comments deserve consideration considerable. First, despite Fainsteins
opinion (See the introduction of Readings in Planning Theory`, Campbell and Fainstein, 2003),
the issue of decision making is still a key point in planning (know-how) and in planning theory
(know-what), and second, the logic of the structure is yet to be considered. Following this idea,
the justification of the structure of decision making and its logic should be carefully considered as
well.

2.8

Conclusion

Different modes of planning, including decision-making, planning, manegarialist, technicalist, and

policy-making activities, have been examined over the last century. In light of the entire
discussion that has taken place in planning theory in either a practical or intellectual sense, the
practice of planning, with all attempts at theorizing it, is still a crucial part of the planning sphere.
This means every attempt pursued in this sphere needs to have a strong justification that
contributes to the concept of planning practice, rather than having a purely theoretical stance, to
avoid being labeled useless.
As a result of existing different factors intervening in planning and the multiactor nature of the
sphere, imagining unique and emergent definitions seems to be out of reach. Although there is
no integral agreement on the definition of planning and planning theory (in a general sense)
planning as an activity is being pursued in various ways to improve the quality of human life and
the built environment. Along this line, the tasks, responsibilities, and duties of planning have been
better defined to observe the city and its problems (as a system or phenomenon); to study
planning as a preventing, controlling, defining activity or from its initiative roles perspective; and
to define planners and planning institutions roles effectively. Recently, this is mostly discussed
while considering the type of political and economic system in which planning takes place.
There are different patterns of planning sphere and various patterns of reasoning, in each of
which the specific time and situation have been followed to make a better contribution to
planning. However, the whole idea of planning aims at comprehensiveness to be able to answer
the problems in more justified ways. Then, with the expansion of the planning sphere and taking
into account the attributes of various intervening fields, planning has changed from a neutral
(based on technical or aesthetic outcomes with rational values) to a multivalued, multiobjective
and multijudgment discipline with political, social, ethical, and economic values involved.
However, these all should add some values to (prior) physical planning, which has recently been
transformed to become a subspecialty of the profession.
The idea that planning is science is no longer accepted. It is now largely fragmented and each
component belongs to different scope, and articulating planning as a whole in a scientific way, is
not as accepted as it used to be. Now the preference is to consider planning a multidisciplinary
activity. Therefore, many different reasoning methods (like the rejection of grand theories) are
now more desirable and justifiable than ever before. With all the rational, pragmatic, and

30

empirical reasoning behind gathering the data, preparing plans, and making the policies and
decisions, there is still a lack of justified methods to integrate the values of planning. Now it
seems that the aforementioned tasks are proponent modes of thought that are severely involved
in the matter of temporal selectiveness and arbitrariness. This may imply that the reasoning
(based on various patterns of thought) should be integrated into planning for it to be justifiable
enough. Alternatively, it may at least imply that the place of each trend needs to be established in
contribution with the other fields that contain many other intervening factors in which planning is
involved.
Regardless of how conceptual or abstract the planning theory is, and from an epistemological
point of view, planning has responsibilities and dimensions to meet, and actions must be taken to
legitimize and justify it in order to respond to the users of resources and spaces (individuals and
interests groups). But the other point is that these discussions need to be kept as close to a
practical state as possible.

31

Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere

and Planning Theory
Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning

Classical and Infinite-Value

Logic: Implications for
Decision Making

Analysis

Conclusion

3.1. Introduction
3.2. Methodologies in Planning
3.3. Methodologies of the Current Research
3.4. Possible Criticism
3.5. The Necessity of the Research and Its
Contribution to the Knowledge Pool
3.6. Premises
3.7. Conclusion

32

3 Concentration, Theoretical Framework, and Methodology

3.1

Introduction

The current chapter aims to exhibit different methodologies that are mainly used in planning
studies. This chapter also outlines the overall path of this research and the scope of the study.
Then, considering the research subject, the scope and framework as well as the most
appropriate methodology for this research will be explained.
Chapter 3 aims to explore such questions as the following:

What type of research methodology is appropriate for the nature of planning?

Why should this research aim to utilize what are deemed as possible and the most viable
research methodologies?

What are the premises of this research, and how do they affect the theoretical
framework?

Since this research focuses on the logic of the decision-making theory, what type of path
needs to be taken?

This section describes the terms and explains general concepts of the methodologies and
epistemological accounts in use. By examining the nature of the hypothesis and the research
questions, it will argue which methodology will be more cohesive with the current research.
This research is concerned with what has been considered through fuzzy logic in different fields.
The idea has been developed through an analytical approach to the atmosphere of planning,
which, by its nature as a complex phenomenon, works with a great deal of uncertainty in an
unpredictable way. In this chapter, the methodology of the entire path needs to be explained.
Here also the premises of the research will be introduced. These premises are needed in order to
narrow down both the scope of the study and the methodology utilized.
Since the very first notions of urbanism, in its broadest sense, took shapewhen the earlier
planners tried to plan the phenomenon of the city through various experiences and trial-and-error
decision-making processesup until recentlywhen planning theorists attempt to understand
and realize the compartments of the planning sphere and to affect components and fields of the
planning process or of planning theorymany scholars have theorized, articulated, thought,
published, criticized, and scrutinized a number of subjects around and about planning. Among
those, decision-making theory has, due to its importance, been reconsidered and revisited myriad
times. Scholars and theoreticians have employed various methods to approach the subject.
These have been based on the epistemological approaches they would adopt. At the same time,
a wide range of proceedings have been adopted that can be categorized into different disciplines
and that carry their very own values and premises. These include art, architecture, mathematics,
philosophy, politics, economics, and more recently, sociology, psychology, the humanities, and
the cognitive sciences.
Therefore, theories in planning have been articulated to serve different purposes, a variety of
methodologies have been generated, formulated, and utilized in planning, some of which have
been borrowed from other specialties or even some realms of science and imported into
planning. These methodologies, along with the complexities of the theory of knowledge, the
theory of language, and the epistemology of modality, are therefore to be selected and justified
by planning thinkers.

33

These series of complexities make finding a proper methodology for every research effort
(including the current one) a very sensitive and delicate task.

3.2
3.2.1

Methodologies in Planning
About the Term

Generally speaking, methodology can be defined as analysis of the principles of methods, rules,
and postulates and their correlations. In other words, it is concerned with a systematic study of
what is known to be forming the structures, routines, or ways of doing something or those that
have been employed within a particular discipline for a particular procedure or a set of correlated
or isolated events or incidents.
The inquiry into the subject itself is carried out in epistemology and the theory of knowledge, the
arenas of philosophy devoted to examining the scope and nature of knowledge. Then, for
comprehending the methodologies, an inquiry about the types of knowledge that underlie or have
been utilized in setting up, defining, or applying those methodologies seems crucial.

3.2.2

Knowledge in Planning: Know-What and Know-How

It is evident that based on personal background and experience, there is a single and distinctive
pattern of planning for more or less every practitioner, theorist, and academic. To recognize that
a pattern of planning can be personal is neither to reject a general planning theory altogether nor
to accept it thoroughly.
Nevertheless, every thinker is faced with four crucial epistemological issues:

What is planning, and how does it work (a matter of knowledge and facts; concerns, in
the course of action, the roles of theories in planning)?

How could or might it be (a matter of possibilities and probabilities; logic)?

How should it be (a matter of justification and values; the quality and method;
correctness and incorrectness)?

How would it be (a matter of belief and preferences; this way or that way)?

These four concerns are applicable to every part of planning, including decision-making theory
and planning theory that involves the logic of planning at different levels and scales and at
various stages of work.
Planning is like a human activity to serve the built environment (in which the human being is the
most important concern) in order to improve quality of life by using different aesthetic, technical,
political, economic, sociological, and ethical means according to different empirical, rational, and
analytical tendencies. However, the concepts of improvement and better actions are utterly
controversial.
Complications are inherent in the definitions of know-what and know-how in planning, but a very
familiar example of an experience involving both these forms of knowledge will shed light on
differences between the two.
Imagine an activity like cycling, in which the required knowledge is basically acquired through
know-how. Although some may claim that being introduced to the bicycle (gaining know-what
type of knowledge) and its components is a priori to riding rather than that cycling itself is a basic

34

kind of empirical knowledge, first-time learners do not actually need to know about the dynamics
to be able to ride bicycles. This does not, however, defy the idea that one may still learn what the
bicycle is and what its parts are and how they work at least to improve an understanding about
the cycling, even if he or she does not have any scientific or fully technical information about the
bicycle. Evidently, one can improve at this activity through both know-how and know-what: by
obtaining more experience through more exercise and/or by knowing more about physics as a
science with known rules. The former type of knowledge can lead to better balance and handling
ability, while the latter helps the rider improve any known capabilities of cycling by studying the
rules of physics. This know-what knowledge can affect and improve someones acquisition of the
know-how knowledge, though it is obvious that no one can learn the entire activity by studying
the physics. This means that the know-how type of knowledge or skill is a priori to know-what
type of knowledge or awareness in this type of activity.
It can be concluded that the activity is not a science itself; however, it can be improved by
scientific inquiries. The know-how knowledge will help the individual achieve the maximum skill of
cycling, including perhaps even highly acrobatic abilities. Acquiring this type of knowledge
depends directly on the riders personal concentration and physical (experimental) abilities. On
the contrary, the know-what knowledge is achievable by one who studies physics; by inquiring
into issues related to the bicycle itself and the related physics, the rider can learn the theoretical
basis for achieving the maximum skills. This type of knowledge is separable from the riders
physical abilities or mental state (which itself can be studied by know-what type of knowledge to
improve the activity).
All the related factors (gathered from different disciplines) can be put together to improve the
activity. This can be seen as a multidisciplinary activity. However, some thinkers, as Cullingworth
asserts, still believe in the dichotomy between rational and actual planning: Rational planning is
a theoretical idea. Actual planning is practical exercise of political choice that involves beliefs and
values (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 5).
There are many statements similar to the above describing the nature of planning, especially
after the unsuccessful rationality applied to planning in the 1960s and 1970s. This more recent
attitude towards planning has been not only practical but also empirical. It rejects planning as a
science (in its rational sense); hence, the know-how type of knowledge would subordinate the
know-what vision in this view. However, some notions still extend so that the empirical sciences,
which are based on pure empiricism or pragmatism, are still traceable in planning.
Although the example diminishes the details and reduces the concepts generalizability, yet the
analogical reasoning helps explaining the types and manifestations of knowledge in planning.
Planning is an activity in which know-how is central to the tasks and responsibilities. The study of
different problems in the course of action (such as practical, live problems and theoretical,
intellectual controversies) leads to new methods to tackle the problems or frame the solutions.
The basic experimental knowledge flourishes when planners both subordinate the other related
fields outcomes and improve the technical side of the work by using know-what type of
knowledge. Therefore, it can be claimed that, in planning, live problems stemming from live
experiences are answered through two different types of knowledge: practical trial-and-error
implementation (based purely on previous experiences) and theoretical notions for providing
more profound analysis about the issue. However, due to the multidimensional nature of
planning, which is somewhat engaged with pure philosophical issues, and regarding the
complexity of a multiattribute atmosphere, which makes the evaluating process difficult to
interpret, a single form of knowledge cannot cover the whole sphere.
To provide answers to the four questions given at the beginning of this part requires that crucial
discussions be carried out with the use of either empirical accounts or analytical methods. With

35

reference to the 2010 series of lectures2 by John Searle on the philosophy of language (See also
Searle, 2009), finding truth, as the goal of different methods of acquiring knowledge, can be
achieved by either experiments and scientific observations or by analytical methods. In other
words, for scientific or empirical activities, the former means of gaining knowledge can work,
whereas the latter approach is the only method for acquiring knowledge in theoretical,
epistemological, and analytical investigations.
It is generally agreed that the former notion was practiced for a long time before the
establishment of planning theory. Since the provision of theories in planning, the latter notion
(know-what) has helped the former (know-how). But it also needs to be taken into consideration
that both the former and latter types of knowledge should be somewhat committed to empirical or
pragmatic accounts if they are to be practical and to deny radical idealism and utopianism.
It is worth mentioning that most discussions carried out in planning theory benefit from the
rationality of analysis dominating philosophy and epistemology in which concepts, notions,
principles, and axioms are discussed, conceived, and expanded.

3.2.3

Diversity of Methodologies in Planning

Although some thinkers like Bridge (2005) still tend to magnify the importance of a specific type
of knowledge, and thus its methodologies in planning, the methodologies vary from research
study to research study and from thinker to thinker. In favor of pragmatism, he asserts that:
Despite differences there are a number of characteristics that broadly define pragmatism. One is
the judgment of knowledge by its practical consequences rather than theoretical coherence. This
is related to its idea of praxis: that knowledge is something that must be practically acted out. (p.
3)

The subject has a profound interconnection with the envisaged definition of the field. Due to the
lack of a widely accepted definition for planning, the methodologies used for planning studies
purposes have been quantified numerously since the establishment of the field. Additionally, it is
evident that the definitions, views, and methods have been both expanded and ramified and have
quantified not only planning duties and responsibilities but planning theory at its theoretical level.
This view on its own rejects any unified notion of the nature of planning.
On the contrary, the technicalist or technocratic view of planning among the theoreticians who
mostly pursued the modernist rationality still follows a necessity of making a science from
planning. Birch claims:
Underlying any disciplines involving scientific inquiry is a set of theories that predict behavior and
provide a framework for the fields knowledge and, ultimately, practice. Its practitioners develop
these theories by articulating hypotheses (expressing causal relationships among different
factors or variables) and proving or disproving them through experimentation and empirical
observation.(Birch, 2009, p. 96)

Therefore, regardless of how incomplete and unreliable they are, scientific methods of urban
studies and theories of decision making have been vastly welcomed and favored, though their
death has been announced many times (for further study, see Faludi, 1986). On the contrary, it
has been broadly accepted that the recent tendencies of planning and its theories distance
themselves from its early scientific and artistic views. As Taylor asserts:
town planning judgments were not so much technical or scientific as political. It was even
suggested that it was misleading to describe town planning as a science; instead, it would be

It is accessible through the website of the University of Berkeley at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/; under Philosophy
133-0 Philosophy of Language, Lecture No. 4

36

better described as a form of political action directed at realizing certain values. (Taylor, 1998, p.
77)

In the light of the above comments, finding a certain statement or a set of statements that either
defines the nature of planning or assigns it to a specific realm of knowledge seems impossible or
far from achievable. Thus, methodologies used in different research projects in planning, as in
any other research area, ought to be proportionate to the type of knowledge they aim to acquire.
Now it sounds plausible that the dissimilarities of methodologies (from the past 100 years)
applied to planning studies demonstrate that both thinkers and planners have widely rejected the
idea that planning benefits from a unified methodology.

3.2.4

Different Paths or a Single Path Morphing

The relativist views of Feyerabend, the rejection of metanarratives and overarching theories by
Lyotard (Hickman, 2007), and the role of power and discourse in the formation, interpretation,
and application of theory (Allmendinger, 2002, p. 27) have had inevitable influences on the
methodology of planning research and related aspects of the field. The late notion contradicts the
traditional view of planning: the neutrality of observation and the givenness of experience; the
ideal of unequivocal language and the independence of data from theoretical interpretation; the
belief in the universality of conditions of knowledge and criteria for theory choice (Bohman, 1991,
p. 2; Flyvbjerg, 2001).
These influences have also caused the shift from positivist to post-positivist methodology in
planning studies and research, to what Allmedinger describes as a post-positivist recognition of
indeterminacy, incommensurability, variance, diversity, complexity, and intentionality of
theoretical development. A post-positivist approach requires shifting from causal reasoning as a
basis for plan-making to discovering and confirming meaning(Moore-Milroy, 1991, p. 182). The
pursuing distinct methodologies in different cases, especially at the theoretical level of planning
and decision-making theory, the diversification of methodologies has been implicitly welcomed by
planning thinkers. Allmendinger also suggests:
Most of the current developments in planning theory (e.g. collaborative, neo-pragmatism,
postmodern) [and hence methodology of research in planning] as well as new perspectives upon
planning such as feminism are derived from a post-positivist perspective. Post-positivism, as a
gross generalization, has a suspicion of closure or definition particularly through postmodern
social theory. But this does not or should not be used as a reason for rejecting classification as a
basis for understanding per se. (Allmendinger, 2002, p. 33)

This intrinsically affects the methodologies employed to accomplish planning research. But it also
is undeniable that the rational view of planning itself has challenged the traditionally modern
notion of determinism by employment of uncertainty. This action has indirectly confirmed the
existence of diversity, in its postmodern sense, which flows in the planning sphere. However, the
methodology used for tackling the problem, the pathway, and the solutions have outlined
dramatic differences from what is advocated by postmodernism.

3.3

Methodology of the Current Research

Regarding the main questions of this research and those about the logic of planning, including
which logic should be used for planning and what its implications would be for decision-making
theories in planning, the main task of the current research is to enquire into the different modes of
logic and their implications when taken into the realm of decision-making theories.
Although some like Bridge (2005) may assert that pursuing knowledge based upon logical
propositions should be abandoned in favor of pragmatism, the importance of dealing with the

37

meaning and justification of the decision-making act in this approach is undermined and even
denied unreservedly. He claims,
Despite differences there are a number of characteristics that broadly define pragmatism. One is
the judgment of knowledge by its practical consequences rather than theoretical coherence. This
is related to its idea of praxis: that knowledge is something that must be practically acted out. It
must be tested by its consequences, rather than its a priori logical propositions. Logic is more like
a process of inquiry, rather than a set of abstract propositions. Reality is seen as unpredictable
and emergent. Thus knowledge is fallible and always provisional (p. 3)

He also adds: Whereas positivism and mechanics were taking social science in the direction of
causality and linearity and the borrowing of models from the natural sciences, classical
pragmatists stressed the organic web of life as the basis of understanding social relations
(Bridge, 2005, p. 3).
In other words, inquiry about the logic of fact-gathering (including definitions, tasks, and
responsibilities), truth-finding (including truth or falsity of acclaimed propositions, sentences,
statements, and entities) or even value-establishing (including discussing the justification of
beliefs and common values) processes happens in the realm of meaning. The meanings need to
be investigated in an analytical way to be methodologically justified. In such cases, any pragmatic
account of knowledge is no more than knowledge about what is being used already. This means
that using pragmatic information to model the reality (or simulate it) does not guarantee that there
is in fact a meaningful connection between the models and reality. This means that examining
logical and epistemological accounts of planning (based on the analytic method) in harmony with
the type of the work is a priori to the justification of pragmatic acts, although they may have been
assumed to be real. Then, though the unwanted or unexpected results can help us (re)define the
problem, the study of this change should be carried out at the theoretical level with consideration
of not merely application but also practical complications.

3.3.1

General Vision of the Researchs Path: Setting the Scene, Development,

and Analysis

As discussed before, the research examines its questions and hypothesis via an analytical
approach: first, by studying the underlying principles of the current logic of decision-making
theories discussed in planning theory and, second, through what could or should be pursued as a
justified alternative logic (fuzzy logic in this research) to be used by such a multiobjective
profession in the delivery of the decision-making theory.
In a wider perspective, the research examines the definitions of planning (as a whole) and
decision-making theories in planning (as a part of a general picture) through its logic. In this part,
it investigates whether planning and decision making are multiobjective and multivalued activities.
Then, the infinite-value logic (fuzzy logic) as a relatively new logic is described. Based on
previous experiences, in different fields, decision making based on binary and multivalued logic is
presented. The concept of fuzziness and fuzzy notions of decision making will be studied next.
That the cases of decision-making in planning are intrinsically fuzzy will be discussed. For the
(rational) necessity of coherence between the character of decision making and its logic, the
binary logic will be investigated and the epistemological inappropriateness will be explained.
Fuzzy logic, which can be considered as a possible alternative logic to orchestrate a justified rulebased approach in decision-making theory, will then be examined. The analysis of decisionmaking theories demonstrates that no justified logic to tackle the decision-making theories has
been introduced. Finally, the benefits of using fuzzy logic in establishing an alternative logic for
decision-making theory will be pursued, and the implications of the application of such an
alternative logic will be explained (see Figure 2.1).
According to Allmendinger (2002), The critical realist perspective [of planning] also helps us
comprehend the relative autonomy of individual planners and the way they use, interpret and
develop theory for their jobs (p. 17).

38

DM Condition in
Planning Theory

Current Trends
and
Problems of DM
Feedback

Nature of DM in
Planning
and Its Aspects

Multivalued
Activity

Necessities
of
Proportionate

Feedback

Search for
Multivalued
Logic in
Existing DM
Theory

Multivalued DM
and Its Features
and Dimensions

Requirements

Fuzzy Logic As
Infinite-Value
Logic

Lack of
Proportionate
Logic and Tools

The Necessity
of Theorizing a
Multivalued
Logic/Tool for
Planning DM
Theory and
Establishment
of an Alternative
Way of Thinking

Figure 2.1.General methodological path of the current work.

3.3.2

Type of Framework: Theoretical and/or Practical

Moving exclusively towards the highest level of abstraction has the danger of producing what are
called useless and impractical theories empty of reality. Yet, amusingly, on the opposite side,
pursuing only practical notions with a strong commitment to empirical accounts (based on what
planning people need) leads planning and theories to the extreme at which there are no
considerable improvements or steps forward. This may result in engagement with the existing
facts and dealing with issues mainly on a day-by-day basis. Therefore, keeping both concerns
simultaneously in mind helps the profession to be creative, innovative, and practical.
Although the researcher supposes that there are no crisp fractions between substantive planning
theory (See Faludi, 1973a) and the theories that take into account the course of action, in its
reductionist sense, he has committed himself to the traditional way of research. The current
research has, therefore, been brought to the highest level of abstraction. In other words, the
research has been pursued in a theoretical framework. Thus, the theoretical discussions of the
research contain potential contributions to the implementation and practical part of work by
critiquing the existing theories and developing a new alternative theory of planning. In the light of
above comments, the current research and its results provide a platform. Although it can

39

simplistically be considered theoretical, it advances practical sequences to be used by planners

later on as an alternative way.

3.4

Possible Criticism

It is very hard, and controversial, and perhaps it might seem even paradoxical to some extent, to
carry out a study on the rejection of a specific notion by using the methodology proposed by it.
But what if this proved the fairest and most reasonable way to do it and the most robust method
of critique? The consequence would amplify the power of the notion to criticize even itself. It
would be harder where the opponent (or opposing) notion is present to replace it.
The very first step of this research may seem to represent precisely what is described above. It
may be presumed that the research, in choosing the methodology from classical logic to tackle a
problem occurring within the same logic, is to replace classical logic with an alternative logic.
Therefore, here, the relationship between classical logic and fuzzy logic should be clarified in
order to avoid any further doubt about the paradoxical choice of methodology for the current
research.
Classical predicative logic is a logic in which the value of truth is constrained to only two values:
true or false. Basically, this logic could be used to determine the trueness of the statements made
in different situations. In a binary situation, there is no doubt that a binary logic can be a proper
solution to decide between two options that are present. Yet a problem arises in two different
situations. The first is when there are more than two options. In such a situation, it is necessary to
weigh the options and then make the final decision. Second, and perhaps more importantly, is
the situation in which classical logic faces vague values, for instance, where the notion of justice
is discussed. Looking for definite values has long been attempted in order to determine the truth
between the two values of true and false. Although most thinkers throughout history have been
familiar with the idea that in some situations there is no final answer, they have tried to assign
this issue to vagueness. Then, as the long history of epistemology shows, philosophers have
challenged this notion and set out to clarify the notions of true and false by formulating new
methods to recognize them. This has been pursued to duplicate the binary decision making (for
inherently binary sets) for the concept of belief, which is a non-binary set with human
dimensions seriously involved.
Almost all human-based sets (if they are not restricted to two decisions by definition) are
intrinsically engaged with the vagueness that cannot be tackled using classical binary logic. In
recent years, with the development of many-value logics in different technical and linguistic
disciplines, the truth of the notion true or false (either or) has been seriously challenged from
many possible angles. With the application of infinite-value logic (known as fuzzy logic) in
decision making, traditional doubts about many-value logics have gradually come to an end. It is
now evident that classical logic is merely a specific condition of fuzzy logic. Therefore, whatever
is being pursued using classical logic sets can be expanded to be followed in the logic of fuzzy
sets.
The nature of the ordinary decision and what particularly was targeted by this study have proven
to bear a high degree of complexity and a great number of involving factors, with utterly different
natures and complicated interrelationships. To handle such a complicated situation, it was
decided to keep the situation as linear as possible, although this seems to be in contradiction with
the basic idea of the research.

3.4.1

Study of Logics

Metalogic is the study of the metatheory of logic. While logic is the study of the manner in which
logical systems can be used to decide the correctness of arguments, metalogic studies the
properties of the logical systems themselves (Gensler, 2002, p. 253). According to Hunter, while

40

logic concerns itself with the "truths of logic," metalogic concerns itself with the theory of
"sentences used to express truths of logic" (Hunter, 1971).
Perhaps, in this chapter that sets out to explain the methodology of the current research, some
would expect the study of metalogic to be necessary because of the nature of the topic of this
research and its possible interlinks with many-value logics, but it is rather based on what has
been already pursued in fuzzy logic and classical predicative logic.
The concentration of the current research is on, first, a non-classical logic (and sometimes
alternative logic) and, second, how to attribute this specific type of logic to an activity. In other
words, the inquiry is into what type of logic should be applied to what type of activity (and to a
specific activity) rather than what represents metalogic; formal language, formal grammar, formal
system, formal proof, formal semantics, to (re)organize the relationships between lingual
statements and trueness of statements.
Thus, the study of logical propositions and their relationships is the scope, where their traditional
form is examined (merely in the sense of classical predicative logic). Whether the statements are
true will be examined through the form of the binary study of classical logic. Therefore, how true
the statements are is the subject of inquiry of such studies.

3.5

The Necessity of the Research and Its Contribution to the

Knowledge Pool

The necessity of this research relates to two existing perspectives on planning; one is a
consequentialist view of planning that has a predicative view towards what can happen if a major
shift is aimed at in the planning discipline; the other is what talks about the justification of
process, namely, the procedural view. The former view and its related studies consider the
consequences of planning: the concerns about who benefits from planning and how much. The
latter, by contrast, asks the questions related to the process of decision making (for a detailed
discussion, see chapter 4). Cullingworth suggests that
it often seems that it is . . . interrelationship of problems which is the central problem of
government. The issue is neatly highlighted in Donna Shalalas lecture on urban policy: Every
time Treasury changes the Tax Code, every time Congress alters a welfare program, every time
the Defense Department awards a military contract, urban policy is being made.(Cullingworth,
1997, p. 1)

He also adds that

the limited amount of discretion which the constitutional framework allows to local governments.
Discretion implies differential treatment of similar cases, and therefore runs foul of the equal
protection clause of the constitution. The Bill of Rights guarantees that individuals are to be free
from arbitrary government decisions. This is a major constraint on planning in the US.
(Cullingworth, 1997, p. 17)

There is much evidence that, even in democratic systems with commitments to the free market,
governments are intervening in planning without peoples approval. In one such society alone,
the United States, the so-called war on poverty, the HOPE VI3 program , presidents Clintons and
Obamas health-care proposals, and financial bailout plans were among those plans that were
either unsuccessful at the decision or planning level or that passed this stage and were approved
but not successfully pursued and implemented. The plan for Californias high-speed train and the
partial financing of General Motors by the U.S. government are explicit examples of
3

The program began in 1992 with formal recognition in law in 1998. Its philosophy is largely affected by New Urbanism
and it is meant to revitalize the worst public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments
(BETTER CITIES AND TOWNS (2002) Hope VI funds new urban neighborhoods. News and Opinion.

41

governmental intervention in planning in such an acclaimed free-market atmosphere. There is

more or less discretion in a disjointed (as opposed to unified) decision-making system, even
though it is stated that one of the crucial features of the U.S. planning system is its commitment
to the free market and the decentralized decision process as the pillars of a democratic society.
All the above discussions are concentrated on the justification of the procedure of decision
making. However, it should be noted that any discretion as such cannot be scrutinized
independently of its context and regardless of the situation in which it has been shaped. With this
in mind yet keeping an eye on what was said in this section, the current research investigates the
theoretical accounts of planning decision making.
In fact, the research discusses right and wrong accounts of decision making that are embedded
in planning thoughts and presents an alternative way to deal with them. This contributes to push
the knowledge and epistemological notions of planning a step forward with emphasis on
decision-making theories.
At the same time, the study of different types of logics, beyond what classical logic introduces,
opens the vision towards what this research aims to achieve through the study of the possibly
proper logic for an activity like planning decision-making theory.

3.5.1

Current Contradictions and Needs

Planning and its decision-making theories have had more failure than success over the last
century. Banfield (1961) explains the problem of city planning in America as:
American cities seldom make and never carry out comprehensive plans. Plan making is with us
an idle exercise, for we neither agree upon the content of a public interest that ought to override
private ones nor permit the centralization of authority needed to carry a plan into effect if one
were made. (p. 263)

But this issue is not limited only to American cities. Decentralization of planning is a concept
pursued by many committed to democratic decision making. The controversy between intellectual
accounts and practical aspects of work lies in inherent contradictions and conflicts that they have
with each other. Therefore, to tackle the problems, some have proposed a stronger planning
agenda with a more fixed framework, and some, by contrast, would vote for a more restricted
planning in action, in other words, a more open-ended planning with higher public control. The
key members of the latter group also see actual planning and decision making as activities that
should be in the hands of people and interest groups. They strongly believe that, otherwise, we
should most likely expect some limits on freedom in a society within a democratic system.
According to Goldsmith (1980),
planning in its broadest sense often seems to promise solutions to modern urban problems, but
at the apparent expense of threatening the democratic nature of Western society. In essence,
this suggests that the problems of the city can be solved, but must the solution be at the expense
of the individual's basic freedoms and rights? (p. 15)

In such a system, the main issue then is not whether there should or should not be planning, but
how much of it there should be and how it should operate (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 8).
But no actual democratic exemplar has yet been formed in which planning processes could be
completely transferred to the people, in which the public could gain full control of decision making
and decision taking (we are not talking about the philosophical discussion of this issue here,
meaning that if we do not reject this idea at the moment, we cannot achieve it later). Therefore, at
the moment, there is a need to attempt the most convenient of compromising systems. This
means the governmental bodies and institutions, along with technical measurements to control
the managerial and rational side of the work, are still needed. However, some others may believe
that transferring the control from central to local governmental levels will result in smaller sized

42

communities and interest groups behind the gates of gated communities and that these
communities, after getting expanded to a certain degree, will themselves need to be regulated by
larger scale planning institutions.
Notwithstanding two decades of theorizing bottom-up approaches (versus top-down ones),
prioritizing the tasks and legal issues, and studying rational planning (versus post modern
accounts), there is still a need to get to the level of practicality of theories that is closer to
implementation and a course of action rather than standing alone in planning utopia, with
myriad theories in planning, far from reality or the need for day-to-day action and with nothing in
hand. The theory or a set of theories can be justified. But apparently, theorizing attempts
(committed to meaning) should not be seized in favor of those linear causal and single-headed
practical accounts that are generated by dual propositional predicative logic.

3.6

3.6.1

Premises

Geographical Premises and Politico-Economic Atmosphere

There is no geographical location in which the current research is carried out or to which it is
assigned. Based on the underlying philosophy of the research, many of the notions amalgamated
do coexist with other aspects in reality; however, these notions have not received any appropriate
weight within the decision-making equations through a structured method. Thus, any theorizing
for decision making cannot be limited to a specific geographical region.
Therefore, instead of, for example, supposing an atmosphere committed to a fully pluralist or to
an elitist political system and the planning necessities of either (what and where it should be), it
has been supposed that a combination of pluralism and elitism thoughts always exists. But what
changes from time to time, from person to person, and from case to case is the portion of each
characteristic of planning models to be used for making the decisions.
With regards to this diversity Cullingworth suggests: there has to be a sufficiently sound basis of
agreement for planning to be possible. In democratic societies, large numbers of diverse interests
not only have to be considered but also have to be involved in the planning process
(Cullingworth, 1997, p. 6).
This research has taken place in a planning atmosphere where the variety of voices can be heard
(or at least the voices are supposed to be valuable and effectively contributing, to some degree),
private sectors can protect and follow their own interests, and governmental organizations are
obligated to respond to people and to facilitate the peoples collaboration in planning processes.
He also claims
Previous generations have battled with questions of how to make planning effective in a
democratic society: their experience is of relevance to the contemporary scene. Issues
highlighted in this account include the pervasiveness of privatism, the reform movement, the City
Beautiful movement, and the growth of planning. (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 5)

3.6.2

Lacks and Faults (Data, Time, Corruption, Institutions Structure and

Relation)

With regards to the nature of planning explained by Almendinger as: Planners do not operate in
a vacuum devoid of structural influences. There are rules, existing processes and norms
(Allmendinger, 2002, p. 17), the framework of this research willing welcomes any types of defects
or indefiniteness, human faults and managerial problems, and contradictions in the planners role
(e.g., though planners still portray themselves as apolitical and technically expert, roughly 80
percent of them are employed in the public sector, through which they are charged with carrying

43

out the preferred policies of central and local governments[see, for example, (Reade, 1987;
Thornley, 1993; Blowers and Evans, 1997; Evans, 1995, 1993). Some research projects tend to
ignore actual planning contradictions (such as contradictions from, among other sources, these
three potential categories: the researchers personal and professional feelings, his or her
employers objectives, and the code and ethics of the researchers professional institute [see
Allmendinger, 2002, p. 23]). Because ignoring such contradictions can take research to the
highest level of unreal abstraction, the current research applied to the logic of planning examines
the actual atmosphere. In this research, these problems are seen as part of the reality flowing in
planning, in general, and in decision making, in particular. These types of problems have been
taken into account as either known or unknown uncertainties of the work. Therefore, introducing
a tool that is able to deal with these types of uncertainties is an implicit part of the research.
However, as is apparent, this is the theoretical basis of the method of tackling the problems laid
out before taking it into the course of action.

3.6.3

Philosophical Premises

3.6.3.1 Fallibility
From one sense, the issue of the fallibility of the theories in planning with the emergence of the
postmodern accounts seems to be a matter with no legitimacy or significance to be discussed.
This means that where an account (here postmodernist) talks about fallibility as an inseparable
notion of planning (and rational planning was not successful at tackling the related problems),
pointing out the fallibility of postmodernist accounts is not necessary. But on the contrary, the
issue comes up where these accounts attempt to theorize some concepts, principles, criteria, or
disciplines in which fallibility needs to be examined. In other words, up to the point that negation
is pursued by postmodernism, there is no need to reason about fallible cases. In other situations,
however, it needs to be proved in any assertion. Krueckeberg (1983) expresses fallibility in
planning as:
In an editorial in the journal of City Planning in 1926, a reply was given to claims by architects for
the sole responsibility for designing cities, towns and villages and other groups of buildings. The
answer was that city planning "is cooperation-cooperation of fallible humans each contributing
what he can." (Quoted after Krueckeberg, 1983`, p. 23 cited in ; Faludi, 1987, p. 17)

Therefore, after about three decades of theorizing the primary notions of postmodernism in
planning, many thinkers who had committed themselves to this school of thought tried to present
substitutions. These substituting theories need to be fallible (but not to have universal fallibility) in
what they assert in order to be justified in usage.
Therefore, the issue of fallibility in this research is the pivotal point used to criticize the logic of
planning thoughts and to examine and give the proof to the hypothesis.

3.6.3.2 Justification
It is evident that both the concepts of justification and falsification are relatively related to the
concept of truth. Moreover, the concepts of justification, truth, belief, fact, and so forth
epistemologically as well as the concept of knowledge itself are related to the relativity of truth.
Those all are the basis for the justification of action in planning and decision making. Moreover,
justification and falsification of knowledge and action are two interrelated courses that can also
be separate in another sense. This is because the knowledge through which the provision of a
plan takes place differs from the justification of the need for such a plan and also from the
justification of decision making about the plan.
In the current research, the matter of justification is pursued in two different senses: first, in the
sense that a statement literally needs to be (mostly, likely to be, unlikely to be, etc.) justified to

44

build up the knowledge bases and, second, in the sense that an action should be taken based on
justified reasons.

3.7

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter was to explain the methodologies in use in planning and, more
importantly, the methodology and premises of the current research. Being utterly different in what
it set outs to achieve, the current research employs a unique and extremely exclusive
methodology. Unlike typical research projects, whether they are qualitative, quantitative, or a
combination of both to a degree, this research uses a new type of methodology whose aims are
very much like those of a purely qualitative one. Nonetheless, the most important distinction is
that the current research builds upon what the informal logic of the everyday reasoning system
grasps, what human beings are using in their everyday lives in a great deal. The fact of the
matter is that the current research uses some established methodologies, but the main difference
remains how it fluctuates between and combines the inductive and deductive methods. As
explained above, there are two main reasons for this. First of all, it is because none of those
methodologies that claim to have used only one of these methods epistemologically have actually
been able to confine themselves to one and only one. The second reason is that, revealing this
failure according to the classical definitions of formal logic, the current research has tried to
devise a methodology that knowingly and subtly combines the two to best benefit from them and
achieve what it has resolved to achieve. The main point to bear in mind is that all the envisaged
goals have been aimed at through an analytical approach.
Therefore, it is more than obvious that the current chapter requires the least amount of literature
about the direct conclusion because it comprises a set of methods and premises that need to be
clarified in detail. But here a succinct description of the methods used and premises supposed,
which were explained before, is given:
There exist a number of taxonomies of the ways in which humans approach problem solving
tasks. One particularly useful taxonomy, according to Rasmussen (1983, 1986), conceptualizes
three distinct types of problem solving, or reasoning which we describe as:
Formal knowledge-based behavior
Rule-based behavior
Skill-based behavior
The choice of which type of reasoning to be employed is made by the problem solver on the
basis of experiential familiarity with the task at hand, and the environment in which this task is
imbedded.
Often, there is a mismatch between the problem solving behavior that a particular human will use
in a given situation, and the behavior that a machine might be programmed to emulate.(BouchonMeunier and Yager, 1987, p.11)

What has been used in this research is, in fact, a combination of the above three. However,
because of what Bouchon-Meunierand Yager point out, the potential inconsistency between
human and machine behavioral patterns in a given situation, the research has put its main
emphasis on and effort into rule-based human behavior in the process of decision making.

45

Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere

and Planning Theory

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning
Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology

Classical and Infinite-Value

Logic: Implications for
Decision Making

Analysis

Conclusion

4.1. Introduction
4.2. Decision and the Necessity of Decision Making
4.3. Decision Making and Urban Planning
4.4. Major Milestones for Decision-Making Theories
Based on Objectives
4.5. Decisions in Planning
4.6. Complexity
4.7. Uncertainty
4.8. Decision theory
4.9. Decision Making, Decision Makers , the City
and Urban Planning
4.10. Planning Decision Making and BusinessBased Decision Making: Multiobjective,
Multivalue, Multijudgment Nature of Planning
4.11. Decision Structures and Decision-Making
Bodies
4.12. Changing the Mode of Planning: Changing the
Mode of Decision Making
4.13. Slaving Principle and Normative Reductionism
of Decision Making
4.14. An Alternative Logic in Decision Making
4.15. Justification of Decisions and Decision-Making
Compartment (Justifications Required)
4.16. Conclusion

46

4 Analytical Study of Research Context: Decision-Making

Aspect in Urban Planning
4.1

Introduction

This chapter will aim to deal with the issue of decisionthe related theories, the risks, and the
uncertainty in the key process of decision making. In this chapter, the concept of decision making
and the methods employed by different technical and scientific fields, in single-goal and singleobjective activity, will be examined, and the similarities and differences with decision making in
planning will be studied. These questions will be pursued in the chapter:

Is there any unified definition of decision making?

Are decision making and decision taking central tasks to planning?

Is there is a common understanding among theories in planning on decision making?

Is the planner a decision maker and decision taker (and where and where not)?

This subject is very prominent to the research for two reasons: first, to avoid distancing from the
reality of decision making and, second, to keep the discussion at the theoretical level.
Traditionally, decision making under uncertainty (DMU) relies on a probabilistic framework
(Dubois and Fargier, 2003, p. 3). But recent needs have necessitated a call for alternative
planning decision theories. Admittedly, this is a rather conservative call for what has already been
pursed in other disciplines.
By using the qualitative approach, decision making, as Doyle and Thomason (1999) claims,
turned into a new paradigm: Artificial Intelligence has witnessed the emergence of a new
decision paradigm called qualitative decision theory, where rationale for choosing among
decisions no longer relies on probability theory nor numerical utility (p. 55).
This chapter will provide an overview of how the process of decision making has been
represented in planning, how it has evolved, and how it has witnessed major shifts. It will address
how major problems emerged, how attempts were made to respond to these problems by
alterations or conversions made knowingly or imposed unwillingly on the decision mechanisms in
planning, and where the process started to go wrong. It will then highlight, in parallel, how
alternatives arose mostly from outside the discipline and how they managed to target similar
problems in other disciplines. This will be done through an analytical and comparative study
rather than in a chronological order, as the current research aims to take an explanatory
approach to the subject matter rather than giving a narrative account. This will provide a firm
ground for proposing an alternative logic of decision making in urban planning and public policy
to be relied on and used down to the most practical levels to improve the existing situation of
planning by increasing the level of contribution of those parties for whom the decisions are
supposed to be made:
Besides promoting democratic decision making by increasing opportunities for participation by
citizens (Council of Europe, 1995), the creation of stronger local democratic institutions is
increasingly being seen as a supply-side policy in the form of national capacity-building and
institutional strengthening.(Bailey, 2001, p. 339)

Decision making is a complex process. In not only planning but also in other scientific and
technical fields it is subject to long and controversial debates. Basically, one of the most
outstanding features of humans (compared to machines) is the ability to process data to achieve

47

the proper answers to make decisions benefiting from multivalued logic. This success causes the
pursuit of studies in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), a field inspired by the human
brains abilities and the minds logic. The application of this logic, so-called fuzzy logic, has been
expanded during the last 50 years. This is the logic for facing complexity and uncertainty (see the
next chapter for details). These are two pivotal questions to be answered in this part:

What are the similarities between the (nature of) planning decision-making logic and this
logic?

Has this logic been used by theories in planning yet?

4.2
4.2.1

Decision and the Necessity of Decision Making

Etymology

Decision, a noun, literally means

1. a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.
2. the action or process of deciding.
3. the quality of being decisive. ((Soanes and Stevenson, 2005)

It can also mean

1. a choice or judgment that you make after a period of discussion or thought.
2. the quality someone has that makes them able to make choices or judgments quickly and
confidently.
3. the act of deciding something.(Summers, 2003, decision entry)

The latter set of definition sheds more light on decision making: the process of making important
decisions.
In the first definition given above, a decision is equated to a conclusion or resolution but needs
to be carried out after consideration. This consideration implies that a decision cannot be made
without a process, which is mentioned in the second definition. And also the general word
consideration exhibits that there is no limited or methodic approach supposed to be applied to
this process. This means it can come out of every type of process, but need to be logically
proportionate to the decision. In the third definition of the first series, decision is described as a
quality that can show the subjects decisiveness in the act. This means that the whole process
needs to be narrowed down to a decisive condition in which something determinedly is
suggested. The same reference suggests resolve and determine, as synonyms to decide.
The latter reference adds another keyword to the definition: judgment. This action that can be
described as judging between some competing conditions to choose one or some against the
other(s) points out the final part of consideration.
Hopkins (2001) suggests A decision is a commitment to action (or inaction) and is made by
some individual or entity with the capability to act (p. 26). But it is important that judgment, a
word relating to ethical accounts, needs to meet some points to be justified. In the second
definition in the same reference, confidently also emphasizes the need for justification in the
judgment, or decision, of whether a plan needs to be carried out or not. That is why the whole
process of this important consideration can be seen as decision making.

4.2.2

Decision-Making Situations

48

Decisions are an unavoidable part of everyday life. A decision comes into play either when there
is more than one option from which to choose or when there is a single choice and a decision
must be made to do or not do a certain thing. This will be discussed later in chapter 6, where the
issue of decision is addressed with regard to defuzzification in fuzzy logic along with
reductionism, which assists in regulating or restricting the choice, in bivalue classical logic.
Decision making happens literally every day, from early in the morning, while, for example, one is
choosing a suit to wear, to the end of the day, when a decision is to be made about the table
menu at a restaurant. One is also familiar with tougher decisions, such as selecting from jobs
offered or, when there are problems at work, deciding whether there is a need to talk about them
with the manager.
Obviously, decisions have all different levels of significance. The importance of a decision is
determined by how and to what extent it will affect its context. Quite evidently, the bigger the
number of factors or stakeholders it involves, the more complex and more important it will
become. Its importance also varies well with the areas it targets, tends to change, or affects.
Choosing the color of a suit for a company meeting is definitely not as important as, for instance,
an ambulance drivers decision to run a red light while transporting a critically injured person. The
ways in which decisions are practiced also varies widely. The more important the decision, the
more it will be subject to scrutiny; hence, an important decision needs to be based on more
rigorous principles. This will also give the decision a good ground for justification later on when it
already decided, taken, or left aside.

4.3

Decision Making and Urban Planning

Urban planning and planning as a whole are no exception. There are many situations in which
decisions come up, and the decision makers, who both have granted authority to decide and
must decide (as a part of their jobs), have to make decisions. As Hopkins asserts: Decision
situations are choices about actions we have the capacity, authority, and opportunity to take
(Hopkins, 2001, p.30). But obviously, the situations are identified by the issues [that] are things
we care about (Hopkins, 2001, p.30).
Other than that part of planning that is involved with the physical data gathering and quantitative
or statistical analysis of data, planning is rigorously engaged with decisions; thus, the activities or
actions such as concluding, judging, resolving, and qualitative analyzing are carried out
eventually to meet the decision-making stages as well as post-action evaluating.

4.3.1

Decisions

There are two different types of decisions in planning: first, decisions about things that need to be
done and, second, decisions about things that should not be done (See Taylor, 1998). The latter
are decisions that typically are omitted from the list of decisions, expect in some crucial cases.
Therefore, they are rarely taken into account as decisions but are added to the list of prohibitions.
These are those types of decisions that are mostly taken by government or the public sector in
the absence of users and actors. These decisions can be attributed to the preventive decisions
category, and the regulations related to them are known as preventive regulations. The former
type of decisions can be seen as decisions about control, initiation, or cure. However, logically,
the preventive regulations also have influential roles in control and, hence, on initiation or cure
but in indirect and reverse ways.

4.3.2

The Relation

Dahl (1963) cites that

49

I understand planning to be a method for reaching decisions, not a body of specific substantive
goals . . . planning is a rather special way of deciding which specific goals are to be pursued and
which specific actions are to be taken . . . the method is largely independent of the phenomena to
be planned.(Webber, 1963; cited in Duhl, 1963, p. 320)

This depicts a dominant image of decision making in its highest level of abstraction given in the
1960s (and 1970s). On the contrary, some have advocated as Taylor (1998) does here:
The process of planning does not end when a decision has been made, for the chosen policy or
plan then needs to be implemented. It is thus more accurate to describe the rational process of
planning as a theory or model of rational action, rather than decision-making(Taylor, 1998, p.
68).

The relation(s) between decision making and planning, as was mentioned, has been the subject
of many discussions and papers. Up until the 1980s, and still in some contemporary works, the
dominant typology of planning theory, which was provided by rationalists such as Faludi(1973a),
who based his approach on the distinction between substantive and procedural theory
(Allmendinger, 2002, p. 30), had deep influences on the issue of decision making. Yiftackel(1989)
suggests, Procedural theories define and justify methods of decision making whereas
substantive theories pertain to interdisciplinary knowledge relevant to the content of planning:
that is urban land use(Yiftachel, 1989, p. 24).
This substantive-procedural (dual) distinction, without considering its systemic base and apolitical
accounts, highlighted the epistemological differentiations of theoretical planning and practical
courses and underpinned the idea that decision making was a merely theoretical concept.
The above crucial discussion, along with the large amount of literature on decision making, which
is central to planning theory, demonstrates the importance of the issues of decision making itself
and of decision-making methods and processes. For a long time (See Faludi, 1987), this also
caused decision making to be looked at as and equated to planning (at least from a theoretical
point of view). This idea resulted in distancing the decision-making methods from reality and the
processes from an acceptable method and even from what had been traditionally pursued.
The categorization of decision making in planning and its related discussions support the idea
that there was an unintentional thickening of the theoretical aspects of planning in the literature, a
change that deepened the gap between theoretical planning and practical courses. As will be
discussed, this modernist bivalent logic (rooted in the Western philosophy of reductionism and
dualism) has been pursued in different forms and ways, even in postmodern accounts that still
benefit from this type of reductionism.
A number of practitioners, theorists, or planners, like Campbell and Fainstein (2003), still
emphasize the bivalued axes, such as physical versus intellectual, differentiations in which
decision making carries the intellectual extreme of planning: the field of planning is divided
among those who define it according to its object (land use patterns of the built and natural
environments) and those who do so by its method (the process of decision making) (Campbell
and Fainstein, 2003, p. 2).
Therefore, the definitions that either identify planning as equivalent to decision making or divide
planning into practical and theoretical accounts then equate decision making to one of the
notions and attempt to downgrade the homogenous sphere of planning into successive islands of
tasks by using reductionism. The activity contains many other crucial processes like policy
making, plan making, implementation, action, evaluation, and so on. These, if reduced to
decision making, will prevent the other vital processes from being vanished, but traditionally
there has been an effort to magnify the importance of decision making in an unreasonable and
artificial way.

50

Thus, the most logically accepted definition of this relation is the one that describes decision
making as a part of the planning sphere and a process among many others. Those can envelop
each other in some ways and have conflict in some other ways.

4.3.3

The Root of Importance

Since there are diverse groups involved in planning cases, some, like Allmenginger, identify a
competition between the groups to make the final decisions: Very large numbers of decisions
are being made by multitudes of individuals and groups sometimes in response to the
consequences of decisions made by others (Allmendinger, 2002, p. 44).
Considering even the traditional role of planners, the decision-making process as a part of the
profession has been important to them. The task of decision making has been expanded and
modified from the decisions on architectural applications with requests to build, to introducing the
regulations for construction, and most recently, to everything in the built environment. However,
private citizens (in the systems committed to individual freedom and democracy) have been
encouraged by thinkers, sociologists, philosophers, pluralist politicians, and others to make and
take the decisions on their own. To return the basic rights the citizens in decision making Davidoff
(1965) asserts
The planning process . . . must operate so as to include rather than exclude citizens from
participating in the process. "Inclusion" means not only permitting the citizen to be heard. It also
means that he be able to become well informed about the underlying reasons for planning
proposals, and be able to respond to them in the technical language of professional planners. (p.
332)

This is because it has been supposed that the value of freedom (the right of selecting and
deciding) is a universal value and should be achieved through the decentralization of decision
making (in the sense of planning).
Although this idea has been mostly translated into the political accounts of planning directly, it
seems not to be completely correct. The main value behind this idea is an ethical (moral or
intellectual) value that needs to be engaged with political accounts to be achieved.
Notwithstanding what was said, this attribution of the idea to certain values cannot decrease the
importance of the issue. This has not only been a challenge for the professional planners, but it
also has raised serious disputes in the entire profession with respect to discretion and control
on the one hand and freewill on the other (See Cullingworth, 1997, pp 3-11). This challenge is
the central point to the decision-making discussion.
It can be seen from rational accounts that describe decision making with only word, best, that
the idea of decision making has been modified to mean the right and best decisions and
decision making. Since this subject (in both subjective or objective notions) has changed from a
merely technical issue to a value-laden one, the irreversible expansion and unavoidable
contradictions of different involved fields come about and need to be scrutinized.
Also for the importance of the discussion, it is notable that the related terms and notions including
decision taker, decision taking, policy making, and plan making need to be discussed, and their
dimensions to be examined as well.

4.3.4

Where Do the Planning Decisions Happen?

Like any other categorization, this can be organized in different ways and from various points of
view. But what will suit the purpose of the current research is a categorization that demonstrates
where the decision-making processes are taking place. However, within this classification, we
encounter different types of fuzziness, which will be discursively discussed in the next chapter.
The most important types of decision(-making) can be categorized as follows:

51

Decision making about plans (including blueprints, for example) provided by

professionals from various sectors.
1. Which one is better? Which has lower costs and more benefits and is
procedurally justified?
2. Which one should be taken into action? What is the feasibility of implementation?

Decision making about the meaning of policy making and public policy; setting the
general goals, objectives, and targets (See Hall, 2002a, p. 214).

Decision making in the sense of plan making, as a pervasive action of various groups,
including political bodies, planners and technicians, and citizens to make the decisions
about the built environment.

A pivotal point to this discussion is that the decisions from any types ought to be methodologically
justified. Evidentially, the justification for every plan from each type can be different both
methodologically and epistemologically. However, notions coming from common points can be
classified into the sets with common factors that need to be justified; hence, a common
justification is required.

4.4

Major Milestones for Decision-Making Theories Based on Objectives

After planning switched mode to planning for place and shortly afterwards to planning for
people (Campbell and Fainstein, 2003, p.12), it was predictable that the decision-making
theories in planning would need to deal with the concern that was about to take shape and
choose a new and slightly different route: planning with people, the idea of public-centered
planning, which ultimately caused the person-centered view of decision making to be seen as the
prevailing mode of planning. The idea, in which the concept of democratic control and decision
making is to be pursued, and the power will be transferred to people and local communities. This
pushes a step forward the definition of the peoples role in electing their representatives to control
and improve the political-economic activities. Thus, it will shape and bring to attention the matter
of the legitimacy of private citizens participation in the decision-making process. This notion will
attempt to distribute the power among people and give them the ability of decision making as
much as possible. This, apparently, will deal with how to distribute the power, with what kind of
power structure can be imagined to distribute the ability, and also with the proportion of each
participant in this process. There still are some questions concerned with this notion, such as
how this is applicable (this is the matter of applicability), who has legitimacy or rights in this
process and how much, and even why this should be done (the matter of how to handle the
procedure by weighing different perspectives). However, this idea can be misplaced by the ideas
like decision taking by people or even by learning from people. Although there is a vast literature
on transactive planning, what is described by Faludi as the style of planning is the one which is
conductive to this mutual learning, based on the strength of the argument (Faludi, 1987, pp. 102114) or what is advocated as planning-as-learning model, it is not yet elucidated or clearly
defined. Although the decision-making theories have recently focused on the aforementioned
concerns, the newer wave of theories should be seen as the approach promising to bring various
aspects of planning into coalition with spatial users values.

4.4.1

Transferring the Decision Making to Citizens; Arnsteins Citizens Control

There are two major issues in achieving different groups interests through peoples decision
making. First of all, it is evident that individuals are not able to analyze the planning phenomena
as much as the professional organizations arewhich does not negate assertions that planners
too, for many reasons, cannot analyze effectively enough and cannot propose solutions whose
success is fully guaranteed. Second, different groups interests are involved with those of the

52

others. For instance, local people may have particular interests regarding a site that may and
usually will differ from those of the developers of the same site (or they may have some common
interests with other developers). But some of these interests are in full contradiction. Then
achieving one groups interests will cause the others to lose. In addition, dealing with some
interests according to the peoples vote can have unpleasant effects on their lives and the other
groups interests at the same time. This could result in worse effects on further opportunities for
both groups (decision makers and decision acceptors). In this circumstance, the planners role, in
between, can be changed to that of a moderator of the panel of stakeholders who have a conflict
of interest. However, in the end, some analyses from existing contradictions and a final judgment
need to be taken.
But the question is who the judge would be. If the judge is the planner, then he or she is engaged
with legal issues that may change his or her position to that of a lawyer. On one hand, only a
deterministic yet very optimistic belief can envisage the simultaneous benefit of all groups related
to a certain problem through a single solution. And only an ill-defined decision-making process
can give the full authority to either prohumanistic or proscientific participants of this complex
process to take over. On the other hand, because of the uncertainty of the data gathering, the
problems definition, and the knowledge of the environment in which planners work,
understanding the management issues in implementation and also reading and rereading the
former plans implemented are crucial.
It is evident that planners need the peoples contribution at least on the local scale; these
contributions are not necessary in the framework of traditional surveys, but the peoples input
oneveryday job descriptions is constantly needed, and private citizens can participate through
cyber space(Campbell and Fainstein, 2003, p.11). In addition, planners should trust that people
know more than themselves in some matters. However, there is still a need to clarify whether the
publics knowledge of their local problems, which relates to their values, tastes, and benefits, can
be extended in a sense that can become a kind of overall knowledge. This problem of a public
decision-centered view of planning may lead planners and theoreticians in this field to the
deadend of planning tasks. This means that from one side, we know at a global level that, if it is
supposed that everyone has free access to data (although it is not possible for many reasons,
like the price of some data provided by different institutions), the question is whether the
knowledge possessed by the people, who are engaged with their own everyday lives problems,
can increase as much as the knowledge of a full-time professional working in planning. If the
answer is no, going to the extremes of the peoples and groups contributions as the only
participating factors in decision making in the built environmentrelying solely on democratic
concepts, on democratic planningwould not be legitimized.
And the second issue would be that the level of comfort people are seeking for their everyday
lives (the comfort shaping peoples everyday activities, requirements, and wants) can cause
waste and harm the built and natural environments if there is no reasonable control on it and if
the waste progresses. This means that, with the peoples general knowledge of environmental
concerns, it is not possible to hand over these kinds of responsibilities to people and rely on their
pure common sense and consensus fully and completely.
Even if the technical issues of handing over the power to people get resolved or disregarded,
there still remain some other, nontechnical issues that are hardly likely to be solvable. In
addressing these issues, then, the control by planning can be legitimized. There are at least
three reasons for this. First, practically, free information flow is partially restricted for financial
reasons, causing ordinary citizens to have problems reaching the information. Second, planning
is to be pursued as a job in normal weekly work hours, rather than as a part-time activity. It
should be a full-time activity that cannot be handled by merely nonprofessionals. It should be
pursued to serve the built environment and at least be used to gather and analyze the information
(or handle the discussions in its postmodern sense). Finally, peoples benefits, tastes, and
interests can be opposed to a stable future for the city (built environment) as phenomena
inherited from past generations that will be passed to the next.

53

Citizen Control
8
Delegated Power
7

Degrees of
Citizen Power

Partnership
6
Placation
5
Consultation
4

Degrees of
Tokenism

Informing
3
Therapy
2
Manipulation

Nonparticipation

Figure 4.1.Sherry Arnsteins ladder of citizen participation. (Arnstein, 1969)

Still, planning with people is still under serious and considerable critique because the average
citizen is ignorant of technical aspects of planning. In addition, at the national scale, being
selected as the politico-economic representatives and holding some specific values may cause
some controversial situations at the local level, where people may have values different from
those of their representatives. The controversy produces a paradoxical situation. Therefore, in
the next chapter, what can encompass the solutions to tackle the above problems shall be
considered as an alternative way of decision making in planning.

4.5

Decisions in Planning

Many times the issue of making decision in planning was supposed to be solved. Klosterman
(2003) claims
By the 1950s the debate had apparently been resolved: the grand issues of the desirability and
feasibility of planning had been replaced by more concrete questions concerning particular
planning techniques and alternative institutional structures for achieving society's objectives.
Planning's status in modern society seemed secure: the only remaining questions appeared to
be, Who shall plan, for what purposes, in what conditions, and by what devices.(Klosterman,
2003, p. 86)

But, later and with new challenges of the postmodern era, the questions seemed to turn to the
process of decision making. Questions arose about justification and legitimization, for example,
about who shall decide, for what groups and purposes, in what condition, by what devices, and
how.
Typically, the tasks and responsibilities of planners and planning authorities (as traditional
executive bodies in the process) in decision making and in planning as a whole are not as simple
as, for instance, what Allmendinger tends to illustrate: Planners and others must find ways in

54

which they can classify and predict . . . decisions in order to be able to manage . . . [the] change.
This is not as difficult as it might sound. Decisions and actions are not made anew each
time(Allmendinger, 2002, p. 44).
The difficulties are of different types: both those that involve planners from legal, ethical points of
view and those that arise from the lack of effective tools to judge or make the decisions (see the
discussions of the limitations of decision making due to our knowledge deficiencies under
Complexity, 4.6, and Uncertainty, 4.7).
Faludi (1973a, p. 50) argues that there is no better way for any decision taker to satisfy himself
that he will attain his ends then to present his choices as if he had arrived at them by a rational
planning process. Along with the Faludis aforementioned suggestion, quite unexpectedly and out
of the norm there exists a relationship between value-laden planning and intuition. On the
contrary, for example, Davidoff and Reiner (1963) believe that "intuition or experiences
unsupported by reason are weak reeds on which to rest".
As was discussed, as opposed to with a decision, there is a nondecision where there is no clear
opportunity to choose freely from a range of available choices. Bachrach and Baratz(1970)
declare a decision to be a choice among alternative courses of action, whereas they define a
nondecision as a decision that results in suppression or thwarting of a . . . challenge to the
values or interests of the decision-maker (Bachrach and Baratz, 1970).
When it comes particularly to planning, it is crucially important to notice how the two are
amalgamated with each other. Faludi (1973a) explains that
it is not uncommon to talk about planning as the deduction of programs. For instance,
Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963) identify the rational-deductive method as one of the concepts
and ideals of evaluative method in decision-making. Likewise, Dimitriou (1972) describes the
logic of planning as deductive.(Faludi, 1973a, p. 89).

The decision and its existence require some context in which to be validated. Respecting this
White (2006) suggests An essential pre-requisite of an occurrence of decision is the existence of
a motivating state of ambiguity (p. 1).
Although it might be considered an easy task and a straightforward concept, some confusions or
mix-ups may always happen when the term decision is used when what is actually meant is
choice. Needless to mention that there can be choice without decision; but there cannot be
decision without choice.
(Friedmann, 1966c) addresses an issue he calls environment for decision, which
refers to characteristic conditions of choice behavior such as the relative ignorance of the
deciders, the extent of their uncertainty about the future, the number of relevant interests and the
need for recognizing them, and the ability of the deciders to influence the decisions (and actions)
of others. At an appropriate level of generality, these conditions describe the social context of
decisions. (p. 13)

As the work of McDowell, the National Youth Agency, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
(2001) indicates, the issue of decision seems to have opened very specific detailed disputes
even on gender:
This recognition of the fragmentation or diversity of interests among women and the acceptance
that decisions and even knowledge often is context-dependent or 'situated' has, however, been
the main change of emphasis in theoretical work on gender issues undertaken over the past two
decades (McDowell et al., 2001, p. 209).

55

Wherever decisions are made, they find different and, to some degree, multilevel dimensions. For
instance, in visual arts and, to some degree, in architecture (and urban planning), typological
studies perform as the firmest possible ground for decision making. Similarly, morphological
analysis, as a method of generating all alternative strategies, has been developed in engineering
design. Its best publicized application is the generating of all conceivable forms of jet engines
(Bayliss, 1968). It is also widely referred to in the literature on planning and design (For instance
Chadwick, 1971). Faludi (1973a, p. 268) believes that morphological analysis, in its logic, is
similar to another method advocated by the Institute for Operational Research, the analysis of
interconnected decision areas, or AIDA (Luckman, 1967; Friend and Jessop, 1969; Center for
Environmental Studies, 1970; Carter and Hickling, 1971). Both methods break a problem down
into parameters (or decision areas), investigate alternative states that these parameters can take
(or alternative decisions made in specific decision areas), and arrive at all conceivable
alternatives through permutation.
However, the issue of the effectiveness of decision strategies very much rests on how the
objectives are aimed at, where those objectives themselves remain subject to careful inspection
to find out whether they are achievable through the suggested course of action. Ackoff (1962)
explains,
One effective technique for uncovering these objectives consists of confronting the decisionmaker with each of the possible solutions to a problem and asking him whether he would follow
that course of action . . . .Where he says, No, further probing will usually reveal objectives which
are not served by the course of action.(Ackoff, 1962)

By definition, decisions can be classified into different categories and from various vantage
points, depending on the aspect of study. For instance, in management, one of the possible
classifications can be perceived as follows:
There are parallels in many fields where hierarchical structures occur. Thus, management
science classifies decisions into three groups: policy decisions, administrative decisions and
executive decisions:
Policy decisions start with the formation of business. To begin with, there must be an idea or set
of ideas . . . and someone or some group must decide that the business based on it has a good
chance of success. Then decisions must be made on bye-laws and membership, on the board of
directors, on key executives . . .
Below this level is another series of decisions, less important but still very far-reaching in effect:
the administrative decisions. If policy states for example that the company will produce a product
of a given quality, administrative decisions must then be made on the ways in which this will be
achieved.
Finally, there are executive decisions made at the point where work is carried out. . . (Dale, 1965)

However, once it was supposed that the best decision is always a feasible decision(Simon,
1956).
Apart from the necessity of the decision-making process, how decisions will happen to impact
their immediate or remote context is very important but definitely easy to work out. Docent (2002)
asserts Decisions or actions taken in one area may have a significant impact on spatial
development in other, sometimes distant, areas (Doucet, 2002, p. 59). It remains subject to mere
prediction.
At the same time, and in the real world, every decision from conception to completion entails
some costs and is very bound to cost. It must be cost-effective and financially viable, for, as Benz
(2002) asserts, If the costs of decision making get too high, the whole adjustment process may
be deadlocked (Benz, 2002, p. 147).
The selectiveness embedded in decision making is widely acknowledged, rather openly by those
who are actively involved in planning. Faludi (1973a) claims

56

In considering any given course of action, the decision-maker usually eliminates those
consequences which are uninteresting to him. He furthermore omits the remote, the
imponderable, the intangible and the poorly understood consequences, no matter how
important they are. The strategy is then to perform evaluation in the light of only a few
well-understood ends. (p. 153)
In light of the above comments and other than the key role of the planner or the decision taker as
a general notion, two common points are derivable in regard to issues related to decisions to be
made. First, and quite evidently, decision making (in planning) is engaged with complexity,
regardless of the approach that is applied by different theories or methods. Second, because of
this complexity and the direct relation of decision making and the future, uncertainty is an
inevitable trait of any decision, including a planning decision. Therefore, these two traits (or
issues) of decision making need to be studied in more detail to realize the nature of decisions
and the decision-making process. What seem to be negligently forgotten in quotations such as
the one above are the issue of uncertainty and, subsequently, the issue of complexity and how
they may constructively inform the decision process. The term constructively has been used
purposefully. It may look a bit too pretentiously overstated, but it is used to magnify the fact that
reductionisms common practice of reducing (or neglecting) uncertainty in order to keep
complexity at a manageable level and to handle it accordingly, based on the classical method, is
not always a constructive way to deal with it.
These two metatheories can demonstrate the nature and related traits of the atmosphere in
which we are working. Although these two are attributed to different fields and specialtiesin
planning, both methodologically and phenomenologically, the roles of the theories are diverse.
The divergence will be revealed where the number and type of actors and objectives are
increased. This means that the levels of uncertainty and complexity themselves can be increased
or their type can be changed from technical to human-based approaches. Then, the quality of the
atmosphere along with its variables and relations affects the entire process.

4.6

Complexity

In this section, it is not intended to give an integrated overview of complexity, its underlying
causes, or its resultants. Quite to the contrary, it is only of interest to this project to pinpoint one
of the most crucial factors that contribute to (if not causes) the inefficiency of the current methods
of decision making.
Complexity is one of the inherent characteristics of the 20th century that has proceeded into the
21st. Complexity may occur as a result of a wide range of causes. Normally, it happens as a
result of facing unknown situations. When the input variables in a system outnumber the
equations or rules, they will not be governable using the ordinary methods; thus, some secondary
submethods should be employed to help solve the problem.
In 2000 Stacey et al. suggest There is now a growing literature by management thinkers who
appeal for insight to developments in the natural sciences of complexity, felt by many to be
relevant because they model complex, turbulent systems(Stacey et al., 2000, p. 1).
This has become so apparent that even some thinkers in different disciplines have started to talk
about new sciences addressing the issue of complexity more independently. Stacey, Griffin,
and Shaw (2000), for example, state that
there are differences within the natural sciences on what these new sciences of complexity
mean. Some talk of a new dialogue with nature and the end of certainty, or they call for a science
of qualities and point to the importance of a participative approach to understanding
nature.(Stacey et al., 2000, p. 1)

57

What is definite is that the notion of complexity, despite being argued and worked around in
different disciplines for quite a while, is still very open to debate and further research. Complexity
is a matter of outline (or framing), the level of details investigated, and the result of perception
through observation. A tree leaf, for instance, when observed in terms of its physicochemical
photosynthetic role, is a very complex system, whereas the same tree leaf, when studied within a
picture of the whole tree to which it belongs, which casts a shadow on the path beside which it
stands, might contain a very small degree of complexity, if any at all.
The formal definitions of complexity, as Stewart (2005) suggests, fit into two main groups:
algorithmic and organizational: definitions of algorithmic complexity, deriving largely from
computer mathematics; and organizational complexity, deriving from the new biology and a
revivified systems theory (Stewart, 2005).
To define the roots of complexity, some tend to take a teleological approach to the causality and
go on to how different major philosophies on the nature of causality (i.e., those of Kant, Hegel,
and Darwin) contrast with each other and how the nature of complexity is definable from each
major point of view (for further reading, please refer to (Stacey et al., 2000).
Some others such as Casti suggest that a systematic theory of complexity would have to proceed
through a theory of models, relating the observer to the observed (for further reading see, Casti,
1994). They take a more detailed approach to pragmatic problem solving, focusing entirely on
how the remedies were prescribed to tackle the problem regardless of how it was created.
Some other definitions within apparently irrelevant disciplines can be significantly helpful in
casting light onto the notion of complexity for specific purposes of the current research. An
example is this definition by (La Porte, 1975): the degree of complexity in organized social
systems . . . is a function of the number of system components, the relative differentiation or
variety of these components, and the degree of interdependence among these
components(La Porte, 1975).
Back to the subject of the current research, complexity has posed serious challenges to planning,
in general, and to decision making, in particular:
The changes in the city (including the changes in the functions, types and boundaries of local
government, as well as changes at the center itself and also changes in the numbers and kinds
of decision-makers, both public and private) have contributed to the complexity of the problems
with which city governments must deal, and as a consequence the process of decision-making in
the city itself has become more complex.(Goldsmith, 1980, pp. 83-84)

How the decisions get more and more complex due to the growing degree in complexity of the
context is also a matter of importance, as it signifies the proportionality of the solution to the
problem. Indeed, Faludi (1973a)states, as society becomes more and more complex, the
decisions fundamentally affecting our lives become more and more inscrutable(Faludi, 1973a, p.
173).
Or as Catherine Bull (p. 228) asserts, The context of contemporary urban design practice is
characterized by increasingly complex relationships between global phenomena . . . local
conditions . . . and increasingly complex and rapid decision making, delivery and urban
management processes (p. 228).
It is quite evident that the ever-growing complexity should be dealt with in an active manner, but
whether such assertive and authoritative approaches as Bulls shall work is either a matter of
careful contemplation or subject to a pricy and lengthy trial and error process. Bull (2007) insists
that this complex reality must be confronted and worked with. The focus must be on involving
and guiding stakeholders and project champions and on harnessing their power and influence via
robust decision-making systems (p. 222).

58

Before concluding on what Bull asserts, it is important to notice that not all the planners work with
the same ethos. Their priorities, subjugated methods, justified values, and work ethics very much
depend on where they are working. In one straightforward account, those planners who work for
the private sector normally advocate for their employers good, as opposed to those who work for
public (governmental) bodies, who tend to campaign for the public right or better consequences.
Bearing in mind the fact that planners can be utterly different, depending upon their affiliations,
criticizing Bulls approach does not necessarily mean that planners should succumb to an
anarchic disorder where their roles as decision makers (or even as the facilitator agents for
decision takers) comes under a serious question due to the high degree of complexity. As
Margueritte (2007) states, The complexity of the contemporary planning, design and delivery
process can be even more destabilizing for decision makers, suggesting why urban professionals
are increasingly needed and why their roles are expanding (p. 118).

4.7

Uncertainty

Theories provide explanations. Explanations are responses to states of tension resulting from
observing unexpected events (Toulmin, 1960; cited in Faludi, 1973a; Harvey, 1969). Theories
pursuing this notion can be considered as deterministic theories or theories working in a
deterministic atmosphere or to develop the deterministic model of events. Such theory and its
supporters, supposing that everything (or at least the majority of things) is controllable through
the predictable future, have tried to be prescriptive about all the possibilities of the future. Then
the control of the variables and their relationships will be supposed to be achievable in an
integrated way (refer to Laplaces demon, causal determinism). Respecting this Laplace, in his
famous work, asserts
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its
future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and
all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to
submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the
greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would
be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes (Laplace et al.,
1951, p. 4).

However, in the early 20th-century, with the introduction of the uncertainty principle (see also the
terms
inaccuracy
relations
[Ungenauigkeitsrelationen]
or
indeterminacy
relations
[Unbestimmtheitsrelationen] in Heisenbergs notions), formulated because there are some
uncertain factors that cannot be determined, the theory, in general, arrived at this conclusion that
phenomena and their relations are not as deterministic as had been imagined. The future, it was
recognized, is not predictable. Here there is a controversy between the definition of theory (as a
fully defined statement) and the uncertainty principle as a theory. In another sense, these sorts of
theories are theories that talk about the determinism of the principle of indeterminacy (see Gifford
Lecture at the University of Glasgow for 1928 in Haldane, 1929). These two senses from theory
have direct effects on understanding the nature of the decision-making process in operation and
the type of justification for the process of decision making. They deeply influence, or should
influence, the entire planning.

4.7.1

Types of Uncertainty

One of the most commonly agreed-upon accounts of uncertainty, associating it with randomness,
may be given: There are two kinds of uncertainty. One is due to randomness (when the laws of
randomness are well known) . . . the other type of uncertainty arises when it is not known which
laws of randomness apply (Chernoff and Moses, 1986, p. 1).
This is a valid statement and can be considered as an all-inclusive one so long as it is presumed
that all the laws of randomness are already known. Yet this does not fully cover the uncertainty

59

principle as it was meant by Heisenberg, and it is also a bit disputable on its own, as the
randomness would have been no longer the case by nature had its constituents (e.g., laws of
randomness) been all totally known and fully understood, strictly speaking about
nonmathematical randomness. To alleviate this problem, however, Chernoff and Mosses (1986)
go on to add another dimension to their discussion when they assert that in statistical
terminology we shall equate the laws of randomness which apply with the state of nature (p. 1).
Being trapped in the next pitfall, which is the state of nature and its uncertainty (unknown-ness),
they try to make the problem succumb to the complexity of the knowledge involved, which is not
in line with or at the level of the uncertainty embedded in the context, being the nature: The
statistician can perform relevant experiments and take observations (Chernoff and Mosses
1986, p. 1).
Highlighting the creativity, some have actually drawn upon the human side of decision making,
trying to avoid the inherent danger of arbitrariness: Creativity and play are often important in
complex and uncertain decision-making contexts (Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice
in Cohen et al., 1972).
Back to planning, as could be expected from the descendants of rationalists, the blame is still
most likely to go to lack of information rather than an information explosion. Bridge (2005) states,
Planners never have what we could consider to be perfect information, knowing all the options
and being able to make clear-cut decisions about clearly defined problems, as the rational
comprehensive model suggests(p. 130).
However, for some simplicists, the existence of uncertainty, and hence complexity, are still in
doubt. Surprisingly, the thinkers or planners who would take the facts into their consideration
have been marked as unrealistic or skeptic: There are the skeptics, who labor uncertainty and
complexity in planning (Faludi, 1987, p. 102).
Those such as Wildavsky, who has traditionally given an extensive weight to uncertainty and
complexity in planning, believe that modification applied to planning so that it can provide proper
control over the future turns planning into nothing but ordinary decision making. By "making
planning manageable, Wildavsky (1973) asserts,it appears we have made it indistinguishable
from ordinary processes of decision. Planning has been rescued by diminishing, if not entirely
obliterating, the difference between it and everyday decision-making" (Wildavsky, 1973, p. 141).
Faludis(1987) answer seems to be a bit conservative, as it is born out of the problem with no or
little consideration of the interdisciplinary correlation and intra-contextual interactions:
But why not settle for "diminishing" rather than "obliterating"? That would allow for planning
adding an extra dimension to ordinary decision-making (as the "IOR [Institute for Operational
Research] School" would have it), without making the claim of replacing it altogether.(Faludi,
1987, p. 103)

Nevertheless, in light of the uncertainty principle and with its expansion in decision making, we
can add the incapability of determining and controlling, simultaneously, all intervening factors in
planning and specifically decision making to what Christensen attributes to the axis of knownunknown for goals and technology. Faludi (1987) explains that Christensen (1985) discusses
four possible situations: well-understood technology and agreed-upon goals (which is when
optimization is called for); unknown technology, but still agreed-upon goals; well-understood
technology but no consensus; problematic knowledge and no consensus(Faludi, 1987, p. 106).
To conclude, it should be borne in mind that uncertainty and complexity are two very important
issues that determine how the process of decision making is dealt with and to which extent this
process will be influenced by the role players and to which extent it will affect different beneficial
bodies involved. To handle the decision-making process more appropriately and more
predictably, as expected, the first and foremost approach to it is to formulize it using scientific

60

inductive reasoning methods to create a deductive method to comprehend and explain the similar
situations.

4.8

Decision Theory

Although the concept of decision at a theory level is deemed very important, the most common
understandings of decision theories (and even decision, decision making, and decision taking at
a theoretical level) take place in and around the purely statistical (and to a high degree in
mathematical) domains.
Chernoff and Moses (1986) claim As a result of relatively recent formulations of statistical
theory, todays statisticians will be more likely to say that statistics is concerned with decision
making in the face of uncertainty (p. 1).
The above quotation shows the other way around, equating statistics with decision making when
faced with uncertainty. Once equated, however, this statement can easily be interpreted the other
way. Chernoffand Moses (1986) explain, Its [(statistics that is concerned with decision making in
the face of uncertainty applicability)] ranges from almost all inductive sciences to many situations
that people face in everyday life when it is not perfectly obvious what they should do (p. 1).
Further on, they point at the main problem in using statistics as the panacea in decision making:
An interesting problem in the theory of decision making is that of finding all the admissible
strategies (Chernoff & Moses, 1986, p. 8). This is not simply the problem of decision making but
the problem of statistics and making it equal to decision making.
Attempts to strike a balance or even to assuage the side effects of territorial behavior from
classical science and mathematics can be seen every now and then. White (2006) claims
Nevertheless, consideration of cognitive aspects of selection will be important in any satisfactory
pragmatic theory of decision: it may be that we want to stimulate selection processes
mechanically, and hence remove mental effort, bearing in mind risks that the analogues may not
be perfect; it may be that we want to convert to a pure choice situation into a full or part decision
situation and hence add to mental effort. (p. 11)

But how this historical guilt will result in a healing remedy is still in serious question.
For mathematicians, though, once the decision is modeled as in its statistical conception, the only
(easy) task of the decision taker will remain to be picking from supposedly but disputably equally
known end options.
Some have recently taken into account that what was long thought to be a cure for all might not
work as it was expected to. White (2006), for instance, states that it is not presumed to be the
case that the ultimate aim of Decision Theory is to enable all the actions to be decided . . .
Decision Theory is part of a more general Theory of Selective Action (p. vii). Yet while they
accept that all cannot be done by equating decision making with statistical randomness, their
determinism about what can be done still remains dramatically conservative and traditional, as
evidenced in Whites assertion that decision-making is concerned with resolution of ambiguity
and is synonymous with mathematical decidability (p. 12).
There are some definitions that seem to be less exclusive to mathematics as they try interactively
to take into account those who have been involved in the establishment, improvement, and
evolution of the concept of decision. Thus, these could be counted towards the study of what is
deemed to be forming its nonpractical principles, namely, decision theory: Decision theory is the
product of the joint effort of economists, mathematicians, philosopher, social scientists, and

61

statisticians toward making sense of how individuals and groups make or should make
decision(Resnik, 1987, p. 3).
Dubois and Fargier (2003, p. 3) also quote from Doyle and Thompson that, however, in parallel
to these developments, Artificial Intelligence has witnesses the emergence of a new decision
paradigm called qualitative decision theory, where rationale for choosing among decisions no
longer relies on probability theory nor numerical utility(Doyle and Thompson, 1999). In urban
planning, however, what has been introduced as decision theory has included more than mere
probability combinations. As Faludi suggests: Refined notions of optimalitycoming from
decision theorycomprise both goals achievement and probability scores (Faludi, 1987, p. 98).
And it also seems to include a more humanistic side to decision making when the notion of
optimality through which goal achievement can be realized is integrated into it: It is well
understood, therefore, that optimality includes an appreciation of uncertainties, as well as
recognizing that ones idea of what is optimal may change as new information becomes
available(Faludi, 1987, p. 98).
This said, the rationalists are still far too deterministic than the nature of a decision requires the
decision makers attitude to be when unbiased and least exclusive decisions are to be made in
urban planning. This is because, despite the fact that rationalists lend themselves and their
principles of thinking to qualitative methods to some degree and enter the human factor into their
equations to some extent, they are still very much loyal to a dualism that dominates the theory (of
planning). It seems their compromise has come about as a deterministic incident rather than a
result of a series of intellectual observations that have led them knowingly and willingly to their
recent considerations.

4.9

Decision Making, Decision Makers, the City and Urban Planning

First, it is necessary to remember that this is an ingenerated and complex discussion on different
aspects of decision making with various tendencies selected from the vast literature on the
subject of debate. But the key point to decode the discussion, shaped by complicated theoretical
dispute, is that there are two recognized and general tendencies concerning decision making.
These two contradictory tendencies, with consideration of all their subcategories, are in one
sense common: they attempt to satisfy their ideas at the furthest distance from their rival.
However, what is occurring ontologically, we will see that, in many senses, they have to
compromise on this grand idea because there is no clear boundary in between. These two, as
will be further explained in chapter 6 (Analysis), are those attributed to the modern and
postmodern schools of thought. These two schools of thought, with all their known attributes and
axioms, have been the movements most influential on the mindset in planning, as in many other
disciplines. It is explained later that based on the principles of the research, and in opposition to
the view of many planning historians (for example, see Allmendinger, 2002, pp. 168-172),
categorization in the proceeding sense cannot be completely true and helpful.
The concept of decision involves different areas when it is supposed to be considered in the very
specific context of the city and planning. As a real case problem, it is not a one-person task, and
its outcomes are not restricted to its immediate surroundings. Nor will its effects finish in its very
own time frame. Although it has been advised that a much broader view should be taken even
when the decision is targeting a much lower scale, the way a very general axiom is to be
practically interpreted and put into practice is a matter of time, experience, and trial. Bull (2007)
writes, Think globally, act locally,[4] the adage coined in the 1970s, expressed the importance of
linking both global and local domains when making decisions about the environment (p. 208).
4

This phrase was originated by Rene Dubos as an advisor to the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment in 1972. In 1979, Dubos suggested that ecological consciousness should begin at home. He believed
that there needed to be a creation of a world order in which "natural and social units recapture their identity, yet

62

A more in-depth pondering, however, takes into account both pros and cons of such an axiom
more considerately and more constructively than when it is simply requoted or interpreted in a
rather simplistic way:
In fact, while each urban intervention seems fated to rely on general criteria of planning, each
part of the city seems to be a singular place, a locus solus. Although it is impossible to make
decisions about such interventions in any rational manner solely on the basis of local situations,
one must realize that their singularity is still what characterizes them.(Rossi et al., 1982, p. 21)

Faludi (1973a) believes that the notion of planning is identical to what, in different contexts, has
been termed systems analysis and operational research. He refers to Quade and Boucher (1968)
where he defines systems analysis as
a systematic approach to helping a decision maker choose a course of action by investigating his
full problem, searching out objectives and alternatives, and comparing them in the light of their
consequences, using an appropriate frameworkin so far as is possible analyticto bring expert
judgment and intuition to bear on the problem. (p. 38)

And Faludi (1973a) also refers to Beer (1966) as he describes operational research as follows:
Operational research is the attack of modern science on complex problems arising in the
direction and management of large systems of men, machines, materials and money in industry,
business, government and defense. Its distinctive approach is to develop a scientific model of the
system, incorporating measures of factors such as chance and risk, with which to predict and
compare the outcome of alternative decisions, strategies and controls. The purpose is to help
management determine the policy and actions scientifically. (p. 38)

The trap of pessimism seems to have survived well up until fairly recently, for Boyer (1983)
declares, Frozen into a rigid position, modern man, without perspective, has no power of decision, no ability to change the social situation(Boyer, 1983; cited in Bridge and Watson, 2002, p.
41).
Some theoreticians, more specifically those characterized as rationalists, leave no choice for
themselves (and prescribe nothing for the others) but to stick to an ultimate tool of rationality as
the main driver in planning, thus giving decision making a crucial and dominant role by picturing
planning as a rational form of decision-making (Faludi, 1973a, p. 39).
More recent readings of planning, such as the following, however, seem to take a more openminded perspective towards planning as per the subject of decision making: the field of planning
is divided among those who define it according to its object (land use patterns of the built and
natural environments) and those who do so by its method (the process of decision making)
(Campbell &Fainstein, 2003, p. 2).
The obsession with totalitarianism seems to have shriveled up more recently between the urban
thinkers. To address the issue, some, like Campbell and Feinstein (2003), would remind the
others of the already broadened planning scope: Studies of planning refer to works in political
science, law, decision theory, and public policy (Campbell & Fainstein, 2003, p. 5). However,
how much these new compromises are going to represent how the practical approaches to
decision making are about to be overtaken by evolutionary amendments, if not revolutionary
changes, remains subject to scrutiny.

4.9.1

Decision Making and Planning

interplay with each other through a rich system of communications." In the 1980s, Dubos held to his thoughts on
acting locally and felt that issues involving the environment must be dealt with in their "unique physical, climatic, and
cultural contexts" (Eblen, 1994, p. 702).

63

This research does not intend to look at planning as the application of reason to collective
decision-making (Faludi, 1987, p. 52; See Friedmann, 1959). In fact, the current research is
against the reductionism and dualism circulating in 1970s planning theory (substantiveprocedural planning theory), in which planning is considered equal to decision making.
However, this does not mean that the account pursued by postmodernism can be considered as
the ultimate option here, where many notions are abandoned because they are too vague and
undefined to be used. But the study follows the planning decision making as one of the crucial
parts of planning as a whole.

4.9.2

Decision Making as a Means of Control

Decision making is usually known as a tool for control, prevention, initiation, or cure. Quite
evidently, the control is deemed to take place wherever there is a need for improvement, to
effectively and, in most cases, artificially create an atmosphere to retain the status quo or to offer
an opportunity on a fair basis. More specifically, control may also be needed when prevention is
aimed at. The initiation by ruling the codes and regulations, can encourage the private
businesses and individuals to develop or revitalize some parts of the built environment. The
solution, however, will come about almost totally out of the realm in which control could have
been practiced. The cure (by providing solution to a problem) usually is the planning option
wherever something out of control has happened and brought some unexpected or undesired
results. Yiftachel (2002) suggests
The use of urban and regional planning as a means of control can be usefully studied by
examining three key dimensions of planning policy: territorial, procedural and socioeconomic.
These dimensions embody the most critical aspects of planning as an organized field of policy
and professional practice: its spatial content (the territorial dimension); its power relations and
decision-making processes (the procedural dimension); and its long-term consequences (the
socioeconomic dimension). (p. 538)

Regardless of how the decision making is to serve its purpose, it can be done in different ways,
as outlined by Faludi (1973a):
There are three ways of making decisions: by authoritative choice based on commitment alone,
by calculation based on firm images, and by a mixture of both. Planning is about making
decisions by a mixture of authoritative and calculative choice (Husler, 1969) (though it may
employ purely the latter as part of planning strategies). (p. 224)

However, in decentralized notions about planning, as seen in most recent postmodern accounts,
one is advised to make and take the decisions through a fourth way, which is public participatory.
But this cannot be counted as an ultimate method because it can result in ignorance of some key
points of control that could have been known and handled by professionals at various levels.

4.9.3

The Role of the Decision Maker

In planning, as a fairly newly established and developing discipline, there have been some
understandable worries about the role of plannersas in any emergent discipline there may be
difficulty defining roles. In particular, since the inception of planning, there have been concerns
about how the planners role would be justified within the framework of existing decision making
parties. Some of those worries lasted long enough to provoke overreactions later on elsewhere.
Gottdiener (1977) states,The planning process as it is usually practiced in the society, makes
planners advisory bystanders to decisions that are being carried out elsewhereby political
leaders and private businessmen(Gottdiener, 1977, p. 143 quoted in ; Hall, 2002a, p. 322).
Faludi(1973a) puts this more meticulously but more bluntly:

64

The basis of a view which portrays planners as the servants of their politician masters can be
traced back to the development of bureaucracies. The implication of this view in terms of
decision-making is that politicians decide on ends, and that planners indicate the means for their
attainment. (p. 225)

Different movements and theories of planning obviously have different readings of the issue of
decisions and decision making and the role of the decision makers. Incrementalists challenge the
large-scale complex decision making and details down to the role of the decision makers.
Campbell and Fainstein (2003) explain, Incrementalism challenges the viability of large-scale,
complex decision making and offers the much more modest approach of comparisons of discrete
policy changes at the margins (p. 169).
By contrast, the communicative approach is what is known to aim at the inclusion of the personal
qualities of those who make decisions.The humanistic planners, Faludi (1987) states,
emphasize communicative aspects, which are a development of the planning-as-learning model,
paying special attention to the personal qualities of planners (p. 102).
However, from another perspective, communicative planning itself can be an incrementalist
activity. According to this approach, the planner rather than looking from a totally different point of
view and building up around the notion of decision itself, they define a system in which the role of
the decision maker differs as it is defined as per the specifications of the decision making
mechanism: "A decision is said to . . . be in the public interest if it serves the ends of the whole
public rather than those of some sector of the public" (Meyerson& Banfield, 1955, p. 322).
Public interest, however, appears to be a very contentious notion to be scrutinized and further
clarified. Meyerson and Banfield (1955) distinguishes
unitary conceptions whereby the public interest is a single set of ends pertaining to all members
of the public . . . and individualistic conceptions whereby the relevant ends are those of
individuals, whether shared or unshared, which should be aggregated
A different decision-making mechanism is implied by each conception. A unitary one implies a
central decision-maker whose role is technical, but endowed with the power at the same time to
assert the interest of the "whole" over lesser interests. An individualistic one implies compromise,
in the case of the utilitarian and quasi-utilitarian conceptions, by means of bargaining in which
representatives act as instructed by their constituents. Under the quasi-individualistic conception,
finally, there must be a mechanism for excluding inappropriate ends (p. 322).

Nevertheless, as discussed before, there are far fewer worries and doubts about the necessity
and significance of the role of urban planners (Margueritte, 2007, p. 118). The level of
importance, how they are being dealt with, and how they fit in the whole picture of a city as an
existing phenomenon or as an entity entirely designed from scratch varies, however, from one
movement to another. Albrechts and Denayer (2001) observe that planners have to operate in
close collaboration with other actors and target groups in the decision-making process as well as
to comprehend their interests and power relationships (Albrechts and Denayer, 2001, p. 371).
Therefore, as was shown in chapter 2, the two dominant types of decision takers can be seen as
those who fit the technicalist view of the decision takers role, which implies that the person or
institution is also a decisiontaker, and those who fit the managerialist view of decision takers. In
the latter type, the emphasis on direct decision making is seen less than in the former type. This
means that in the latter, planning authorities are defined more as the moderators of any aspects
of decision making, with emphasis on the role of space users and empirical accounts. On the
contrary, the technicalist view magnifies the role of the technical and rational side of the decision
takers and makers roles. This type of definition gives a more expanded role to the authorities in
more centralized and concentrated forms.
Thus, it is can be deduced that differentiations between decision making and decision makers on
the one hand and decision taking and decision takers on the other stem from what their

65

knowledge bases provide them with rather than what has been defined for them or what they
were ordered to do.

4.9.4

The City, Planning, and the Methods of Decision Making and Their Impacts

Obviously, the city is both the context in which new decisions are required and the first and
foremost entity affected by those very decisions. The effects of the decisions, however, especially
when made in the centers of political and financial power, do not end in their immediate
surroundings, regardless of the scale of the decision itself(or with that scale having little
influence): Decisions made in these centers of post-industrial growth and change, frequently
termed global cities, disproportionately affected the course of economic and technological
developments in distant parts of the world (Shaw, 2001, pp. 286-287).
In a rather common outline, though, big cities and, hence, the built environment provided a series
of different facilities; consequently, access to the political decision makers, whose decisions
could affect both the city and the regional communities within the citys executive political and
financial power, provide of high importance: Large cities meant large local markets and an
extensive array of advanced producer services, including data processing, financial and legal
services, education, personal and ancillary services, access to political decision-makers(Lever,
2001, pp. 273-274).
This, however, can be so pervasive as to diminish the individuality of those entities that
symbiotically live within the city, giving the most powerful role to what the decisionas a result of
interactive reconciliation between those entities in addition to other micro- and macroscale role
playersoffers. The fact, from another point of view, is reminded also by Shaw (2001). He
suggests The role and status of localities in general, and cities in particular, has become more
tenuous. Kantor holds that cities in the post-industrial era are increasingly dependent on
corporate decisions that generally are not subject to public accountability (p. 289).
Shaw (2001, p.286) also believes that the concept of the postindustrial society is a large
generalization and its meaning can be more easily understood if one specifies five dimensions, or
components, of the term, one of them being decision making as the creation of a new intellectual
technology, as Bell (1973, p. 14) describes it.
Although technical rationality, as Beauregard (Beauregard, 1989, p. 384)suggests, may be
viewed as a valid and superior means of making public decisions, and information gathered
scientifically may be regarded as enlightening, captivating, and convincing (p. 384), this
important view should always be borne in mind: The process of negotiation, mediation and joint
learning can also help foster a sense of ownership and care within a neighborhood (and in a city)
which will reap dividends beyond the parameters of the immediate decision-making
requirements (Great Britain. Urban Task Force. and Rogers, 2004, p. 44).
All in all, a successful decision should be perceived as a combination of some apparently
divergent concepts and views: Decision making involves not only cognitive choice but social
expression, social articulation that divisively or redemptively addresses those served and those
disserved, winners and losers alike (Forester, 2000, p.150).
But there should be consideration not only of different fields or aspects of work. The different
schools of thoughts and methods must also be taken into account in order to control the one-way
mechanisms.

4.9.5

Mechanism of Decision Making

How the decisions are made and which bodies are involved as well as the structure of those
bodies are also very important in how those decisions are effective:

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Partly, elected representatives do not see public participation as their concern: their task in the
planning process is to approve proposals in the final stages, and as such they are either unaware
or unwilling to accept that public participation in planning might possibly conflict with their role or
weaken their decision-making power. (Goldsmith, 1980, p.143)

This will be discussed in more detail further on in this chapter.

Despite all the problems inherent in rational decision making, there should be a mechanism to
choose from a series of possible answers. Friend and Jessop (1969) explain,
Sooner or later, the formulation and comparison of possible actions leads to choice of one
particular course of action; a formal commitment is then generated through an assignment of
resources or a public statement of intent, and the stage of intervention in the community system
begins. This is the stage of decision-taking as opposed to the wider process of decision-making
which can be said to embrace all stages.(Friend and Jessop, 1969)

What is expected to be addressed here by Friend and Jessop or even by their successors is how
decision taking happens. This no doubt again involves degrees of reductionism depending on
how big and colorful the range of choices offered by the decision-making process for the
decision-taking step is.
This needs the careful consideration that any rigid and inflexible formulation opens itself up even
to self-criticism. Faludi (1976) writes,
Certainly, formulations like Friedmann's (1969) describing planning as the application of
"scientific-technical intelligence" to the solution of practical problems are therefore liable to be
criticized, much as my, basically identical, view of planning as a rational form of decision-making
(p. 39).

The other alternatives to rationalism seem to be of very little help, if any, as they openly advocate
the privilege of a community based upon their political or financial assets over the public
interests. The first study of community decision making was Hunter's Community Power
Structure (1953). Basically, he found that an elite consisting of a few businessmen made all the
important decisions. This is known as the power pyramid model of community decision making.
An alternative model was advanced by Dahl(1961). He found a much more diffuse pattern in
which a plurality of groups succeeded in bringing their influence to bear. This became known as
the Yale poly-archie power modelSidestepping this controversy, a further line of thought which
tried to synthesize these two models was called the variable pattern hypothesis. It built on the
assumption that some communities would conform more to one model and some more to the
other, the majority falling somewhere between the two extremes (Faludi, 1976, p. 197).
However, even the most democratic decision making (value-laden decision making based on
nontechnical accounts) systems may still well suffer from the lack of a defendable basis for
making decisions. Broady (1969)
suspect[s] that such decisions (in the planning of new towns about the pattern of rents, the size of
households, the proportion of dwellings that should be built for sale, et cetera) are presently
made either by hunch, by ministerial fiat or by a vague look at what other towns are
doing.(Broady, 1969)

Broady later suggests the application of sociological ideas in development schemes. This might
not look like a purely new or innovative idea, as it had been in practice long before it was
scholarly formulated, but the reasons to support it have their own validity:
The real value of such methods (applying sociological ideas in the context of urban development
schemes) is that they would make it possible to base certain kinds of planning decision more
validly upon evidence and clearly stated assumptions and this would permit a greater control of

67

policy by the regular review of forecasts in the light of actual, on-going experience. (Broady,
1969)

Albrechts and Denayer (2001, p. 371) claim that the case for consensus-building has, of course,
very often been made. Their view specifically refers to Hilliers (1993, p. 107), where she explains
that practical reasons for planning decisions should involve the Aristotelian notions of persuasion,
reflection upon values, prudential judgment, and free disclosure of ideas (See also Forester,
1989).
Hillier (1993) presents an empirical example of the systematic distortion of information and the
consequent impacts of it in a particular planning context. He explains that choices are made
according to certain power structures and decision rules for preferring certain solutions over
others. Imposing patterns on information coming from the environment is basic to at least three
different planning strategies, which he describes under the headings of routinization, sequential
decision making, and mixed scanning. In the first and second case, the overall pattern or
framework imposed on the information received from the environment is relatively stable,
whereas in the last, this framework itself is subject to change (Faludi, 1976, p. 109).
Yet, as Foley (1963, p. 56) also noticed, it soon came to be absorbed into a political and
economic process within central government that represented the very opposite: an adaptive
approach, evolutionary rather than deterministic, that recognizes the importance of political and
economic decisions in the planning process (Hall, 2002a, p. 186).
The humble attitude within the planning profession, heard here from Faludi (1987), should,
however, be highly acknowledged, regardless of whether it is being stuck to loyally and
effectively:
planning should never set itself up as an alternativeand allegedly superiorway of decisionmaking, but should help in improving ongoing choice, and that planning itself never comes to any
definite resolution, least of all by adopting a document called the plan. (p. 91)

However, with reference to McLoughlins work, Taylor (1998) detects something completely
deferent:
It is therefore significant that, in McLoughlin's seminal textbook on the systems approach to
planning (1969), in which the chapters are ordered in terms of the various stages of the rational
planning process, only 17 of the relevant 195 pages are devoted to plan implementation. It is
therefore not surprising that the rational process model was generally described as a model of
rational decision-making, rather than a model of rational action (Taylor, 1998, p. 112).

Nevertheless, as was mentioned, it might be criticized in the sense that it will downgrade the
whole concept of planning to decision making, resulting in craftily and cunningly eliminating many
disrupting role players and influential factors from the equation of planning. It should always be
kept in mind that although planning is not a superior way of decision making, the decision making
is not what the planning is all about.

4.9.6

Evolution of Decision Making

In line with the central idea of the current research, the crisp separation between notions and
events that has happened in decision making is not completely reliable; however, based on a
chronological order, five major phases of the evolution of decision making can be defined; these
stemmed from a series of events and influenced many others:
1. evolution of the concept of decision making and related terms, like policymaking, plan,
plan making and so on, with expansion of postwar physical town planning;

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2. evolution of the decision-making scale, based on democratic economic political

concerns, from centralized to decentralized decision making;
3. evolution of decision-making accounts and reasoning, from modern rationality to
postmodern accounts;
4. evolution of decision takers and decision makers; and
5. evolution of the weighting of influential thoughts on the decision-making process.

4.10 Planning Decision Making and Business-Based Decision Making:

Multiobjective, Multivalue, Multijudgment Nature of Planning
This section could be carried out in more detail than that in which it is discussed here. However,
given the related discussion in the next chapter (on the fuzziness of decisions and decision
making) and the reasoning employed in it, expanding here is unnecessary.
There is no doubt that the words decision and decision making can be studied from different
points of view within various categories, for instance, normative versus discursive decision
making, procedural versus consequentalist, rational versus successive, and so on.
Nevertheless, at a higher level, before getting into this type of discussion, the nature of decision
making in planning as opposed to in other fields needs to be examined preliminarily.

4.10.1 Multiobjective Decision-Making Process

In almost every business, the decision-making process is pivotal. Decisions, from those on
general policies to detailed executive decisions, in all processes from study to production, need
to be identified in order to achieve the general path or the clarifications required. There are many
businesses in which decision-making processes are characterized as multiobjective. The
processes, typically, are used to examine, to apply, or to improve methods and to experience the
improvements within those methods by upgrading the methods. Six Sigma is one example. This
has been generated, developed, and used, first by Motorola and then by General Electric (GE),
and is among the methods that might be better called tools of decision-making on process.
Typically, this type of tool benefits from some guidelines that are being improved from time to
time, though, generally, they are safe from revolutionary changes in methodology. For example,
the six Cs of decision making, below, is a set of improving criteria for the decision-making
process:
1. Construct a clear picture of precisely what must be decided.
2. Compile a list of requirements that must be met.
3. Collect information on alternatives that meet the requirements.
4. Compare alternatives that meet the requirements.
5. Consider the what might go wrong factor with each alternative.
6. Commit to a decision and follow through with it.
There are plenty of instructions of this type in various sections of every businessdecision
making for design, for manufacturing, for human recourses, and so on. But they are rather the
same. These are mostly the typical decision-making tips and tricks of product-based, commodity-

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based, or goods-based industries that constantly use a costs-and-benefits method. The industrys
products may vary from a range of physical to digital products. But the two common values
among these industries are less cost and more benefit. Although these two seemingly simple
aims in big companies like Motorola and GE can be very complicated in a confusing industry like
money (GE money was a business of seven GE sectors that its major part was sold in early
2009 during the global financial recession of 2007 to 2009) and in an unpredictable market like
that of the United States, there are some fixed bases within all types of uncertainty dominating
the decision-making process. In these types of businesses, minimizing the consumption of
resources and maximizing the benefits acquired by offering and selling the products (or services)
are the final objectives. These all are attributed to the rational decision making of the
multiobjective atmosphere with very finite targets.

Initiation Step

Recognition of the need for change and

diagnosis of the system

Problem-Formulation

Problem definition, with specification of

objectives and identification of attributes
or objective measures

System-Modeling Step

Construction of model (mental, graphic,

physical, or mathematical), together
with parameter estimation

Analysis-Evaluation
Step

Set of alternatives

Alternative X

Value judgment

Values of attributes

Value judgment

Decision environment
and scale of nature
Decisio
n

Implementation and

Implementation Step

reevaluation

Figure 4.2. Multiobjective Decision Making process Developed based on Typical Multiobjective DecisionMaking process (Chankong and Haimes, 1983, p. 5)

Therefore, in comparison to (urban) planningwith its countless users, including different interest
groups and individuals; decision takers and actors, among which are technical and political

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bodies; and interconnected decision spaces (visual and nonvisual)the other fields (i.e.,
businesses) work within a clearer atmosphere with most likely clearer targets and objectives.

4.10.2 Business of Planning Versus Public Planning

One of the most important characteristics of planning, as Hall (2002a) explains, is that Planning,
as a general activity, may have one objective or many (p. 234). As a result, the decision-making
in planning is different than the decision making in other enterprises.
Profit-seeking urban developments, either as investments or for making profit (See Urban
Process and Power Ambrose, 1994`, pp. 48-102), established the business-oriented usage of
planning. This usage of planning shows the private businesses how to increase their profit via
more cost-efficient action as per market-based calculation. Such planning is the management of
the business of development and can be seen as an opponent to that planning that advocates (in
a general sense) the rights of users of the built environment. These aspects, as was discussed,
are attributed to the attitude towards planning in which, first, the planning goal is to decrease the
damage to the built environment to the minimum, to increase public benefits such that a greater
number of users benefit as much as possible, and to decrease the costs in the same way.
Second, the planning is to moderate, mandate, and monitor the rights of the built environment
users so that they can participate in the process of decision making in a fair way.
This results in a multiobjective and multijudgment activity of planning that ontologically differs
from the business-oriented attitude towards planning, which is a single-objective task within
which are multiple variables.
Therefore, planning, in the sense of business (i.e., what is pursued by planners who are
employed by private agencies) can have the same attributes and principles as the other
businesses have. Although the planners employed by governmental bodies also have some
guidelines with which to comply and serve the respective institutions in which they work, because
of the differences between the responsibilities of these two types of institutions, these planners
have different job descriptions and responsibilities. This difference, even in the market-based
economic models, is evident because of the loyalty of the systems to democratic accounts of
planning advocate peoples rights. And at a larger scale, as Cullingworth (1997) asserts, the
process involves many others:
Of course, when a plan involves other people (which it usually does) . . . this is a major feature of
any type of [urban] planning [and decision making]; and the more numerous and diverse the
participants, the greater the difficulties of planning [and decision making] (Cullingwoth, 1997, p.
6).

Therefore, the decision making in both activities involves technical issues directly and public
interests somewhat indirectly. However, they are fundamentally different. The first activity deals
with a single objective in a complex market-based calculated atmosphere, and the second is to
deal with a multiobjective and multijudgment atmosphere with a number of parties involved.

4.11 Decision Structures and Decision-Making Bodies

These differences are not limited to concerns and problems, but they were caused by dominant
schools of thought, dominant political systems at the time, and also limitation of the references
and information sources. Therefore, in the entire discussion, regarding this issue, many of the
quotations illustrate the prevailing condition of planning and decision making and, thus, planning
institutions and governmental bodies.
It was addressed before that the decisions are broadly determined by those who makes them.
Therefore, the structure of decisions varies with the structure of the decision-making bodies. The

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decision-making body, who comprises it, how the members are appointed to those positions,how
they work those decisions out among themselves, and how they publicize their decisions to the
public are very important factors and may defy the purpose of decision making and its underlying
philosophy easily, should they not be defined or chosen appropriately.
A traditional yet simplistic point of view grants the task of decision making to the politicians: The
role of the politician (regional politicians, ministers and commissioners) is essentially that of decision making(Martin and Robert, 2002, p. 56).
More in-depth contemplation on the structures of decision will take the politicians role into
account rather carefully and scrupulously. As Goldsmith (1980) asserts, Without an
understanding of the power structure we cannot begin to understand how decision-makers
formulate the policies and take the decisions (or non-decisions) that they do, or even to know
who the decision-makers are (Goldsmith, 1980, p. 47).
Even the undemocratic decision-making bodies seem to have felt a need for their own
justificationa need to legitimize themselves, their decision procedures, and their decisions.
Deutsche (2002) claims Lefort does not deny the necessity of power or political decision making.
Appropriation is a strategy deployed by a distinctly undemocratic power that legitimates itself by
giving social space a proper, hence incontestable, meaning, thereby closing down public space
(p. 401).
By contrast, capitalists are expected to do much better than what they are currently advocating.
Peterson (1981, p. 132), who applauds growth boosterism, is acknowledged by some latter
thinkers such policies are often promulgated through a highly centralized decision-making
process involving prestigious businessmen and professionals. Conflict within the city tends to be
minimal, decision-making processes tend to be closed (Logan and Molotch, 2002, p. 468).
In the bigger picture, however, changes in ethics are to be blamed for providing a firm ground to
justify different methods of decision making. Goldsmith (1980) suggests The changes in
planning ethics and what might be called planning style have produced changes in the kinds of
political processes associated with planning decisions (p.128).
Nevertheless, whatever the decision and whoever the decision-making body, all the decisions
share common principles. Etzioni (1968) suggests Fundamental decisions . . . are made through
an exploration of the main alternatives seen by the actor in view of his conception of his goals (p.
283).
Etzioni then decodes his approach into decision-making steps in which implementation, as a
stage of planning, plays a major role. In fact, as Camhis (1979, p. 59) suggests, Etzionis actual
contribution is to see the process of implementation as an inseparable part of decision making in
planning. But the old problem of lack of information is still persistently faced. Then, Camhis
(1979) adds: Etzioni trusts that decision makers do not have all the information that they
potentially need to examine all the pertinent consequences of the various alternatives (Camhis,
1979, p.35)
The same concern is key point in Klostermans work where he asserts: Public officials still lack
the information required for adequate decision making (Klosterman, 2003, p. 93).
From a systemic point of view, looking at decision-making bodies is important to justify the
advantages of cumulative decision-making systems over individual ones. Faludi (1976) suggests
that the obvious objection one might raise against drawing an analogy between planning and
individual thinking is therefore that it is a simplification. Planning agencies are indeed more
complex than individual decision makers to the extent that they are internally more differentiated,
they can make use of larger amounts of knowledge and more sophisticated decision-making
technology and their process of decision making is more institutionalized and organized (Etzioni,

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1968). However, their most effective way is not separable from the personal characterization of
plans carried out by a planner or a committee of planners yet. This system strongly relies on the
human brain as the reference of the plan proposer and the decision making after the analysis of
problems and primitive data. Therefore, it can be deduced that the ability of the planner or
committee in taking the proper position on the plan or in summarizing the citizens ideas within a
very economic-political atmosphere is still crucially vital.
Faludi (1976) also draws attention to the quality of the individuals working within an organization
over its structure:
The claim is often made that, ultimately, what matters is the quality of the individual members of
an agency rather than its organizational structure. People find it particularly difficult to see how
agencies can perform creative tasks and argue that decisions must always be taken by
individuals who are alone capable of shouldering the responsibility for what they do (Minett,
1971). Amos (1972) once made himself into their spokesman saying in relation to local
government reform that ". . . the real success of reorganization does not depend so much upon
the structures and processes which are adopted as the attitude of those who work in the
authorities . . . ."(p. 59)

Acknowledging that individuals are obviously the ones who make the decisions, he then adds
that the emphasis on the importance of individuals within an organization should not distract
attention from the influences that may be practiced through the organization upon those
individually made decisions:
I do not underestimate the importance of having well-trained and innovative minds in the planning
situation. But to say that only individuals can make decisions is, at best, a truism. Emphasizing
that the locus of decision-making is in the individual (which is deceptively obvious since
individuals are at the nodal points of planning agencies) distracts from what should be of the
foremost interest: the influences upon decisions. (Faludi, 1976, p.59)

He even goes further on to root the problem in how external influential bodies, mostly political
and social systems, enforce their authority through what Deutsch calls communication channels
and decision points on the decision-making bodies:
To a very considerable extent these do not come from within the individual but from without him,
that is from the ". . . configuration of the communication channels and decision points in the
political and social system in which they occur . . ." (Deutsch, 1966). When one is talking about
agencies (metaphorically speaking) thinking, learning, being creative, and making decisions, one
is therefore talking about the preconditions which the "configuration of channels and decision
points" in agencies must fulfill before individuals filling their positions can take meaningful
decisions (Faludi, 1976, p. 59)

For the moment, it is useful to accept Faludis view, drawn upon Etzionis, can be accepted, and
his concerns about the importance of the individuals within the organizational structure of an
agency can be appreciated; however, the current research will later pursue the fact that Faludis
justification for simplification, wherever necessary within the structure of planning agencies, is not
actually a justification with a firm ground even according to his own approach.
The subject of the legitimacy of a decision very much depends on how and by whom it is made.
Goldsmith (1980) draws attention upon the importance by suggesting:
Representative government implies a political division of labor, under which the process of
political decision-making is carried by those for whom politics is an all-consuming passion
Dahls homo politicuswhile the rest of the populationhomo civicusfollows those pursuits
that are of greater interest to them. (Goldsmith, 1980, p. 17)

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Bolan (1967, p. 12) points out that the form of a planning organization is a function of the
decision-making environment, with smaller non-partisan communities being particularly prone to
maintaining planning boards (p. 12).
There are totally different and even contradictory points of view on participation, its significance,
and its role in the decision-making process and the general framework of planning. Faludi (1987)
claims
More often than not, participation results in awareness of conflicts, thus raising the issue of
whether the preconditions for democratic decision-making exist. But whether democracy is able
to resolve conflicts, which, thanks to participation, become apparent, is not an issue of planning
theory (Faludi, 1987, p. 59).

This will magnify the divergence of ideas when compared to some equally important ideas of the
other practitioner-theoreticians in planning:
People living in urban areas are often strongly committed to their neighborhoods and are
skeptical of change. We therefore need to promote consultation alongside more proactive
mechanisms for active participation, linking people with the decision-making processes which
affect their own neighborhood. (Great Britain, Urban Task Force, ,& Rogers, 2004, p. 46)

By contrast, though, Friedmann (1973) puts an emphasis on the interpersonal dimension of

decision making.
The structure of power and how it influences the decision making procedure may well be outlined
by Faludis (1987) account:
Higher-level agencies often do not implement anything at all; they stimulate others to do so. They
exercise indirect control, by approving plans, budgets, loans and the like. These are their
operational decisions. For others they form an input into their decision-making (p. 118).

He previously pointed at the level of influence of organizations due to the level of technology they
own, the level of resources they can allocate, and the executive power they have:
In a certain sense, organizations are even superior to individuals in decision-making. As
mentioned before, they command a better decision-making technology and larger resources than
individuals do. Their importance becomes evident when positions are filled by individuals who, in
normal circumstances, would not be eligible. (Faludi, 1976, p. 60)

Even the most radical advocates of public participation, though, cannot deny the importance of
power, if a decision is to be made and implemented effectively: In particular, there is a need for
new decision-making structures with real power, that reach right across the policy domain to coordinate the implementation of urban policy (Great Britain, Urban Task Force & Rogers, 2004, p.
307).
But the main question remains to be answered: What are institutional forms by which the mediations of the city and the representations of its groups in decision making can be made
democratic? (Young, 2002, p. 438).
To answer this question partiallyand although the basics of a democratic government seem to
be of least help to making democratic decisionssome thinkers and, more specifically, political
scholars have tended to sponsor alternative solutions. Goldsmith (1980) claims that
the emergence of local pressure groups as a primary means by which people seek to influence
local events. Yet the evidence to date suggests that many such groups are regarded unfavorably
if not with hostility by elected members, with only a few groups being considered as having a
positive role to play in the urban decision-making process. (Goldsmith, 1980, p. 82)

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Although political pressure is deemed to be an unavoidable hurdle, it is very dubious for it to

move towards a rather democratic approach to planning. The pressure, as Faludi suggests, turns
decision making into the activity that moves between the political process(es) and planning: Any
planning decision is based on some political choices, and during most planning operations the
need for more choices is revealed. Thus, there is a need for constant interaction between the
political process and planning (Faludi, 1976, p. 103).
The other remedy, argued before, that has very unlikely grounds for justification, is to cling to
ethics, while the decision power is generously bestowed upon one individual and is very likely to
derail them towards any biased decisions in favor of a more favorable minority in the society:
The ideal model (of decision making in planning agencies), to which they should approximate, is
a mature person making a choice based on knowledge, including self-knowledge, and on
commitment to certain causes. Such a decision based on evidence and on genuine commitment
has integrity. (Faludi, 1976, p. 224)

To emphasize the importance of rationality, it is enough to quote Diesing (1962) where he claims
that, out of the five types of rationality he identifies, political rationality concerned with decision
structures (like planning agencies), is the most important:
Negatively, a rational decision structure removes internal obstacles to decision, such as conflict,
rigidity, and disproportionate influence. Positively, a decision structure so organizes a person's or
group's perceptive, creative and communicative faculties as to enable him to reach effective
decisions. (p. 231)

Deutsch (1966) and Buckley (1967) even provide models of self-guiding systems that
incorporate highest order feedback loops or consciousness. These models have their normative
aspects. By identifying what a self-guiding system would be, they give a direction to the
consciousness of any decision maker. Finally, Etzioni (1968) links the same concern for
increasing self-awareness of decision makers with his or her belief in the potential of the social
sciences to provide a firm basis for such awareness:
As an intellectual process overlaying normative commitments, as a critical evaluator of existing
social combinations, as an explorer of alternative combinations and their transformation, the
social sciences are able to clarify basic commitments and to make them more realistic and, thus,
more sustained. (p. 244)

With all the concerns that a decision-making process be democratic, professionals seem to be
particularly prone to succumb to ultimate goals. Apart from pressure of work, the reason, in their
case, is that ultimate goals promise to provide a rock-solid basis for basing program proposals
on. They thereby enhance the status of their professional guardians and increase their autonomy
vis-a-vis other participants in the process of decision-making, politicians in particular(Faludi,
1976, p. 102).
Darden (2001, p. 177) quotes Smith on ideology as a fundamentally political, prescriptive medium
through which the popular legitimacy of iniquitous social and economic arrangements are
secured. Ideology involves collective decision making and serves as a way to gain popular
support for strategies adopted by the dominant group, particularly in democratic societies (SmithRex, 1989, p. 4). Trying to close the deal, Faludi seems to be inclined to eliminate the ideological
critique from the equation:
Undoubtedly, such an ideological critique of planning proposals enriches intellectual discussion.
But ideological critique has relatively little to contribute to the essential role of planning as making
decisions. A decision-taker presented with a multitude of arguments made by the advocates of
particular courses of action is faced with the problem of judging which course of action to accept
as worth implementing. (Faludi, 1976, p. 37)

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Alleviating the responsibility of the decision taker to the outside conditions (subtly to the decision
makers who provide the decision taker with different choices), he tries to lessen his or her burden
and encourage him or her to take up the action confidently and accept the indirect responsibility:
He must resolve, if only tentatively, to accept some reasons put before him as valid grounds for
adopting one line in preference to others. For him, the information provided by ideological
criticisms is a useful signpost to what may underlie a proposal, but it must not paralyze him lest
he should become defunct as a decision-taker. He is more likely, therefore, to evaluate the
arguments as they are manifestly made (meaning in their reconstructed form), judging premises
for their acceptability and conclusions for whether proper inferences have been drawn. (Faludi,
1976, p. 37)

After all, he seems to set the scene to be able to redirect every single course of action to
rationality as the only justifiable ground for decision making, although elsewhere he had
surrendered to the individual discretion (which seriously challenges the rationalist approach to
decision making):
Furthermore, the decision-taker will combine these premises of individual courses of action into
more holistic conceptions, balancing demands on the use of scarce resources against each other
and thus coming to conclusions which may be judged intelligent in terms of his total situation. In
short, he will combine particular demands and proposals into one overall rational choice (Faludi,
1976, p. 37).

There must, therefore, be a plurality of planning agencies, operating with enough measure of
independence to put forward their points of view, but also coordinated by decision-making
structures and procedures to provide a measure of unity.
The other trade-off for power is the participation share in the decision-making procedure, which
looks a bit controversial on its own, as losing power (which means autonomy in the process of
decision making) will automatically lead into a lower level of share in the decision-making
process, one more equal in relation to other participants in the process. Benz (2002) suggests
the term the Europeanization of policies to point out the issue of power at lower levels: As a
result of the Europeanization of policies, these compromises imply that lower level governments
lose some or all of their powers, for which they have to be compensated, by giving them the right
to participate in decision making (Benz, 2002, p. 151).
It should be kept in mind that the American and European patterns of democracy (built upon the
principles of the free market) differ widely from each other. This results in significant differences
in the level of government involvement in the process of decision making.
At the same time, there are fundamental disputes over how and to which degree the federal and
state governments should and could practice their power over city authorities. According to Dear
and Scott (1981),
the more that the State intervenes in the urban system, the greater is the likelihood that
different social groups and fractions will contest the legitimacy of its decisions. Urban life
as a whole becomes progressively invaded by political controversies and dilemmas.
(Dear and Scott, 1981, p. 16)
Benz, who analyzes decision making on and application of the European Spatial Development
Plan (ESDP) as a multilevel process, quotes Scharpf (1988) on the idea that negotiations
between member states in the European Union are generally jeopardized by the joint decision
trap: The trap occurs where decisions require agreement among a multitude of actors from
different institutional settings found in multilateral negotiations . . . . To avoid the joint decision
trap in European multilevel governance, decision costs must be reduced, and coordination limited
to what is necessary and feasible (Benz, 2002, pp. 146-148).

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4.11.1 The Problems of the Established Methods of Decision Making

4.11.1.1 Multiplicity of Decisions
Almost everyone agrees that if decision-makers were dealing with isolated problems, there would
be little objection to this. But they have to cope with many problems occurring both concurrently
and in sequence. An array of the problems within the current and dominant urban planning
approaches may well relate to, be characterized by, or even be caused by the course of decision
making in urban planning. Some of these problems seem very evident, yet they are crucial, to the
extent that ignoring them may well put the existence or workability of urban planning as a
discipline in jeopardy. An example is the question of content. As Camhis (1979) states, What is
characteristic of all the current definitions of planning is that the words objective, actions, goal,
thought, decision and so on are without content (p. 3).
4.11.1.2 Reducing Planning to Decision Making
As was explained before, quite to the contrary, some of the contemporary thinkers and lead
figures in urban planning go to the extreme, even looking at the whole field from a vantage point
of decision-making. Faludi (1987), in his seminal work, takes a look at planning, emphasizing
decision making as its focal point.
Surprisingly enough, some of his predecessors having very realistic and unbiased points of view,
either for or against the planners, believe that planning is not decision making, but about making
decisions. Husler (1969), for example, states, Planning is about making decisions by a mixture
of authoritative and calculative choice (Husler, 1969).
The objective versus subjective dichotomy of city versus all others, for example, as Le
Corbusier (2002) points out, is a known view in which the decision making attempts are
considered to be subjective tools used for defeating the object called city: And these decisions
are reached in a sort of frantic haste in order, as it were, to hold a wild beast at bay. That BEAST
is the great city. It is infinitely more powerful than all these devices. And it is just beginning to
wake (Le Corbusier, 2002, p. 21).
Independently of or subsequently to a series of activities and concerns that were raised as a
result of faulty decision-making processes in urban planning, a pull-back movement came about
after a widespread obsession about how and why planning (chiefly regarded as a decisionmaking process) had not been working properly. To the satisfaction of all the parties involved,
some rather radically extended the problem to the level that requires a shift from theories to
metatheories or grand theories. Camhis (1979) explains, We examined the reasons for the shift
of emphasis from the theory in planning to the theories of planning. This can also be attributed to
the identification of planning with advance decision-making (p. 30).
This, however, seems very unlikely to be the solution to the problem, as it zooms out and looks at
the issue in even less detail, whereas the solution probably requires a method that involves more
detailed scrutiny, perhaps using an utterly different underlying knowledge base from the grand
theory but certainly not limited to that level.

4.11.1.3 Methodological Bases for Decision Making

The concerns, however, date well back to the mid-1970s, when some urban writers, using a
rather softer approach, in which new theories of planning were introduced, attempted to address
the problem perhaps less knowingly but more meticulously. According to Freidmann and Hudson
(1973) Planning in this view (rational planning) is a set of methods designed to prepare
information in such a way that decisions can be made more rationally (p. 8).

77

Even in the best possible assumptions and the most optimistic cases, the definitions of planning
as or related to decision making seem to have faced or included some fundamental structural
challenges. As was quoted before, Planning is about making decisions by a mixture of
authoritative and calculative choice (Husler, 1969).
Further attempts to alleviate more and more complicated conditions, in which planning was
sinking, did too little good, if any at all, as they were trying to bind planning to the positivism of the
scientific thinking methods even more radically, as evidenced by this assertion from Faludi
(1973b): Planning is the application of scientific method . . . to policy making(Faludi, 1973b, p.
1).
The result was greater and greater complexity, and planning slipped towards that status that
undermine the community groups for whom the decisions were supposed to be made. This
occurred on the basis of the decision makers (or decision takers) pure technical privilege or
based on a reluctantly admitted right of supremacy of those who were in charge or who might be
responsible for the decisions on the grounds of the supposed existence of the least measurable
variables such as commitment (see Faludi, 1976). To cover up (but least possibly to solve) this
problem, some theorists tended to outline the decision makers authoritativeness as a must that
had to be followed. According to Camhis (1979), Disjointed incrementalism claims to be both a
descriptive account of how planners or administrators go about decision making and also a
normative/prescriptive model of how they ought to proceed (pp. 38-39). This insistence on
following conventional or governmental authorities could well justify its roots either in the norms
(or even in what could have arguably been perceived, in some cases, as commonsense) or as a
feature complementary, peripheral, or additional to those descriptive approaches.

4.11.1.4 Concerns for the Situation of the Planner; Responsibilities of the Decision
Maker and Decision Taker
As addressed before, the worries around and about the role of the planner and how it can be
justified within the existing array of traditionally powerful decision makers resulted in some
exclusive tendencies that attempted to portray the planners role as nothing but a decision maker.
These tendencies are, however, not necessarily harmful so long as they are taken as offering
only alternative views of planning, not dominant manifestos to overrule the planning realm. In the
book A Decision-Centered View of Environmental Planning (Faludi, 1987), which draws upon
Friend and Jessop (1969) and Litchfield, Whitbread, and Kettle(1975), Faludi differentiates
decision making and decision taking. Decision making allows for free discussions among all
those concerned, including planners. Decision taking, on the contrary, involves the exclusive
holding of political responsibility, and planners have no part in it (p. 58). But as Faludi states
Decision-taking does involve the specification of objectives, but only rarely are any of the goals
modified. In view of the confusion about goal-setting, this is an important point and one which will
be developed (Faludi, 1976, p. 78).
However, in practice, it is evident that such an extremist view is not correct, and in many local
plans, planners usually take the decisions even if they are taken based on the general guidelines
provided by higher level governmental bodies. This generalized conception of decision making
and decision taking is more like an unreal conspiracy theory that downsizes the planners
responsibilities. (We need to take into account that in 1976, when Faludi talked of this sort of
categorization, political issues and the relationship between planner and politician were different
from today. In addition, by considering that, we can conclude how valid such a generalization can
be. These points notwithstanding, his ideas on decision making are crucial to planning theory;
hence, they are examined here very carefully.) It is evident, though, that once a decision is made,
taking the decision requires no apparent and immediate effort but does lead to future
responsibility, which may bring either pride or blame for the decision takers.

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4.11.1.5 Justified Methods for Decision Making

The methodological approach is what has been backed by many different movements. Faludi
(1987) claims,
Now, it is true, a methodological approach to planning is also being associated with experts
arrogating decision-making to themselveswhat is being described as technocracy. No doubt
method can be, and has been, used in this way; but as we have seen, to plan without method
means courting the same danger. It leads to decision-making by men whose wisdom seems to
entitle them to a superior role. On the other hand, the proper use of planning method can reduce
this danger. Minimally, a well-designed methodical approach helps in distinguishing facts and
values, a precondition, if anything, of holding experts at bay. (p.18)

However, this approach to planning does not give the process of decision making any legitimacy
about how it will work towards consensus building. Also he argues,
There is nothing that inherently contradicts freedom of choice in this view of method. Methods are
not constraints, but they assist with coming to resolutions in arguments, as we have seen. They
are not sacrosanct either, but open to criticism; and the legitimacy which they convey is
conditioned upon recognition of their validity. It is more the everyday view of scientific method,
endowing it with too much authority, which needs to be attacked, than the use of methods as
such. They are tools for decision making. They do not take the human element away from
decisions. On the contrary, the critical application of method in arguments around planning issues
makes the value judgmentsinvolved the more evident. (Faludi, 1987, p. 18)

Yet, what seems to be forgotten is that the nature of this approach intrinsically encourages the
practicing of too much authority (because the approach requires this).
The main problem yet remains consensus (and consensus building) over a made decision to give
it enough legitimacy to be applicable within its context. There is no problem so long as there is a
highly consensual mode of decision making, with elaborate consultation of social groups and
heavy reliance on third-sector organizations for implementation of policy (Fainstein, 2003, p.
189). The problem starts turning up when the heap paradox (see chapter 5) occurs in urban
planning practice.
By embracing diversity and relativity, Friedmann (2003a) asserts that the collapse of the old
system of planning happened and planning had already entered to a non-Euclidian status of
existence: It is nothing less than the collapse of the Euclidian world order of stable entities and
common sense assumptions that have governed our understanding of the world for the past two
hundred years. The engineering model of planning that served us during this period, with its
penchant for advance decision making and blueprinting and its claims of superiority to other
forms of decision making because of its scientific character, are [sic] thus no longer valid and
must be abandoned (p. 75).
Those concerns spread well over the curricula in the planning schools. The confusion about
where to start can easily be felt even today. Faludi (1987) argues,
The program started in the fall of 1947. At the beginning the faculty (Chicago School), with
Tugwell, saw planning as really reflective decision-making. Also with Tugwell, it searched for
planning as a separate discipline. . . .In response, and for the first time, a planning curriculum
was developed which, rather than mimicking architecture, drew on the social sciences. The
Chicago answer to the question of how this should be done was a core curriculum based on the
assumptions (1) that planning is a generic term; (2) that it refers to decision-making, as well as
implementation; and (3) that it relates to public policy. (Faludi, 1987, pp. 23, 25)

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4.11.1.6 Categorical Problems of Decision Making

There are few but fundamental restrictions or unsolved problems embedded in the process of
decision making when considering it in regard to some specific schools of thought in planning. In
this regards, Meyerson and Banfield (1955) states
Obviously no decision can be perfectly rational since no one can ever know all of the alternatives
open to him at any moment or all the consequences which would follow from any action.
Nevertheless, decisions may be made with more or less knowledge of alternatives,
consequences, and relevant ends, and so we may describe some decisions and some decisionmaking processes as more nearly rational than others. (Meyerson & Banfield, 1955, pp. 314-315)

At the same time, disjointed incrementalism offers an approach to decision making explicitly
based on the opposites of the principles for which synoptic rationalism is still supposed to stand
(Camhis, 1979, p. 39).
Alternatively, when the rationalists tend to handle more complicated situations, they need to
breach their very own principles of rationality. For doing so, they require a very good justification.
They try to establish another type of rationality for what they need to do against what they
advocate, which is quite evidently in clash with the first one, to give good reason for how and why
they were bypassing the basic classical logic underlying their approach.
Faludi (1976) states that There are again three strategies which one can name. In an ascending
scale of the degree to which they suspend rational judgment, they are the following: satisficing, apriori decision-making, random decision-making (Faludi, 1976, p. 114).
None of these so-called strategies seem convincing, as they are supported by no firmer ground
than a vague and arbitrary personal taste and have to be bound to some additional and more
likely external ties to make sure that those decisions are following a rationale in favor of public
interest rather than a driver, which is more likely to be in the particular interest of one or more
groups of political or financial power. They then tend to draw upon morality and ethics, the very
basics that have had no place in their approach so far. As their prescription reaches, it becomes
very vague and will leave everything to personal judgment, with no applied method to assess it.
This means the unknown aspects should be substituted for by a taste-based process. This way,
the process will face serious questions of methodology which should be based on rationality by
their own primary assertion. This also raises the question of where the public intervention would
sit in the decision-making process? This also needs to be explained from two different
perspectives: the consequentalist and procedural views of decision making.
The other charge rationalists are not quite successful in resolving is what they call simplification .
Simplification is nothing but the reductionism inherent in any scientific method but seems to be
knowingly and cunning avoided by the rationalists in hopes that they are not going to get trapped
in the basic incapability of classical logic when dealing with nonclassical case problems. Faludi
(1976) gives an account to justify the use of simplification:
The second answer to the charge of simplification is that the distinction between planning and
individual thinking which has been drawn, for instance, by Etzioni, is a matter of degree. Looking
at it from a different angle, one can say that individuals are similar to planning agencies in that
they too are differentiated, use certain amounts of knowledge, have a decision-making
technology, and are organized, only less so. It is therefore possible to draw comparisons
between the two. The charge of simplification could only be sustained if the critics either showed
awareness of the inescapable need to simplify, that is if they indicated precisely a degree of
tolerable simplification, or if they argued that planning and individual thinking were entirely
different so that no useful analogy between them could be drawn. The latter view would run
counter to current thinking on the logical structure of planning being the same whether the actor
is a person or an organization (Meyerson and Banfield, 1955; Banfield, 1959; Dror, 1963; Rieger,
1967; Bolan, 1969).

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As Faludi (1987, p.47) asserts, the alternative (to rationalism) is described variously as consisting
of "limited comparisons" (Lindblom, 1959); an incremental process of dispersed decision-making,
"disjointed incrementalism" (Braybrooke and Lindblom, 1963); or "mutual adjustment" (Lindblom,
1965); and it has different dimensions. The attempt to cling to dualism and put rationalism up
against one other major movementno matter whether that movement can adapt to what
rationalism fails to fulfilldoes not fully recognize encase that even the rationalists submit, to
some degree, to incremental changes. This implies fuzziness underlies their attitudes towards
decision making. Quite interestingly, those postmodernists in planning theory who advocate what
has been addressed above as an opponent to the modern rational account of planning have in
many cases yielded to the principles of rationality to be able to justify their reasoning. This also
denotes that they are giving up their classical principles of duality and applying fuzziness in their
tendencies towards decision making.
The critics of rationalism identify it as one of the modes of decision making (Healey, 1983), which
has the power to downgrade it to something other than a planning theory on its own.
Trying to draw upon the fields predecessors, Faludi (1987) admits Mannheim (1940), Meyerson
and Banfield (1955), Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963), Friedmann (1966a; , 1966b; , 1967) and
Etzioni (1968) had led him to conceive of planning as the application of reason to collective
decision-making (See Friedmann, 1959, pp. 327-328). But it should be borne in mind that it is a
repetition of the same logic.
There are very sharp criticisms, such as the following, about this point of view: The knowledgesociety is an exploitative and alienating one, because it is built on capitalist lines with an elite
class of decision-makers having access to knowledge and the distribution of it (Albrechts &
Denayer, 2001, p. 376).
Faludi (1987) later tries to alleviate the burden by criticizing the advocates of other theories:
Davidoff's followers associate the rational planning model with excessively refined methods. . . .
One cannot blame them for jumping on this bandwagon; but in retrospect we know that this has
diverted attention away from the recognition of planning as decision-making under uncertainty
and conflict. (p. 42)

Although there have been attempts to regain the justification of rational planning by challenging
the advocators of the other theories, it is very important to bear in mind that the inefficiency of the
other theories does not necessarily imply the rightness of rationalist decision making. Even if
such problems are associated with other theories, rationalism cannot be justified on this sole
ground.
Faludi (1987) adds,
Wedgewood-Oppenheim (1972) compares strategic choice with the rational planning model and
various of its alternatives. Like Etzioni's "mixed scanning", it is intentionally rational and
comprehensive, but imbued with awareness of the fragmentation of real-life decision-making at
the same time. (p.94)

Nevertheless, as Certeau (2002) states, the rationalization of the city leads to its mythification in
strategic discourses, which are calculations based on the hypothesis or the necessity of its
destruction in order to arrive at a final decision (p. 385).
Furthermore, rationalist planners have also tried to answer major critics of their favored method,
in the long run, by finding the ways in which they could demonstrate a weakening of their
opponents views or by obliterating those disputed aspects from the decision-making process as
a whole. In some particular cases, they have even tried to absorb, rebrand, and relocate an idea
somewhere within their own process.

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Friend, Power and Yewlett (1974), as an advocate of connective planning, for which
opportunities come around when people acting in policy systems . . . are stimulated by their
perception of decision problems to activate and shape networks of decision makers in order to
explore alternatives . . ., emphasizes selectivity. As a result, they conclude "the practical
influence of public planning activities on decision making depends on the dispositions among
public accountable agencies of skills and resources relevant to the selective activation of interagency networks" (pp. 372-373).
Faludi also emphasizes the responsibilities of planning academics in highlighting the challenges:
So planning academics should debate the challenges of practical decision-making, even more
so than the functions of planning (Faludi, 1987, p.84).
Despite amplification of the right issues, there is too little, if anything, done to address how this
should be carried out.
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations,with its tradition of qualitative research, provided the
ideal context for attention to the human dimensions of organizational decision making. One of its
first projects was concerned with communication in the building industry. Its significance lies in
the development of the so-called Analysis of Interconnected Decision Areas (AIDA); (See
Luckman, 1967), using graphic representations of the interrelations between various options per
decision area to generate alternatives systematically. In simple manner, it lays open the decisionmaking process so that every assumption can be changed at will (Faludi, 1987, p. 89). This
method first of all outlines an approach based on the building industry (as opposed to an
approach that sees planning as an autonomous discipline). Second, it uses the basics that have
shown to be of little help because they build upon the principles of ordinary logic with a rigidly
thinking framework.
Portraying the analysis of decisions as a bonus, rationalists seem to be processbased rather than
product based, the approach that has its justification in manufacturing industries but hardly in the
planning discipline. Faludi (1987) observes,
If it were not for the fact that planners do not generally perform it, the need for decision analysis
would hardly bear mentioning. But planners are prone to emphasize the noble aims of plans.
They forget that their plans must have an impact on operational decision-making, or else remain
the products of fantasy. (p. 124)

Surprisingly enough and despite all the process-based applications that favor sensible room for
thinking and speculating about all possible problems, a hasty move from plan making to decision
making is encouraged. This seems to be prescribed to try to eradicate the problems that arise as
a result of the ineffectiveness of the conventional methods. According to Faludi (1987)
On the other hand, the longer in advance plans are made, and the farther removed plan-making
is from operational decision-making, the greater the uncertainty surrounding planning decisions
and the greater the chance that we must depart from it. The reason is that the broader
perspective for which planning stands may prove to be irrelevant to the real problems in
operational decision-making. (Faludi 1987, p. 125)

Yiftachel (2002, p. 539) believes planning processes can be used for the exclusion of various
segments and groups from meaningful participation in decision making, thereby contributing to
their marginalization and repression. This form of control can be explicit, as in the case of
decisions imposed from above, or implicit, through sophisticated methods of information
distortion and meaningless forms of public consultations (Krumholz and Forester, 1990;
Friedmann, 1992; Hillier, 1993). From another point of view, planning professionals can be seen
to exclude themselves from the community and the context for which they are supposed to make
decisions. Beauregard (1989) addresses this possibility:

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As a body, planning theorists became highly eclectic, pursuing theoretical projects for their own
sake. Collectively, they lost the object, the city, that had given planning its legitimacy. Their new
objectsthe planning process, policy-making, decision-making, and so onwere only
tangentially the objects of practitioners; they were procedurally relevant but not substantively so
(p. 387).

Anything that diverts such contenders (various segments and groups) into fragmenting their
power and watering their efforts by going through decision making motions with hierarchies and
boards at ineffectual levels where no responsible government powers of decision reside, vitiates
political life, citizen effectiveness, and self-government (Jacobs, 1994, p.136).
As Broady(1977) reminds us, there are, however, always other ways to portray the participation
process in the safest possible modes:
The full council meetings at which the public are entitled to be present give no indication of what
really affects policy decisions, while minutes, as we all know, are carefully drafted so as to reveal
the least possible about the real meat of civic affairs. (p. 42)

Although the level of responsibility over finances and local decisions typically depends on the
size and wealth of a commune (Stern and Halfani, 2001, p. 479), the dominance of the financial
sector of the society may manifest itself in many different ways. On the other hand, Baily (2001)
explains: The structural constraints of quasi-markets necessarily restrict both user choice (in
terms of exit to alternative providers) and user voice (in terms of being better represented in
management and decision-making processes) (p. 343).
One of the other challenges for planning is flexibility. This is a major factor in decision making at
large. Faludi (1987) explains, flexibility refers to the ability of matching the definitions of the
situation in planning and operational decision-making (p. 125).
Regardless of theoretical point of view, there are some thinkers who have dexterously pointed
out the very problem upon which the premise of the current study is intended to be based. Faludi
(1973a), for example, illuminates the problem in this way:
At first glance, to describe the perennial problem of planning as information overload seems to
conflict with an alternative view of the difficulties which planners face as evolving around how to
obtain information. These difficulties may be used unwittingly to deflect from the more demanding
question of how information informs decisions taken. Development plans adopted . . . are far from
explicit about the way in which their recommendations flow from the facts collected. The folklore
of planning is full of stories of surveys being conducted by research sections, and plans being
drawn up quite independently by people who have taken neither a hand in designing the surveys
nor much notice of their results. I suggest that these results are not used because there are limits
to the amount of information which people can handle. (p. 106)

Worries about how the decisions are being made where there is not enough hard evidence for
the so-called rational approach to take place were always overshadowing the dignity of the
decision makers as well as the integrity of their decisions. These worries provoked plannersto
take a series of self-control and self-assessment actions to ensure that the morality and ethics of
the profession were firmly followed. For instance, among the supporting materials provided for
technology of choice training sessions at the Centre for Environmental Studies in the 1970s,
Hickling offered a commitment package. This commitment package catches the variety of
responses to uncertainty. It represents an adaptation to our inability to resolve all issues at
onceand complements decision making in a context often characterized by conflict.

4.12 Changing the Mode of Planning: Changing the Mode of Decision

Making

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Taylor (1998) point out, Central to Lindblom's questioning was a critique of the ideal of
comprehensiveness, which, Lindblom contended, could never be achieved in practice (Lindblom,
1959, p. 160, as cited in Faludi, 1973a). Lindblom's alternative model of disjointed incremental
planning was thus advanced as a more realistic account of what the process of planning was like,
and could only be like, in practice (p. 113).

Rational-comprehensive

Successive limited comparisons

1(a) Clarification of values or objectives

distinct from and usually prerequisite to
empirical analysis of alternative policies

1(b) Selection of value goals and empirical

analysis of the needed action are not distinct
from one another but are closely intertwined.

2(a) Policyformulation is therefore

approached through means-end analysis:
first the ends are isolated; then the means to
achieve them are sought.

2(b) Because means and ends are not

distinct, means-end analysis is often
inappropriate or limited.

3(a) The test of a good policy is that it can

be shown to be the most appropriate means
to desired ends.

3(b) The test of a good policy is typically

that various analysts find themselves directly
agreeing on a policy (without their agreeing
that it is the most appropriate means to an
agreed-upon objective).

4(a) Analysis is comprehensive; every

important relevant factor is taken into
account.

4(b) Analysis is drastically limited: (i)

important possible outcomes are neglected;
(ii) important alternative potential policies are
neglected; (iii) important affected values are
neglected.

5(a) Theory is often heavily relied upon.

5(b) A succession of comparisons greatly

reduces or eliminates reliance on theory

Table 4.3. Model of decision making. Note. From C. E. Lindblom, 1959, pp. 154-155, as cited in Planning in the
USA: Policies, Issues, and Processes (p. 16)

Also Cullingworth (1997) states,

The concept of comprehensive planning in theory may be contrasted with the narrowly focused
planning which takes place in practice. Each administrative agency takes its decisions within its
particular sphere of interest, understanding, resources, and competence (Cullingworth, 1997, pp.
9-10).

The move from centralized planning towards the decentralized government has been influenced
by both ethic perspectives in planning and the postmodern school of thought (in its broadest
sense). The recent accounts of planning stem from postmodernism, with emphasis on the
thought underlying decision making and the importance of peoples attendance and voices(in
political sciences) with an impact on the procedure of decision making. It has been accompanied
with the inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of planning activity and, hence, has resulted in
change in the traditional (rational) cost-and-benefit equation and affected the scientific view of the
decision-making process.

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By criticizing rational accounts, it also raises concerns about the procedural view against the
consequentalist one, but in a more practical way. The path has been enforced by changing not
only the reasoning method but the crucial variables and their relationships that are at the center
of attention of related planning people.
Bridge and Watson (2002) explain,
Political scientists, economists, local politicians, and planners agreed that the urban future could
never be accurately predicted, that community goals in a turbulent world remained elusive, that
information would always be indeterminate, that a decentralized democratic political system
made comprehensive planning from a centralized authority impossible. The ideal of a public
interest embodied in a comprehensive plan, moreover, conflicted with the reality that private
interests directly influenced public policy formation and that political decision making operated on
fragmented choices, not integrated wholes. (p. 41)

Therefore, by considering all the unpredictability of the decision-making process, with a safe
distance of skepticism, the planning people came to the conclusion that no aspect of decision
making is achievable to carry out in a purely scientific way and that social justice to justify the
process of decision making is strictly required. They also assert, Frozen into a rigid position,
modern man, without perspective, has no power of decision, no ability to change the social situation (Bridge and Watson, 2002, p. 41).

4.12.1 Decision Making in Modernist and Postmodernist Senses: Dualism of

Thoughts
Historically, the differences between modernist and postmodernist planning have been intensified
by pursuing different interpretation of the aspects and variables of planning. It is evident that
these differences turn into the dichotomy since the late 1960s, exactly at the heart of the
discussions related to the end of ideology in planning. Accordingly Taylor (1998) reports,
The 1960s was the high tide of the social democratic, corporatist state, and the acceptance of
rational planning was so widespread that some social theorists, such as Daniel Bell (1960),
spoke of the end of ideology. At local government level, this political stance was reflected in the
adoption of strategic and corporate styles of management, following the recommendations of the
Bains report (Bains, 1972) into the structure and management of local authorities. (p. 69)

Through scrutinizing the literature on the decision-making alternatives, one can recognize two
major categories. These two categories have been chronologically set up as a bipolar system of
decision making as a whole, with their difference represented in approaches (see Table 4.1).
Regarding the discussion on fuzziness in the next chapter, the sets framed here are two general
sets whose dimensions and attributes are different in detail. For example, if it is expressed by
thinkers of the postmodern era that modernist planners and theorists typically emphasize the
possible consequences of their decisions, the statement cannot be completely true, because any
a planner needs also to consider procedure in his or her work. As seen before, recent modernist
planners who are reportedly said to be in pursuit of rationality in their works, in emphasizing
hearing (in the United States) and public consultation (in the United Kingdom), demonstrate that
procedure is an inevitable part of decision making for planning spaces. (The issue of the bipolar
method of reasoning and knowledge is more familiar when considering deduction versus
induction. The relation between these two is complicated because some have tried to justify one
against the other, typically deduction against induction. But it is evident that without first
rationality and induction through deductive methods, the whole issue will be undermined. This is
why at the theoretical level some still try to clarify the issue and give advantage to one of these
notions, but in the real world, there is no crisp boundary between them, and using both of them in
coalition is inevitable.)
Again, with consideration of the second type of fuzziness, in chapter 5, it can be seen that the
definitions presented in each school of thought are involved with fuzzy coverage of their

85

contradictory ideas. Therefore, the whole idea of setting the bipolar categorization of decisionmaking domains is unrealistic, because, at the least, there is a small portion of the proponent
idea within the defined one. This means that despite the favoring of such a separation by the
reductionist (and here dualist) school of thought, it is not realistic. Therefore, it is necessary to
make a distinction between what it would be and what it should be (in this realm, what that should
be is what is (more) accurate).
Then the more general categorization (here, modernist and postmodernist decision making)
necessarily contains a degree of certain attribution, and beyond that it usually is amalgamated
with the truth of the related notions, including the contradictory notions. This is because these
models are not realistic. This issue is discussed under fuzziness and crispness in chapter 5.

4.12.2 Traditional Dual-Contradiction of the Decision-Making Process

When one considers the literature of decision making, seven dimensions are recognizable as the
most important observations of the decision paradigm, in which a dual-contradiction was
traditionally sought after to justify the two major dominant planning schools of thought against
each other:
a. Emphasis and justification
b. Approaches of deduction and induction
c.

Basis and tools (defuzzifiers and defuzzification methods)

d. Vision on planning
e. Amount of the expansion of the decision-making operation
f.

Ethical accounts

g. Model of control
The above seven bivalued sets are summarized in the table below:

DecisionMaking Mode

Emphasis

Approach

Basis

Vision

Expansion

Ethic

Model

Modernist

Consequences

Structuralist

SystemBased

Apolitical

Comprehensive

Utilitarian

Centralized

Post-modernist

Procedure

Poststructuralist

ValueBased

Political

Incremental

Deontology

Decentralized

Table 4.4. Modernist versus postmodernist decision-making dualism.

These traditional (classical logic-based) dual-contradictory terms do not accord with real-world
integrated concepts that are internally involved on the opposite side. This means that, in practice,
by being loyal to one of these extremes, decision making will present a nonreal theory on
decision making whose application will not be justifiable (for more details, see the next chapter).

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4.12.3 Mixed-Scanning Method

The above problem has been mentioned very rarely in some thinkers ideas. However, this type
of consideration has been pursued, first, via classical logic and, second, in very limited notions of
decision making. One of the most important exemplars of this type of pursuit is traceable in
Etzionis work under the title of mixed-scanning, a modeldescribed below:
An alternative [to two conflicting decision-making models, comprehensive and successive] is
provided by Etzionis mixedscanning model: this incorporates elements from both
comprehensive and incremental planning theories. It holds that decisions on fundamental
issuessuch as primary goalsare followed by detailed examination of alternative programs of
implementation (Etzioni, 1967). This is an attractive theory, though skeptics are not convinced!
(Cullingworth, 1997, p.16)

In accepting the dual-contradiction of the expansion of methods of decision making

(comprehensive and incremental), Etzioni emphasizes that each of the methods, singularly, is not
able to solve the issue of decision making. He therefore suggests a mixed method containing
both ideas, which deals with planning issues in different layers proportionate to the nature of the
issue. This approach is invaluable because it is one of the rare methods in which the coalition of
both methods is recommended. Instead of declaring a single method right, it talks of relative
trueness. However, through further scrutiny of his literature, it becomes evident that he attempts
to categorize the planning cases based on the method they may (have) use(d), which is again
based on the classical logic of categorization.

4.13 Slaving Principle and Normative Reductionism of Decision Making

The general notion of the slaving principle is described by Haken (1983) in its temporal
dimension, which was used in the dynamic analysis of economic systems. It is applicable to the
planning decision making and can effectively be used in the process to clarify many of the
relations. This principle is usually indirectly known and applied to human scientific activities to
describe the systems. However, the usage of the principle based on a classical reductionist view
can omit most of the influential factors and may result in the failure of analyzing the systems and,
hence, in misleading information. It is supposed that slave principles, first, cannot be applied to
all combinations (or situations) of a single relationship of two or more interacted parameters,
because the relationship is temporal and this can change or reverse (an example is the
relationship between changes in the electronic components market and the computer market,
between 30 years ago and now). Second, the scale of influence of phenomenon A on
phenomenon B (as the slave) can be different from the influence of phenomenon A on
phenomenon C. Third, this influence can be simply reciprocal and unknown, invisible, or
supposedly too small to be considerable. The most important issue that is directly related to this
research is the expansion of the sets defined in which the slaving principle is supposed to be
examined; this can potentially introduce any type of fuzziness in definitions and their relations.
Based on the explanation on slaving principles provided by Dendrinos (1992):
According to a general principle in dynamical analysis, sometimes referred to as the slaving
principle, slower-moving variables slave or determine the behavior of faster-moving components.
There is another dimension, however, to record the effect of the slaving principle. Equivalent to
the temporal slaving principle there might be a spatial slaving one, according to which a larger
spatial unit might determine the behavior of a smaller constituent one. (p. 44)

In the systemic view of decision making based on the dominating rationality of planning as a
system, the pure scientific or semiscientific values (economic and political values that are
involved with human changes and ethical values but are still known as sciences) of decision
making are supposed to have the rationality of the bases. Therefore, as the slower moving
factors, they slave the decisions made, which normally move faster. And also in postmodernist

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accounts in which empirical accounts acquired from space users are supposed to be the
fundamentals of the decisions, the decisions should move faster than the interests. This means
that, in both views, the decisions are slaves of the bases of the decision-making processes.
However, based on the vast literature of the social sciences that examines the relation of public
interests and economic-political changes, these two are not two separate spheres, and they are
in ever-changing interaction all the time.
Therefore, in a multiparty atmosphere like planning, assuming that decision making can be the
slave of either constant values or changing human interests imagines a linearity to the sphere
that cannot be real. This type of supposition, in which some issues are known as the subset of
the others in an end-state way, changes the activity to a rigid system and reduces the processes
to impractical models, resulting in the models having imprecise outcomes. Thus, when the
slaving principle is used, even if the comprehensive approach is avoided, many of the factors are
not reducible or eliminable.

4.14 An Alternative Logic in Decision Making

4.14.1 Attempts to Mitigate the Problem
The all-inclusiveness of planning is the factor that creates an unavoidable level of complexity for
decisions. King (2002) asserts that
given such economic or technological influences, the extent to which urban forms and planned
environments differ clearly depends on political and economic factors, cultural values, historical
experience, geography, and the values and ideological beliefs of those power-holding groups and
professional elites responsible for structuring and implementing decisions about urban planning
and the overall shape of towns.(King, 2002, p. 529)

Up until now, it has been argued that a series of problems were arising in the planning discipline
that involved decisions and decision-making process. Some attempts were made to address,
clarify, and mitigate the problem. For instance, Emery and Trist (1965) show that a priori decision
making is an approach institutions take when operating in what they call a turbulent environment.
Some, by contrast, try to legitimize the reductionism inherent in rationalism that underlies some
planning theories. On the other hand, as Cooke (1983) writes, the reductionism in rationalist
approach to logic comes with idealism which compromises many other important factors of
decision making: An idealized and rationalistic conceptual logic being elaborated whereby,
irrespective of location, time or organizational context, only limited variants on a basically
rationalistic model of decision-making are derived(Cooke, 1983, p. 261).
Even the most radical rationalists admit that the way the human mind works is not how decisions
are intended to be rationalized. As Faludi (1987) states, Decision-making, planning, indeed,
human thought processes generally, cannot be straight-jacketed by rules. The mind works
differently, as critics of rationality are quick to point out. Nor does it matter whether thought
processes are systematic, methodical, or rational (p.56).
There also have been concerns about the accountability of the plan and the responsibility of
those who decide on it, as expressed by Great Britains Urban Task Force and Rogers (2004):
An accountable planning system renders those making or advising on planning decisions
responsible for the quality of the decisions they take (Great Britain Urban Task Force, and
Rogers, 2004, p.45).
Clinging to the principles of operational research, rationalists tried hard to mitigate the problem as
it was targeted in engineering. Faludi (1976) writes,

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Optimization is merely another way of saying that, whilst attending to any one problem we also
preserve our chances of attaining other ends now or in the future. It is thus a formal expression
for the maximization of the chances for further growth. This introduces a new element into
program formulation which is termed a decision-rule, this decision-rule being invoked in all those
cases where the action space contains more than one program. (p.93)

As the following points by Faludi (1987) demonstrate, they also underlined the false attempts of
IOR to eliminate the uncertainty inherent in the process of decision making in planning:
It (the IOR School) helps us to appreciate the problems of practitioners. Also, it insists that
planning is concerned with improving day-to-day decision-making. . . . But the "IOR School" is
party also to the widespread misrepresentation of the rational planning model, wrongly identifying
it with the quest for certainty. (p.99)

Healey (2006) also contributes to this critique:

In the US in particular, it stimulated an explosion of work on the science of decision-making,
with much discussion on the forms the rational planning process could take and on the kinds of
urban systems models which were needed to underpin analyses of the consequences of
alternative actions. (Healey, 2006, p. 24)

The rationalists admit, however, that, in Faludis (1987) words, In the ordinary course of
operational decision-making, not all effects are in fact taken account of (p.171).
In order to reconcile the situation where there is not enough supporting evidence for optimization,
some other models bring forward the decision makers personal satisfaction, which is, by
contrast, criteria far too subjective to be fulfilled. Bridge (2005) explains, as an example, Simons
model that replaces the idea of optimizing with satisficing in decision-making. In uncertain
conditions and lacking perfect information decision-makers may take the satisfactory option (in
terms of aspirations), rather than seeking to fully maximize their utility (Bridge, 2005, p.130).
Bridge then goes into more details about how this model is adapted, interpreted, and employed
by others:
Forester's adaptation of Simons model sees the constraint in terms of limits to the computational
abilities of the planner: the fact that the planning situation is socially differentiated (involving
different actors with their own interpretations of the situation). The latter constraint makes
satisficing difficult - as planners have to exploit social networks in a form of information gathering
to help inform the decision. A further constraint is that of pluralist conflict: the fact that different
actors have different interests means that the political perspective that informs other's interests
and opinions has to be taken into account. Structural distortions are the fourth constraints on the
decision-making situation and these comprise structural inequalities in power between the actors
in the situation. (p.130)

Simultaneously, incrementalists have their own interpretations of reductionism. Faludi (1973a)

states, for instance,
According to Lindblom, the dominant characteristic of decision-makers in action is that they focus
on increments by which alternatives differ from the status quo. On the whole, decision-makers
therefore restrict consideration of alternatives to those which are not only incremental but for
which they also possess adequate information, thus limiting the range of alternatives from which
their choice. (p.152)

Modernists had, by contrast, their own approach to facilitate the impreciseness of the decisions to
be embraced and justified. Bridge (2005) asserts that the modernist idea of completeness gives
way to an appreciation of the messiness of most socio-physical contexts in which planning
decisions must be made (p.132).
New pragmatists have totally and utterly different interpretation of the cost effectiveness of the
decisions made. For example in Urban Task Force it is stated that The introduction of 'Best

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Value' should enable local authorities to make decisions with their local partners on the basis of
what works best in any given situation, based on comparative evidence on costs and quality
(Great Britain Urban Task Force, & Rogers, 2004, p.118).
In addition to the lack of resources, the importance of structural problems of planning authorities
should be seriously considered:
Some of the delay and inflexibility can be laid at the door of the planning system itself, and the
lack of resources, but much is down to the attitude and approach of local planning authorities,
and a lack of priority status within some local authority decision-making structures.(Great Britain
Urban Task Force, & Rogers, 2004, p.197)

The importance of day-to-day decision making is surprisingly highlighted in works of some

theorists, including Faludi (1987), who writes, Suffice it to say that my criterion of success in
planning is whether it can inform day-to-day decision-making. A plan can inform-and improve
decision-making without being followed during implementation (pp.102-103).
To fill in the gap that exists when a decision system is superimposed on the dimensions of
everyday needs, the rationalists put forward the issue of flexibility. Faludi (1987) explains,
Flexibility refers to the ability to bridge the gap-created by uncertainty-between planning and
operational decision-making; the ability, in other words, to adapt the definition of the decision
situation as we proceed from plan-making to development (p.179).
One of the downfalls in the employment of new approaches to decision making in planning is the
delay, which continues to the present, in applying technology as a social process, despite the fact
that it was first acknowledged as such a relatively long time ago. Although the question of
technology, as Albrechts and Denayer (2001, p.371) suggest, is paramount and although
technology meanwhile has successfully been analyzed as a social process(Bijker et al., 1987), no
serious attempt has yet been made (in planning or in politics) to design a strategy aimed at
democratically politicizing decision making concerning technology (Kirsch, 1995; Van Dijk, 1995).
Pointing out the failure to employ technology as a social process in a more democratic decisionmaking process does not mean that involving people with the aim of improving the level of
participation has been undermined, regardless of how their viewpoints were about to be taken on
board. Jacobs (2002) claims,
A public hearing in a big city is apt to be a curious affair, simultaneously discouraging and
heartening. The ones I know best are held in New York's City Hall, on alternate Thursdays, on
measures that require decision by the citys chief governing body, the Board of Estimate. (p. 418)

Some of those disadvantages may be settled by the attempts to achieve a system in the decision
making. As he also writes, Administrative districts in a big city would promptly begin to act as
political creatures, because they would possess real organs of information, recommendation,
decision, and action. This would be one of the chief advantages of the system (Jacobs, 2002,
p.435).
At the same time, according to Urban Task Force and Rogers (2004, the plans for modernizing
those political creatures seem necessary to elaborate the approaches to decision making tasks:
The Government's current process of modernizing local government includes a number of
positive steps to speed up decision-making, moving away from strict adherence to rigid servicebased committee structures (Great Britain Urban Task Force, & Rogers, 2004, p.153).
But it should always be kept in mind that, despite the public consultations intrinsic merit,
consultation can be abused as a means of rubber-stamping decisions and side-stepping a
genuine debate and full local participation (Great Britain Urban Task Force, & Rogers, 2004,
pp.160-161).

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For those particular cases, there might be some foreseeable remedies that remain subject to trial.
Therefore in Urban Task Force suggests that we recommend using integrated spatial masterplans for area regeneration as a basis for making subsequent planning decisions (Great Britain
Urban Task Force, & Rogers, 2004, p.197).
All those sectional remedies have of course some specifics of human language. As Alexander,
Ishikawa, and Silverstein (1977) explain,
The sequence of the language will guarantee that you will not have to make enormous changes
which cancel out your earlier decisions. Instead, the changes you make will get smaller and
smaller, as you build in more and more patterns, like a series of progressive refinements, until
you finally have a complete design. (Alexander et al., 1977, p. 464)

But Alexander et al. develop no explanation for the logic of the basic reasoning principles
underlying that language.
As briefly addressed before, rationalists still strive, as Faludi (1973a) does here, to explain how
the limitation of a rational approach could be handled and even bypassed if necessary, wherever
it is causing obstruction:
There is a second range of approaches which decision-makers use in coping with their
limitations: they simply suspend rational argument. This is rational for three reasons: firstly, when
a problem cannot be tackled by exercising rational choice, then even the effort of trying to do so
is not only pointless but positively wasteful; secondly, by concentrating planning resources on
what can be planned, the compound chances of success increase, even though parts of the
operation may be left to chance; thirdly, to suspend rational argument in a controlled manner
depends on one's knowing about the problem and which parts one may tackle by using such
argument and which not. It thus represents a rational decision in itself. (pp.113-114)

Yet again giving way to the personal qualities of the decision maker, which are by no means
measurable, rationalists try to justify how decisions can be made in very complicated situations in
which no rational model works. Faludi (1973a) insists, for example, that
as long as the decision-maker is confident that these are well thought out, that they form part of a
strategy and are not mere rules of thumb or, even worse, biased prescriptions masquerading as
technical rules, he need not worry about not investigating the reasons underlying routine
solutions. He should merely be aware of the fact that he has to make compromises, and that
developing, prescribing, and accepting routine solutions to problems is one of the strategies for
obviating limitations on information-handling capacity. (p.110)

Quite to the contrary, the postmodernist accounts of planning, in rejecting any comprehensive
attempts to solve the problems of decision making, try, first, to decentralize the idea of decision
making, second, to reduce the size of plans and areas, and third, to rely on the empirical
deductive method of decision making. These steps are all accompany the values that
postmodernist thinkers emphasize. Therefore, in this era of decision making, as will be discussed
in the chapter analysis, there is an attempt to use a new type of reductionism, limiting the
dimension of human knowledge in decision making.

4.14.2 Emergence of an Alternative Way

A new alternative way in decision making theory is bound to emerge, should the existing
deadlocks be handled in a justified manner. Some attempts have been started but abandoned
halfway through, left unfinished.
Hall (2002a) suggests,
In turn, Webber's view of planningwhich flatly denies the possibility of a stable predictable
future or agreed goalsprovides some of the philosophical underpinnings of the Social Learning

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or New Humanist approach of the 1970s, which stressed the importance of learning systems in
helping cope with a turbulent environment. But finally, this approach divorced itself from logical
positivism, returning to a reliance on personal knowledge which was strangely akin to old-style
blueprint planning; and, as developed by John Friedmann of the University of California at Los
Angeles, it finally resulted in a demand for all political activity to be decomposed into decision by
minute political groups: a return to the anarchist roots of planning, with a vengeance. (p. 366)

Concerns about how the learning process happens in human beings exist among planning
thinkers, some of whom turn their attention to patterns that reportedly have the ability to imitate
human learning abilities.
Faludi (1973a) states,
The last of the planning strategies based on pattern recognition, mixed scanning (Etzioni, 1967,
1968), is the most versatile of the three. Besides being more versatile than routinization and
sequential decision-making, it yields a very important return: a structure within which learning can
occur. (Faludi, 1973a, p. 113)

The importance of negotiation is a key issue but not all that matters for an alternative method.
This is evident because negotiation has been at the center of attention long enough, yet through
negotiation alone, initiating a new method has not been possible. Camagni, Capello and Nijkamp
cite, it means we can avoid, at least partially, the intriguing and probably (theoretically)
unsolvable problem of the representation of future generations at the negotiating table of present
decisions (Heister and Schneider, 1993, Pasek, 1993, cited in Camagni et al., 2001, p. 128).
A new way of decision making requires much more than just one or even all the missing points
already discussed during this chapter. It requires a full new mindset and thinking framework,
which will be discussed in the next chapter. Here just a very general hint about it is given to show
the way forward.
The alternative approach started in other disciplines, where it has been used for over four
decades. Zadeh has pointed, in several papers, to the inability of classical mathematics to deal
with humanistic systems. What has become increasingly clear in recent years is that classical
mathematicsbased as it is on set theories and two-valued logicis much too restrictive and
much too rigid to serve as an effective tool for understanding the behavior of humanistic systems,
that is, systems in which human judgment, perceptions, and emotions play important roles. Such
systems pervade the fields of economics, psychology, sociology, linguistics, management
science, medicine, philosophy, and law, and of many others in which the basic concepts are
fuzzy rather than precise and in which the reasoning is, for the most part, approximate rather
than exact (See Negoita and Ralescu, 1975, Negoita et al., 1978).
In the 1970s and well after fuzzy logic was introduced, formulized, and even utilized to mimic the
human minds learning patterns, thinkers in the urban domain had just started to realize that the
model of the human mind as a learning system [was] now complete. With variations, it has been
used to represent the acquisition of motor and social skills (Argyle, 1967), the process of
cognition (George, 1965, George, 1970), operational thinking (Stachowiak, 1969), complex
defense systems (Stachowiak, 1969, Howland, 1966), and even political decision making
systems (Deutsch, 1966).

4.14.3 Planning Authorities and Decision-Making Actors

There is or should be an actual distinction between planning authorities and decision-making
actors. What distinguishes planning authorities from decision-making actors can be seen as two
factors. First of all, the planning authorities are engaged with normative and discursive notions of
planning as professionals, versus those who are not as familiar with technical terms but are in
fact the actual users of the planning space. Second, the former group is not as diverse as the
latter. Therefore, in planning, who makes the professional decisions ought to differ from who

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makes the decisions overall. In such a situation, the importance of adopting a justified decision
making, as Cullingwoth (1997) states, should be highlighted: Of course, when a plan involves
other people (which it usually does), it must incorporate an acceptable way of reconciling
differences among the participants (Cullingwoth, 1997, p. 6).
This is why this approach is mostly called value-laden planning, planning whose decision-making
processes should follow a rights-based account. Nevertheless, rights-based statements about
decision making have been underpinned by rationality and rational premises that may be ethical
or legal. That is the main reason that the pursuance of rational planning, for example as
Cullingworth cites, raised many concern: We must first exorcize the ghost of rationality, which
haunts the house of public policy (Wildavsky, 1987, p. 25, as cited in Cullingworth, 1997, p. 6).
Therefore, again, decision making stands alone in the middle of a multidimensional and uncertain
stage with many professional and nonprofessional actors. With consideration of this activity in
such an environment, whatever the rational basis, the existence and share of each intervening
party seems undeniably important.

4.14.4 Integrated Decision-Taking and -Making Parties

With the changes in the conceptualization of decision making and decision taking in planning, the
concepts of decision makers and decision takers, like many other aspects of the decision
process, have changed (see the sections planning mode changes and change of decisionmaking model). As was mentioned, in the recent mode of planning, according to the works of socalled postmodernist theorists, the term decision maker needs to be changed to decision-making
parties. However, the planning people who were characterized within postmodern accounts, in
rejecting rational planning, explicitly emphasize only the parties that include interest groups,
individuals or at most advocators.
Yet, in line with the idea of a multiobjective and multijudgment atmosphere of planning, ignorance
of any intervening parties can damage the entire decision-making process. Therefore, it is
important to count the intervening parties so that the decision making can be justified. While
promoting this idea, many (of the postmodernists) have spoken of the necessity of the profession,
its discretion, and the public planning agency, which explicitly implies that rational organizational
requirements are undeniable. Davidoff (1965) explains, for example, In presenting a plea for
plural planning, I do not mean to minimize the importance of the obligation of the public planning
agency (p. 333).
The parties can be the clusters of people who are involved either in planning or in space in an
effective size. The members of the former group are engaged with the idea of space making in
the framework of planning as an activity, and the members of the latter group are those who
benefit from space making or are faced with possible problems.
In this new mode of thought, we need to look at the fact that more groups ought to be involved in
the decision-making and decision-taking processes. These groups can be categorized into six
distinctive ones:

Party One: The planners and planning institutions involved with technical and scientific
aspects, such as ecologists and geographers.

Party Two: The planning people, institutions, and authorities from controlling human
sciences, politics, economics, and law; those who are in the structure of power.

Party Three: The institutions and agencies engaged with additional human sciences,
such as sociology and psychology.

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Party Four: The institutions, agencies, NGOs, and quangos that are mostly involved with
human sciences as nonprofit parties.

Party Five: The groups and businesses that are engaged with the costs and benefits of
the space5 making or that, in some cases, are the proposers of various schemes.

Party Six: The individuals affected by the planning and decisions made.

4.14.5 Additional Explanation

These six parties are usually based on the power structure in which decision-making and
decision-taking parties take part, more or less, in each planning environment. However in a rulebased atmosphere, as will be discussed later, these groups must have their voices, through
various organizations, in all processespolicy making, plan making, and decision making and
takingregardless of the discretion possessed by the dominant structure of power. This means
the voices should be heard based on some factors other than only power. These six parties
perform in different forms in different societies. Based on the fuzzy border of influence, these
parties are typically a cluster of influence whose size depends on the scale as well as type of
plans.

4.15 Justification of Decisions and Decision-Making Compartments

(Justifications Required)
As was discussed, the process of decision making in the built environment includes three distinct
processes.
1. Policy making (setting the targets, goals, and objectives) shows the path as roughly as
necessary.
2. Decision taking results in methods (individual methods or an amalgamation of methods
that can be categorized as physical, normative, or discursive) for achievement of the
plans.
The outcome of these two steps is almost complete plans (by whoever has been involved in
these processes).
3. The third process is making decisions on the plans provided to legitimize them for the
implementation phase. This part involves the final evaluation of the existing plans to be
implemented and the selection of the final option (in the next chapter, see the
explanations under the defuzzification section). However, the final plan is set in a
dynamic system, allowing for modifications based on feedback, rather than having an
end-state plan.
The discussion on the justification of the decisions is the central debate in this part because, if
they are not justified in one or more aspects, the planners, advocators, interest groups, or
individuals can object to them. Therefore, the issue of the justification of both decisions and
decision-making methods has two main parts, first, the justification of the procedure and, second,
the justification of consequences.

Obviously, the word space is not used in its physical sense but refers to every space, in spatial planning sense, made in
the planning sphere.

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4.15.1 The Importance

The much expanded ethical reasoning (such as the moral reasoning for the rightness of equal
opportunities for users of space) on the issue need not be discussed here. It suffices to say that
any decisions should be justified.
Flathman (1996) explains,
Determining justifiable government policy in the face of conflict and diversity is central to the
political order. . . . The much discussed difficulties with the concept [of the public interest] are
difficulties with morals and politics. We are free to abandon the concept but if we do so we simply
have to wrestle with the problems under some other heading. (Flathman, 1966, p. 13)

This reminds us of the importance of the necessity of justification for the probable consequences
of decisions. Otherwise, we should expect a case (or many cases6) to be reported to the courts,
for another striking characteristic of US land use planning [and, hence, decision making in
planning] is its domination by lawyers and the law (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 17).
This is a crucial attribute of the planning system pursued in the democratic political and freemarket economic system, which emphasizes consequences through procedural approach. This
means that the consequence needs to be legitimized through a justified procedure. If there is no
justification for the process, then the law and lawyers are needed to settle the case. However, in
various cases, the utilitarian aspects of the law or the preservation of the individuals freedom and
independencies are the bases for judgment in the procedures.

4.15.2 Procedure Versus Consequences

In Utilitarianism's Bad Breath? A Reevaluation of the Public Interest Justification for Planning,
Heather Campbell and Robert Marshall (2002, pp. 163-187) investigate, from a binary point of
view, the issue of the justification of public interest as a subject central to planning (versus the
method in which consequences are studied and based upon which plans will be justified). In this
paper, the binary contradiction of consequentalist and procedural views towards the justification
of planning is discussed. There, it is claimed that only one of these concepts can be true or
justified (for being the justification of decision making in planning) to be applied. Then the
contradictions (in the traditional sense of epistemology) are examined in order to find the truth.
This paper, like many others, contains a fuzzy notion, which will be completely explained later. It
cannot be clarified with a traditional model of nonfuzzy sets. Even if it is supposed that this
bipolarity can be defined (at least in some notions) and that these two notions are contradictions
of each other (standing on two extremes of the axis of the decision-making mindset), there is no
crisp line between the two. For instance, in the abstract, the writers comment that the purpose of
this article is to explore the public interest justification of planning and whether it has outlived its
usefulness in an increasingly fragmented society (Campbell and Marshall, 2002, p. 163).
This fragmentation as it is expressed is supposed to be based on the public interest against
private and sectional interests (Campbell and Marshall, 2002, p. 163). Although it is evident that
there is no crisp boundary between public interests and private ones (see Cullingworths
comments on interest groups and local interest, 1997, pp. 8-15), the issue of the dominant
interest of the time (Cullingworth, p. 3) reveals the temporal changes of the interests. Then, from
the pragmatic point of view [OR in the pragmatic sense], the generalization of this bipolarity and
the attributed values (in order to find the final truth that would be valid in every condition) cannot
help to clarify the justification at all.

In objection to the California high-speed train path, there were reports of many California court cases brought by local
property owners close to the proposed track in June 2009.

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As a result, the whole idea of a procedural versus consequentalist justification of planning

(beyond which one is completely justified) is not realistic, but practically, there is an
amalgamation of both without a universal advantage of one over the other. Therefore, the
utilitarian view can approximately present the justification in some problems, and the procedural
view (in the deontological sense) can in some others, or even both can be present with different
portions in a single problem.

4.15.3 Justification of the Consequences, the Methodologies, and the Processes

Campbell and Marshall (2002) argue,
Governments [and planning bodies] are expected to justify their actions and it is in this
descriptive sense of defining what is good that it provides a normative standard against which
decisions or policies can be evaluated (p. 165).

In a precise explanation of what is justified for the process of decision making (in planning), three
justifying issues should be considered: first, the justification of consequences; second, the
justification of the procedure through which the decisions are taken and made; and third, the
justification of the methods used to evaluate the consequences and run the procedures (the
methodologies used can be seen that includes reasoning methods such as rational and empirical
accounts).
Since the different definitions of planning stem from what ultimate goal(s) is (are) conceivable for
planningand hence what ultimate goal(s) is (are) plausible for decisions and decision making
the different accounts of planning expect decision-making processes to fulfill their objectives to
be most justifiable. Thus, it can be concluded that the issue of justification is engaged with the
three above objectives. Therefore, a decision-making activity is justified enough and can be
legitimized where and when it contains those three types of justifications, at least to some extent,
but in coalition, rather than separately and in isolation. In other words, what is good can be seen
from different points of view. But to achieve the fulfillment of justification in the decision-making
processes based on what changes, the coalition among these can be defined.
At the same time, as additional points to the practical level of approach, within each type of
justification sought after, some dimensions of qualities such as affordability, feasibility, and so
forth need to be present. This means that the practicability of a decision-making system as a
justification set also needs to be taken into account, unless this discussion were conducted in a
purely theoretical sense. For instance, Allmendinger cites that
Forester (Forester, 1989, p. 5) raises two themes early on in his seminal Planning in the Face of
Power. The first is a question: In a world of poor information and limited time to work on
problems, how are careful analyses of alternative futures possible? (as cited in Allemndinger,
2002, p. 127)

4.15.3.1 Justification of the Consequences

For a long time, one of the most powerful values among human societies has been justice. From
the ancient world to the modern era, this complex value has been interpreted in different ways.
Discussions have been conducted in which pivotal attention has been given to ideas ranging from
the very simple notion of equal opportunity to complex differentiations between desert or merit
or equality or need (See Fowler and Orenstein, 1993, pp. 65-78). Among the massive literature
on the issue, one notion, utilitarianism, has attracted strong interest because of the emphasis on
benefitting the largest numbers of people. According to Fowler and Orenstein (1993),
Quite another pathway [to justify the decisions] to justice is cut by utilitarians. They agree that
justice is what is due to us, but to decide what is due to us, they argue that we must look at the
common good or the greatest good for the largest number. (p. 74)

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The justification of the consequences of the decision-making process in urban planning involves
ethical accounts of planningjustice. When this notion is considered through the utilitarian
school of thought, emphasis is put on the importance of the outcomes of planning and decisions
made in relation to the issue of justification. The main questions are who benefits, where, how,
when, why, and how much. This is the matter of utility or benefit.
The theoretical basis of this approach to justice, along with distributive justice, is one of the most
important methods for evaluating the justification of a civil act, such as decision making.
According to the debates on the issue in a democratic system, the interlinks between the
decision-making processes for human societies, and hence their citizens, that are to be justified
with utilitarian thought are outstanding. This means that the decisions made by planning
authorities or individuals need to meet the utilitarian axioms, though that is not enough to be
justified.

4.15.3.2 Justification of the Processes

In the decision-making processes, meeting the utilitarian prerequisites cannot be enough for a
decision to be justified for at least two reasons. First, utilitarianism, in its narrowest sense of
social justice, can go along with a dictatorship. Decisions made could result in a scientific or
technical dictatorship, therefore undermining the democratic values of human societies. Second,
it is impossible to achieve absolute loyalty to utilitarianism or any other purely theoretical thoughts
in this area. This is seen as a technical difficulty of the calculation of interest groups benefits.
Moreover, some parallel issues, such as affirmative action, add more complexity to this type of
calculation and discussion. Also Cullingworth (1997) writes,
A planner shall seek to expand choice and opportunity for all persons, recognizing a special
responsibility to plan for the needs of disadvantaged groups and persons, and shall urge the
alteration of policies, institutions, and decisions which militate against such objectives. (p. 14)

Consequently, it is necessary to employ a method that emphasizes the justification of the

procedure of choosing and deciding. Among the proceeding models, one that can be of help is
the pluralist model, which emphasizes the procedure of decision making for those (parts of)
decisions that are not calculable in a utilitarian way. The pluralist model can focus on the other
values of public decision making based on democratic values through the concept of the diversity
of justice. Therefore, the opportunity for interest groups to intervene in the decision-making
process can help in the justification of decisions that are supposed to be made for citizens.
However, a pure emphasis on the procedural method of justification can be rejected on the basis
of the citizens lack of knowledge about the technical side of planning. On the other hand, as
Klosterman (2003) argues,
Underlying . . . [the] diversity [of modern industrial context] is an implicit consensus about the
need for public sector planning to perform four vital social functionspromoting the common or
collective interests of the community, considering the external effects of individual and group
action, improving the information base for public and private decision making, and considering
the distributional effects of public and private action. (p. 94)

4.15.3.3 Justification of Methodologies, Axioms, and Knowledge

As was shown, from an ethical point of view, the discussion on the justification of decisions
involves the consequences and procedures of decision making. There are no known ways to
establish a method to prioritize either of the twoconsequences or procedures. On the contrary,
such a nonlinear atmosphere needs to be considered in a dynamic way. Any actual case needs
to be studied from a cost-efficiency point of view and with a degree of certainty about the
knowledge of the plan to be evaluated and decided on by use of both approaches (if we agree
upon that we need these two only).

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But the other important aspect of decision making that needs to be justified is the part related to
the method of decision making. This crucial part of justification deals with epistemological
accounts. The epistemological accounts provide the basis of the knowledge achievement
process in planning and decision making. These accounts, which are usually shaped in dual
systems, have been examined from two different perspectives: first, the method used (rational
versus empirical) and, second, the expansion of knowledge (comprehensive versus incremental).
Cullingwoth (1997) cites, Lindblom (1959) went further, and dismissed rational comprehensive
planning [and, hence, its decision-making method] as an impractical ideal (Cullingworth, 1997, p.
16).
With reference to the discussion carried out in the section Changing the Mode of Planning, the
issues of induction, deduction, and even intuition (which is not widely used yet, for its problematic
epistemologically characteristic) as the basis for knowledge achievement are examined here, as
these are issues with a wide range of implications in decision making.

4.15.3.4 Justification of Logic

In the light of the above comments, based on deontological or nondeontological accounts, either
only one of the two contradictory notions can be justified, or neither of them can; they are either
right or wrong. One can pass the stage of justified true belief, can answer the problem cases,
and can be justified for adopting either consequences or procedures, and, either centralized or
decentralized etc. Thus, based on this logic (classical logic), there is no way to trust both
contradictory methods at the same time. This issue has a strong relation to the logic used in
processes of planning.
On the contrary, with consideration of the multivalued nature of planning, it is evident that, in
some senses, each of the bipolar values can be relatively true. At the same time, in reality, there
is no determined boundary between these bipolar and dual values, and in all cases involved with
human values, both clashing values in a single set with an uncertain amount are true. Thus, the
justification of the above issues has a direct interlink with the logic applied to planning as a whole
and decision making as a process within it. This means that, according to classical logic and
classical sets, which imply that only one true notion can exist, the model cannot be shaped based
on practical reality. It can thus be concluded that the logic applied to the planning decision
making needs to be justified unless it will easily face falsifying cases and the issue of fallibility
turns up. In addition, the disproportion between the logic used within an activity and the nature of
that activity brings the justification of the operation into the action. Therefore, the issue of
employing proportionate logic with the operation is necessary in order to justify an operation.

4.16 Conclusion
There are myths about universal values and benefits in planning and decision making,
respectively, there is myth that cost-and-benefit calculations or ratios are constant or always
equal. Space users costs and benefits are not constant amounts. They change from time to time
and from person to person, for example, with changing ones job or living location. Thus, the
related regulation and rationality for the changing phenomena cannot be based on a calculation
with constant formulations. As a matter of fact, most factors are variables, and their proportions in
spatial planning change all the time.
Planners and planning thinkers, like any other experts, have continued to request certainty. In
their search, they have employed and adjusted their approaches in different pragmatic or even
positivist ways (see, among others, (Etzioni, 1968, Lindblom, 1959, March and Simon, 1958,
Rittel and Webber, 1973, Faludi, 1987) Simon, 1960). Most of the attempts in every aspect of
decision-making processes can be summarized in two points and purposes: first, clarifying the
parts of the decision making from both subjective and objective points of view and, second,

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illustrating the interwoven relationship of the clarified issues with the other parts of decision
making. The former notion establishes the related discussions based on reductionism. The latter
typically is brought about after observing the unsuccessful results of the reductionist method
(including pragmatic, empirical, or rational methods), which is typically attributed to the
complexity and uncertainty of the issue.
Although in the next chapter the roots of and reasons for this problem will be discussed under
Fuzzinesses, here it is worthwhile to point out that the procedures within decision making, like
planning itself, are involved with merely theoretical and unpractical clarifications to achieve
certain bases. It is evident that the proceeding chapter shows that epistemologically justified
decisions cannot be acquired by the assertion of any exclusive sets of methods, values,
institutions, fields, knowledge, or so forth. This part indicates that many variables and parties are
inherently engaged with decision making and that they ought to take a role in this process at the
same time that the other factors are playing their respective roles, each proportionate to its level
of influence. This will happen within the discourse of the available knowledge, while this idea is
far from the comprehensiveness that is an idealist notion.
This inherent differentiation can portray planning decision making as a very sensitive activity in
which complexity and uncertainty are inevitably at play. This also explains that this unique action
differs from what is called decision making in other fields or even private planning. It is a big
mistake to suppose that planning, either physical or intellectual, can be treated in the same way
as a simple business usually is.
Thus, the innate separation between planning decision making and nonplanning decision making
is a crucial issue with which to deal. Otherwise, the wrong or dysfunctional adoption of the
methods applied to nonplanning decision making by or for situations in planning decision-making
situation is imaginable and can lead to unexpected and unpredictable consequences.
Some may tend to attribute the difficulty of planning decision making to the complexity of
planning problems, but one needs to remember that the multiple-actor atmosphere of the built
environment leads to this type of problem. Single-person or vague committee decision-making
faces the serious difficulties of the fuzziness of human language in describing and defining
planning and its compartments, variables, and their relationships.
In an activity with inherent requirements of discretion,
planning is practised at different levels of government where often the local interprets planning
policies formulated nationally and generate local policies and plans. Discretion or choice is
inherent to planning and government throughout the world and allows for some autonomous
interpretation and formulation of theory. (Allmendinger, 2002, pp. 19-20)

There is no way to recognize certain truth or falseness and things are not so clearly one (true or
false) or the other. The fact of the matter is that statements belong, to some degree, to the set of
true and, to some degree, to the set of false statements. Planning is, to some degree,
comprehensive and, to some degree, incremental; to some degree, centralized and, to some
degree decentralized, and so on. Consequently, the statements, theories, claims as well as
decisions can be partially true AND partially false. They can be partially both.

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Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere

and Planning Theory

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning

Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology
Classical and Infinite-Value Logic:
Implications for Decision Making

Analysis

Conclusion

5.1. Introduction
5.2. Classical Logic
5.3. Many (Infinite)-Valued Logics: Epistemological
Similarity to and Differences with Classical
Logic
5.4. Systems theory and Systemic Approach
5.5. Uncertainty and Complexity
5.6. Fuzzy and Crisp Sets
5.7. Fuzzy Logic
5.8. Fuzziness in Planning
5.9. Justification of Operations in Fuzzy
Environments
5.10. Fuzziness of Decision Making
5.11. Defuzzification of Decision Making
5.12. Decisions in a Fuzzy Environment
5.13. Fuzzy Negotiation in Planning Decision
Making
5.14. Paradigm Shift Versus Alternative Way
4.15. Conclusion

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5 Classical and Infinite-Value Logic: Implications for

Decision Making
5.1

Introduction

As discussed before, planning has been facing a series of problems with regard to, rooted in, or
fueled by the decision-making process. Although one of the underlying reasons for a decisionmaking process to be justifiably practicable is uncertainty, the irrefutable correlations between
uncertainty and complexity make the study of the latter an inevitable task, should an effective
strategy be intended to be taken in planning. The paradox, however, begins to form at the very
same moment. The unavoidable principle of decision making, complexity, if it grows
exponentially, becomes the source of the problem. Although some general remedies to cover the
incapability of the established method of thinking of planning, such as systemic remedies, were
partially successful in addressing those deficiencies, the problem was proving so unsolvable that
some thinkers and practitioners assumed it as a type of wicked problem. However, more
optimistically, there seems to be an array of methods to handle those problems, even if they are
not promptly aiming at solving the problem.
Several categorical approaches have been taken to tackle this problem. Those solutions have
been formed either as ramifications of the prevailing way of thinking from which those problems
arose or as partially or totally external solutions. Fuzzy logic is one of the solutions rooted outside
the main paradigm in which those prototypical problems emerged.
This chapter aims to study the nature of the planning and decision-making process and to
investigate the following in a theoretical manner:

Is there a consensus on planning value(s) sets, and can there be absolute values
assigned to the sets?

With plannings multiobjective nature, how can the decision-making aspects come into
coalition? Is this possible by pursuing bivalued logic?

What type of features should an alternative logic have in order to be justified for
application to decision-making cases?

Benefiting from a multivalued logic like fuzzy logic in planning decision making, what
types of implications and challenges will there be for planning decision-making theory?

This chapter will explain the deficiencies of classical logic in answering questions and solving
problems, and will explore alternatives to tackle the problems, generated from using classical
logic. The concept of dualism and reductionism, as those notions came into existence to tackle
the problems, will be scrutinized in planning and decision making, and the chapter will carry out a
comparison between alternatives presented by classical and multivalued logics. The chapter will
also explain the reasons that many-valued and infinite-valued logic, in order to have a justified
decision theory, should be considered as a major concern of decision making, and ought to be
applied to planning.
In addition, a comparison between classical logic and infinite-valued logic (or so-called fuzzy
logic) will be made after definitions are given for binary and infinite-valued phenomena. The types
of fuzziness, which could be addressed in general and in planning in particular, will also be
introduced in this chapter. Concepts such as what the multivalued logics are, and the related
issues, will be examined. The epistemology, roots, ways of reasoning, and applications of both
types of logics will be analyzed. The different milestones, mostly reached in the 20th century, will
be scrutinized, and a well-developed, many-valued logic, namely, fuzzy logic, will be discussed in

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two distinct senses: first, as in fuzzy thinking and, second, as fuzzy logic. In addition, the
possibilities and opportunities given by this logic to the decision-making theory (as a whole and in
planning) will be explored. Finally, in this chapter, analysis and further ideas about fuzzy logics
possible applications in planning will be introduced.
Discussions on logic, both classical and alternative, are rigorously and vigilantly related to
decision and decision making and also to planning theory. As the nature of this part of the
discussion is intrinsically involved with the aforementioned issues, it should be very carefully kept
in mind that the separation of these issues, in a traditional linear way, will have an immense
reverse impact on the research. Nevertheless, to keep the cohesion of the framework, these
issues have been separated into different chapters, but the interrelationships of chapters have
been conveyed in as accurate a way as possible.
Finally, the chapter concludes with how and why this logic may be useful to address the problems
of planning regarding decision making, which will persist otherwise. Needless to say, many fuzzy
scholars have acknowledged this very fact, at least to some extent, and some have even gone to
extremes. Nguyen (2006) asserts, for instance, that
human logic, value-giving, decision-making and reasoning owes its success to the effort of
Aristotle more than that amount that the concept of precision of mathematics owes to his ideas.
Every aforementioned term brought to the highest level of conciseness and abstract. Of course
whether this take place with inspiration of mathematical world or preciseness was a priori to
mathematics is a very crucial issue, but not as important as the existence of the issue. (p. 12)

5.2

Classical Logic

Classical logic,7 or shortly, logic,8 depicts a correct form of reasoning. This is why it is called
formal logic. In this form of logic, the psychological factors of reasoning are not taken into
account, nor is the issue of whether the result complies with the reality. According to this logic,
only when reasoning is correct can a true conclusion be made based on true premises or
accurate evidence. If the premises are known to be correct, using the accurate forms of
reasoning, the consequences can be expected to be true. This is not, however, the whole
account about logic when it involves reasoning in particular, because, forgetting about the virtue
of the logic, the correctness of reasoning is what counts. Regardless of the criticism about formal
logic (and, hence, logical reasoning), reasoning still contributes vastly to the progress of human
knowledge building.
Every philosophical system, whether Eastern or Western, has introduced at least one formal logic
system. In Western philosophy, Aristotleknown as the father of logicis believed to be the first
thinker ever to introduce an accurate reasoning method using a systematic approach in its rather
traditional meaning. Although the history of logic dates back to the 6th century BC in India and
the 4th century BC in China, Aristotelian logic was the most predominant and prevailing
occidental logic until the 19th century.

5.2.1

Types of Logical Reasoning and Their Applications

Reasoning is the process of searching for reasons on which to build hypotheses, beliefs, and
actions. Logic as a method of reasoning means the study of principles and criteria for valid
7

Classical logic is almost equal to formal logic, although some may argue that it is no more than a part of it. Formal logic,
as opposed to its rivals informal logic and symbolic logic, is quite old.
8

During two millennia, classical logic, or formal logic, has so established itself that talking broadly about logic implies
talking about classical logic.

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argument, inference, and demonstration. Basically, there are three methods for logical reasoning,
deduction, induction, and abduction, which are explained below:
Informally, abduction is typically defined as inference to the best explanation (O'Rourke, 1990).
Given a, b, and the rule

R1 : (a

therefore b), then deduction is using the rule and its

preconditions to make a conclusion ( R1 ); induction is learning R1 after seeing

numerous examples of a and b; and abduction is using the postcondition and the rule to assume
that the precondition could explain the postcondition ( R1 ) (Levesque, 1989).
Abduction is not a certain inference and its results must be checked by an inference assessment
operator (Menzies, 1996).

Russo, Miller, Nuseibeh and Kramer (Russo et al., 2000) suggest that abductive techniques are
able to generate explanations for a given property (goal) to be satisfied in a specification.
These techniques have been shown to be particularly suitable for addressing problems such as
diagnosis (Console et al., 1996), planning (Esghsi, 1998), theory update (Console et al., 1994,
Inoue and Sakam, 1995, Kakas and Mancarella, 1990), and knowledge-based software
development (McMillan, 1993).
Although widely condemned by a large number of philosophers, analogy can also be regarded as
a reasoning method. Analogy is an inference or argument from one particular to another
particular despite abduction, deduction, and induction and when at least one of the premises or
the conclusion is general. Analogy is argued to be the core of cognition.
It was argued before that induction and deduction have been used on different occasions by the
mainstream schools of thought in planning. Later in this chapter and in the analysis chapter, the
current research will address how the advocates of one logical reasoning system (as a result of
what has been manifested by their respective movement) have failed to be loyal to that with
which they have defined themselves and have grasped onto ideas of their opponents wherever
needed. Here some general problems that have posed serious challenges to classical logic will
be addressed to provide the proper ground in general to link the issue to the deficiencies with
which planning is inevitably struggling.

5.2.2

Incapability of Classical Logic

Although some problems started emerging in the early 17th century, it was no sooner than the
19th century that the thinkers and philosophers pointed out the deficiencies embedded in the
Aristotelian logic and attempted to introduce other forms of logic either to rectify that of Aristotle
or to establish new infrastructures to support the tools to meet the recent challenges more
expediently. In the 19th century, skepticism about the capabilities of formal logic started with
Kant. To date, at least three different substitutes have been introduced as alternatives to formal
logic: ternary logic (a specific form of the broad branch of multivalued logic), fuzzy logic, and
9
intuitionistic logic. Some, however, support up to half a dozen alternate solutions. For instance,
an account chiefly advocated by Franz Brentano almost declares war on the idea of reasoning as
having logic as its essential forming factor (Brentano, 1995, p. 221).10 He asserts that logic is
more fundamental than the reasoning for which it is supposed to provide an underlying
infrastructure and that there is therefore is no essential relation between logic and argument.
Some more recent modern logicians argue that logic does not serve the purpose of good

By considering dialectic logic, transcendental logic, and modal logic to belong to the category of nonclassical logic, they
would broaden the category. However, in the case of modal logic, which is normally formalized with the principle of the
excluded middle as well as bivalent semantics, this inclusion is disputable.
10
The original book in German was published in 1874 and 1911 under the title of Psychologie vom empirischen
Standpunkte: Von der Klassifikation psychischer Phnomene, published by Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, 2008. The citation
here is based on the 2nd revised edition of its English translation.

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reasoning because it deals with inferences whose formal features of representations are rooted
in those very inferences and, thus, the validity of that logic is in question.
Beside the historic account of more holistic approaches and the non-Western philosophies of the
Far East, some more recent incidents, discoveries, and findings were to challenge rationalism,
the very principle of classical logic and formal reasoning. Copernican heliocentrism, Darwinian
evolution, and the Freudian unconscious, along with the quantum and relativity theories, were
some of the most fundamental challenges of their type for the Aristotelian rationalism. By the late
19th and early 20th centuries, it was obvious that even the most radically avant-garde
reinterpretations of classical logic were hardly able to justify what was being observed in different
branches of science. Not only did this apply to microcosmic sciences, such as molecular
chemistry, particle physics, or the physics of light, but it also posed a serious challenge to
macrocosmic sciences, such as astronomy and astrophysics. Surprisingly, classical logic also
showed an incredible incapability in problem solving in the least expected areas, the humanities.
As a result, there were several alternative solutions; some rose from the ashes of classical logic,
and others started almost from scratch. The systemic was among those that bloomed from the
heritage of the Aristotelian philosophybut not to refine or redefine it, as Cartesianism had tried
to earlier in the 17th century. It used the very principles of rationalism but tried to eliminate
reductionismthe very principle of Cartesianism. Meanwhile, some other accounts, such as
Gestalt (in psychology), dawned in utterly distinct fields of human knowledge, with the same aim
to overcome the problems generated as a result of reductionism.
Other challenges that attacked classical logic and its core ideas of rationalism and formal
reasoning badly were the unpredictability and turbulence in social incidents and natural
phenomena. The occurrence patterns of natural disasters, for instance, were among those
challenges that thinkers tried to address partially or fully by probabilistic and stochastic
approachesfairly new and definitely much more complicated solutions but ones still deeply
rooted in formal logic. At the same time, the nonconformity between the natural languages and
the language of logic (which subsequently had formed the language of mathematics and
sciences) was dramatically undermining the creditability of formal logic, which was inherent to the
restricted nature of the natural languages and was considered by the language philosophers.
Fisher (2000) states,
Logical positivists have claimed that natural languages which use poorly defined terms and
concepts are equivalent to nonsense (Ayer, 1946) but that is to preclude most of the vocabulary
of everyday human language from having meaning. Such an interpretation dismisses the
richness of natural language, and ignores the importance of understanding the vagueness, which
characterizes it. The concept of vagueness can be extended from the vocabulary of every-day
language to that of technical language and to objects in the real world (Sainsbury, 1989, ,
Williamson and Graff, 2002). (Fisher, 2000, p. 8)

These challenges were met by a range of utterly different alternative solutions.

The former one was dealt with by utilizing a completely new notion, namely, complexity (and
consequently, the concept of chaos). Attempts to handle the latter were made with alternative
solutions, approaches, or methods that encouraged classical logic to conform to human language
as a set of symbols as much as possible yet to be able to reflect the underlying structure of
reasoning with the clarity and preciseness targeted by classical logic. Symbolic logic was a
prototypical exemplar of the former attempts. It consists of propositional logic and predicate
logic.11 Symbolic logic was later associated with the introduction of modern mathematics,

11

Propositional logic is a symbolic system in which declarative sentences in the form of propositions are used to depict
knowledge. While propositional logic usually acquires its accuracy through the correctness of the propositions it uses and
relies fully on the external logical relationship between the reasoning units of two or more propositions, we sometimes are
faced with some inductions in which these external relationships between the reasoning units seem not to be fully
functional or applicable. This appears as a direct result of the lack of interplay between the singular proposition and the
general proposition. To resolve this problem, another form of symbolic logic has been introduced as predicate logic. In

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Boolean algebra, and the sets theory. Although symbolic logic and the sets theory were both
great successes in the application of everyday language to the formal sciences, they were both
rooted in formal logic. Therefore, afterwards great problems soon arose again in handling the
everyday problems of human language and informal logic and its reasoning methods and bases.

5.2.2.1 Impreciseness of Human Language

The other generic restraint on prospective certainty is the usage of natural language12 in scientific
descriptions and the knowledge transfer process. We are quite familiar with the
misunderstandings caused by using words, expressions, and sentences in a symbolic, ironic, or
sarcastic meaning as opposed to their conventional, literal or expected meanings. Our
understanding of these meanings is tied to our cultural backgrounds and our personal
communication routines, and understanding varies extensively from one person to another.
Therefore, although we might be able to communicate and understand each other using our
shared human language tools (i.e., common sense, compromise, interpretation, puzzling,
deduction, psychological techniques and tools, etc.), full, collective, and tacit agreement on many
occasions seems to be far beyond reach. In other words, natural language often entails
vagueness and ambiguity (see Figure 3.2). The heap, or sorites, paradox, presented by
Eubulides of Miletus,13 is one of the commonly referred to examples to show vagueness
embedded in natural language. According to this paradox, a mass, for example, a sand heap, is
comprised of an aggregation of its constituents, sand grains or gravel. If a grain of this sand heap
is taken, as the change has not been remarkable, the heap still can be called a heap. Taking
another grain of sand will likewise have no significant influence on the sand heap. This process
will continue to the point at which the sand heap is not a sand heap anymore. But the
questionable part lies in the intermediate occasions when, exactly after a sand grain is removed,
what was a sand heap can no longer be classified as such. In other words, we can never find that
exact sand grain that turns the heap to a nonheap. There are some moments in which the heap
can be understood both as a heap and a nonheap.
This shows that most, if not all, natural language often imply vagueness or ambiguity. The
vagueness may be caused by different degrees or limits of uncertainty that may be attached to
each word or expressionas it was in the heap paradoxor different interpretations of the
meaning of one identical word or expression. In either case, to explain using pure scientific
languages is problematic.
As an example for the second casedifferent interpretations of one definitionone can refer to
two different persons in the same country, one living in southern England (Southampton), the
other living in northern Scotland (Dundee), and both talking about a cloudy day. Both persons, as
they are native English speakers, have a common understanding of the meaning of the word
cloudy, and perhaps any other expressions about the weather. Neither will use cloudy as a
description for a sunny day. Yet it is quite expected that their interpretation of a cloudy day would
be different. In other words, as the person who lives in Dundee has gotten used to heavier cloud
conditions, his or her interpretation of a cloudy day might be a day with 30 percent or more of the
sky covered by clouds. He or she simply would not consider a day with less than 30 percent
cloud coverage a cloudy day. The person from Southampton, by contrast, may consider a much
this, the predicate term is under speculation, trying to increase the flexibility due to interaction between the singular and
general propositions. This is why it is called predicate logic.
12

Known also as human languages or high-level languages.

13

The origins of the heap or sorites paradox have been traced back to Zeno of Elea, but the evidence indicates Eubulides
of Miletus to be the first to utilize the paradox or puzzle. It is not known just what motives Eubulides may have had for
presenting it; the paradox is, however, recognized to be among the most profound of all those known to logicians and
philosophers. Because the paradox is at the center of defining vagueness in philosophy and vague boundaries in logic, it
is also fundamental to an appeal for a formal approach to vagueness in planning (for more information, see the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sorites Paradox entry).

105

smaller amount of cloud coverage in the sky enough to call a day cloudy, as he or she is less
accustomed to cloudy conditions in that part of England.

Figure 5.1. Significance versus precision. Note. From Fuzzy Logic Toolbox for use with MATLAB (users'
manual), by MathWorks, 2006, Natick, MA.

Vagueness or ambiguity in some scientific grounds, in which scientists and researchers tend or
have to maintain an extent of preciseness or clarity, is deemed problematic. Physicists, for
example, when talking about force, space, electrons, and so on, need to be in full agreement
upon the meanings. Hence, to achieve clarity and accuracy and to avoid committing errors and
getting trapped in an unwanted uncertainty, they define their technical and scientific jargon very
clearly. Yet to achieve more preciseness they do not use only natural language but are inclined
also to use another language with very straightforwardand more often one-dimensional
meanings, artificial language.14
While the language mostly came into existence in the 20th century, they all owe their principles to
the people of the early systematic rational reasoning era, the ancient Greeks. These languages
are very widely used in many fields (e.g., mathematics, physics, engineering, etc.) because of
their capability to handle numerical and quantitative methods. Although these languages are
tremendously valuableindispensablethey do not comprehensively include every imaginable
linguistic idea that is innate in natural languages. One of the reasons behind this is that these
straightforward and certain languages usually lose their ability to articulate factual and real-life
experiences that are multilayered. Here a qualitative method with a vague, ambiguous yet
multidimensional nature is needed to respond to complex conundrum. These methods are
effectively helpful in humanities, biology, psychology, sociology, and economics, which are
oblique, implicit, uncertain, and highly dependent on human factors when it comes to
assessment, operational research, and decision making.

5.2.3

Classical Sets Theory

One of the primary aims of symbolic logic in either of its forms, propositional or predicate, was to
help clarify preferences and differentiations. To promote this clarification, another useful tool,
which was born as an offspring of new symbolic logic, is classical sets theory (see Figure 5.1).
Classical sets theory, like propositional logic and predicate logic, is built upon the main idea of
precise differentiation and sharp separation between groups or sets, namely, crisp memberships.
14

Known also as machine language or low-level language.

106

Here, the judgment is clear and straightforward: an element, constituent, or member either
belongs to a set or group or does not. Although in reality the arbitration procedure is not as
simple and straightforward as this, having crisp boundaries is still the fundamental prerequisite
for the classical sets theory.
M

M
A

A
x
x

(Member x belongs to set A)

(Member x does not belong to set A)

Figure 5.2. Classical sets theory: memberships and subsethood.

5.2.3.1 Limitations of Classical Sets Theory

One of the main principles of classical sets theory is the crisp boundaries between different sets,
so the membership function, and hence the epistemological notions of reasoning, are
consequently quite clear (see Figure 5.2). An element either belongs to a set or does not. This
sharp differentiation also exists in classical logic. Each and every statement is either true or
false; there is no third illustration for any statement. But as a matter of fact, not all the
statements and sets in the real world can be explained or defined using these straightforward
rules. For instance, there is no way to define a crisp boundary between tall and short people.
Moving from shortness to tallness is a continuous transition with a blurred borderline in between
rather than an on-and-off situation with a crisp and precise rule. In other words, drawing a very
sharp line between the tall and the short is impossible. In classical sets, if 180 cm is assumed as
the minimum height for the tall set, a person whose height is 179 cm does not belong to this set.
In reality, this 0.55 percent difference is hardly observable, so we assume a person of 179 cm is
tall without any compromise at all.
This crispness is the main constraint both in classical logic and classical set theories that are
made too rigid to fulfill the inherent vagueness and impreciseness of natural languages, in which
a more inclusive yet flexible interpretation is required.

Figure 5.3. Membership in classical sets

107

5.3

Many (Infinite)-Valued Logics: Epistemological Similarity to and

Differences with Classical Logic

Multivalued or many-valued logics are nonclassical logics. In one sense, these kinds of logics are
analogous to classical logic because they comply to principles of truth functionality, the idea that
the truth of a compound sentence is determined by the truth values of its component sentences
(and so remains unaffected when one of its component sentences is replaced by another
sentence with the same truth value). But, in another sense, they differ from classical logic by the
fundamental fact that they do not restrict the number of values of truth to only two: true or false
(right or wrong). They allow for a larger reference set (W set or World set) of truth degrees. This
means that multivalued logics attribute the degree of membership of a statement to a set of
trueness or falseness. This seemingly small difference in interpreting the degree of true or
false leads to a fundamental divergence in the concept of truth. In fact, this difference results
in a new thinking in which the concept of truth itself dissociates from a universal definition.
This means that, in this thinking, truth (as a noun) is not seen as an abstract idea that has no
interconnection with falsehood and untruth. The result of this thought can be seen in the
adjective forms of the words, true versus false. This is what has been translated into the
relativity of truth. However, by contrast, it is the relativity of being true or being false.
Although the relativity of being true or false has already been discussed, it is of the same kind
that multivalued or infinite-valued thinking mentions. For example, in pragmatism, that type of
relativity has the objective-subjective path, meaning that the subjective concept of being true
would be supposed to be related to an exogenous alternation mode, for instance, the changes of
time, person, or situation. These can affect the condition of being true. Those objective influences
can only affect the trueness of a phenomenon, not the entire concept of truth. This, again, means
that finding and searching for the concept of truth is deemed to be a definite idea itself, but the
concept appearances (here, in the concept of true) can alter from case to case, from time to time
and from place to place.
To return to the infinite-valued types of thinking, it can be realized that the path of the
nonclassical thinking is a subjective-objective one. This path, at its epistemological level, contains
a question of truth. In spite of classical thinking, the question here is whether the nature of truth
can intrinsically be a definite concept. Therefore, the grand theory of the existence of either a
single universal truth or a group of truths (under different circumstances) is brought into question.
As the direct outcome of this discussion, it is deemed that certain truth (supposing that there is
any) is a specific concept among infinite concepts that belong to the axis whose one end is truth
and whose other end is untruth or falsehood. Based on this definition of thinking, the related
logical concept is true versus false, hence, the attributes, features, and characteristics of
phenomena, acts, or concepts can be true or false. Now, after having the relativity of the
concepts defined, the logic suggests that we attribute amount or degree of qualities such as
trueness versus falseness (as a quality of evaluation and decision making) to every
phenomenon. At the next lower level, the sets composed of phenomena with different degrees of
membership in the reference set of quality are working within the logic within the larger set of
thinking.
Just as the notion of possible worlds in the semantics of modal logic can be reinterpreted (e.g.,
as moments of time, in the semantics of tense logic or as states, in the semantics of dynamic
logic), there does not exist a standard interpretation of the degrees of truth or, consequently, of
true phenomenon. How they are to be understood depends on the actual field of application and
the environment. It is general usage, however, to assume that there are two particular truth
degrees, usually denoted by 0 and 1 (false and true, respectively), that act like the traditional
truth values falsum and verum.
The formalized languages for systems of many-valued logic follow the two standard patterns for
propositional and predicate logic, respectively. There are propositional variables together with
connectives and (possibly also) truth degree constants in the case of propositional languages.
There are object variables together with predicate symbols, and possibly also object constants

108

and function symbols, as well as quantifiers, connectives, and (possibly also) truth degree
constants in the case of first-order languages (for more details on this section, see the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010, Many-Valued Logic entry).

5.4 Systems Theory and Systemic Approach

The Western scientific method is established based on the principles of classical Aristotelian
philosophy. Before Aristotle, there were some dominant schools of thought, such as those of the
Pythagoreans and Heraclitus in the West or those of Far East philosophies, which can be
accounted for as more holistic philosophies as opposed to the rationalism of Aristotles; however,
they were not of such importance prior to the 20th century. The principles of Aristotelian
philosophy were repeatedly revised and redefined by some modern philosophers. The most
influential rereading of rationalism, however, is believed to have been done by Descartes in 1637
in his treatise Discourse on the Method (full name: Discourse on the Method of Rightly
Conducting the Reason in the Search for Truth in the Sciences).15 It formed the principles of
epistemology, or so-called Cartesianism. This method is basically developed using the idea of
reductionism in which each complex entity or phenomenon can be reduced to the sum of its
forming parts. With this method, study of complex entities or phenomena is made much easier
because, by reducing them to their fundamental parts and studying them, the whole can be
understood.
What Descartes suggested in his rereading of classical logic includes four main principles. The
first principle is not to assume anything as a fact unless it is fully observed and reconnoitered.
With regard to the decision-making process in the rationalist account of planning, this first
principle plays a crucial role and creates one of the most vulnerable Achilles heels of this
account.
The second one is reductionism. It implied that every investigated problem, condition, or
phenomenon can be degraded into its components. It can be easily assumed as a sum of its
elements. Having said that, study, analysis, and improvement of the relatively simpler
components can and will end up with study, analysis, and improvement of the whole entity. This,
as Descartes suggests, can help the observer have a clearer and more sensible vision of the
main problem. Reductionism has been criticized not only in planning but also in the general
philosophy of science as the type of simplification that trades off the state of reality in turn for the
solvability of a complex (or complicated) situation.
The third principle is that order and sequence in furthering investigations is essential in making
positive and sensible progression. Starting from easy bits or procedures and moving to more
complex or complicated ones will help to build up a reasonable knowledge tree. Yet this is not
always the case, especially when speaking about multidisciplinary domains such as planning, in
which a linear process hardly works as it does in pure or applied sciences. In planning, the high
number of involving factors, the complicated relations between them, and the different levels of
those relationships make it almost impossible for this simple Cartesian rule to hold.
The last rule is that in each and every stage, sampling, counting, and calculating (or, in short,
physical measurement) should be carefully sought for, to make sure that no crucial involving
factor (i.e., members or relations) is missing. This last rule also hardly applies in humanities and
social sciences. One of the remedies to handle this problem in those fields of study is to cling to
qualitative methods and try to quantify them. Although the main purpose of this research is not to
15

This seminal writing is also known for the quotation I think; therefore, I am. It is important, however, from other points
of view as well. In this book, for the first time, Descartes challenged the subject of academic skepticism, which was put
forward by Sextus Empiricus in the second century AD and dominated scientific reasoning for over 14 centuries. This
piece of Descartess writing, along with Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy, and Rules for the
Direction of the Mind, formed Cartesianism, or the bases of epistemology.

109

show the incapability of the established methods of gathering and analyzing data, there are many
examples that can prove those methods to be inefficient when challenged by real-world cases
(for more information on the discussion, see Ragin, 2000).
Despite all of the above problems that surfaced after a relatively long time, the new notion of
systems was developed through different branches of human science, mostly in the past six
decades after WWII. Five names are remarkably influential in this field: Karl Ludwig von
Bertalanffy,16 Claude Elwood Shannon,17 Norbert Wiener,18 Warren Sturgis McCulloch,19 and Jay
Wright Forrester20 are the main figures in forming and improving the systems theory.

5.5 Uncertainty and Complexity

There are different definitions for complexity. That is basically because it is rooted in different
disciplinary approaches21 and different types of problems are supposed to be addressed and
solved using it. The formal definitions of complexity fit into two main groups, algorithmic and
organizational, as Stewart (2005) suggests, in writing of definitions of algorithmic complexity,
deriving largely from computer mathematics; and organizational complexity, deriving from the
new biology and a revivified systems theory (Stewart, 2005).
Some other definitions within apparently irrelevant disciplines can be significantly helpful in
casting light onto the notion of complexity for the specific purposes of the current research. The
writing of LaPorte (1975) provides an example: the degree of complexity in organized social
systems . . . is a function of the number of system components . . . , the relative differentiation or
variety of these components . . . , and the degree of interdependence among these components
(La Porte, 1975).
What is really remarkable to bear in mind here is, first of all, the elements (referred to as system
components), second, their variation (variety or differentiation), and last but equally important,
their degree of interdependence. These three will later help this research establish a practical
method to delegate the influential factors, to eliminate those that either originated in more
16

Austro-American scientist and biologist Von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) was one of the founders of the general systems
theory. His individual growth model published in 1934 is still widely used in biological models. He established the Society
for General Systems Research in 1954.
17

Shannon (1916-2001) was, a telecommunication engineer and the founder of information theory, the mathematical
theory of communication, and communication theory of secrecy systems. He contributed widely in finding and developing
systems theory application in applied science and engineering.
18

Wiener (1894-1964), an American theoretical and applied mathematician, is best known as the founder of cybernetics
and has a seminal book on the field, published in 1948. This area formalizes the notion of feedback and is widely used in
control engineering, system control, philosophy, and biology. He worked on ballistics during WWI and then established
similarities between missile behavior and human reactions to environmental stimulators. Through these studies, he also
established close links between mathematics and engineering.
19

McCulloch (1899-1969), widely acknowledged as the father of bionics, was an American neurophysiologist who
developed his research field in relation to mathematics and engineering. He also investigated areas that later helped to
establish (artificial intelligence ( AI) in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
20

American computer engineer and systems theorist, Forrester (b. 1918) was the founder of the system dynamics theory
and investigated and facilitated the use of systemic methods in industry. In collaboration with John F. Collins, mayor of
Boston, he wrote Urban Dynamics, whose social modeling possibilities attracted the attention of urban planners all around
the world. He later met up with members of the Club of Rome to discuss issues around global sustainability. This was
followed by the book World Dynamics, which models the global economy and addresses complex population and
ecological problems.] In 1972, his Limits to Growth spread the systemic methods far beyond several universities in which
it was founded. He has contributed to the further promotion of system dynamics in education ever since.
21

In modern philosophy of science, it is sometimes equal (or very closely related) to catastrophe theory, chaos theory,
information theory, self-organization theory, or hierarchy theory within different science fields (e.g., mathematics, physics,
chemistry, mechanics, control engineering, etc.).

110

significant ones or are entirely or partially dependent on the others, and to weigh or score them in
a respective manner.
The correlation between uncertainty and complexity is a very important point consider with regard
to the current research. There is a bilateral relation between the two. Once one comes along, the
other initiates. How these two affect the process of decision making in planning requires a fresh
look, which is advocated by the current research. Once the level of uncertainty grows, the
complexity of the system in a decision process increases and vice versa. Normally, up to a
certain level and so long as the level of complexity is proportionate to the method (or tool) to
handle it, the uncertainty is manageable using the established methods. Once the complexity of
the system passes a certain level, as a result of growing uncertainty, normal methods are
incapable of handling it, and the auxiliary methods come into the equation, the methods that have
been developed based on classical logic and the underlying philosophy of science.
The current research will argue that this is a valid argument neither generally nor with special
reference to planning and, more specifically, with reference to the decision procedure in planning,
as it is only a limited specific case within a bigger reference set of all possible combinations.
Although the current research needs to build up its methodological approach towards the theory
and provide a rational procedure in building the knowledgeand does sobecause of the
limitation of time and the necessity of narrowing the scope, it will mainly focus on what is
concerned with planning and the decision process in planning. Here, a very brief introduction to
how the two work together and how they contribute in this discussion in a general sense will be
given. Later in this chapter and in the next chapters, more focused attention will be given to the
current researchs subject study with respect to the growing complexity in the decision process in
planning.

5.5.1

Uncertainty of Scale and Measurement

In experimental research, scientists and experts have to examine a situation, monitor a change,
or measure a substance, quantity, or quality to gain higher knowledge about a phenomenon or to
establish a fact. This kind of research and investigation needs great transparency and a high
degree of certainty; otherwise, it will arrive at false or misleading results. Any kind of
measurement-observation (M/O) process needs an M/O tool, an M/O system, and a human
factor to measure or observe. To have an acceptable and satisfactory result, there are different
types of tolerances involved in the M/O process that should be correspondingly met. Apart from
the tolerance that is somehow adapting to the notion of impreciseness and helps to compromise
between precision and applicability, M/O processes are always limited by the restrictions on the
tools and systems. In other words, regardless of the necessity of high precision in an M/O
process, it is limited by the imperfectness of its operators (i.e., tool, system, and the human
factor). For instance, the meter is the international scale for measuring length. In fact, there is no
theoretical restriction on downsizing the scale to measure infinitely small distances or lengths, but
in reality, we cannot exceed some practical levels. The smallest length scientists can measure
today is about one millionth of a meter, or one thousandth of a millimeterremarkably small but
not necessarily small enough, as there are lots of lengths below this limit that need to be
measured, both in nature and manmade products. Even the most precise scales in any
measurement systems, regardless of the degree of accuracy or exactness involved, are
imperfect. Here, then, the issues of error and uncertainty come into the equation, and when
dealing with them, the tolerance design and dimension coordination are inevitable.

5.5.2

Information, Uncertainty, and Complexity

The cure, though, seems to be to increase the level of preciseness. To do so, one of the
solutions is to observe a phenomenon from a closer distance. The closer the observation is, the
more details there are in information, and hence, the more preciseness there is in the
measurement. But as one gets closer to something to measure it more precisely, not only do the
details in the targeted area increase, but some undesired and most likely irrelevant details also

111

become more apparent. This information explosion, and the fact that one usually cannot be
exclusive in the type of information received during the measurement or observation, cause a
multidimensional complexity. On one hand, the linear relation between these measured factors,
usually in pairs, prevents the observation from being capable of eliminating the undesired
collected data and sizing them down to just the relevant data. Omitting apparently irrelevant data
may cause the other information to end up with vagueness or increased unpredictability (one of
the cases that may be regarded as a wicked problem). On the other hand, the uncontrolled
increase in the amount of the involved data causes mayhem and may introduce some false
factors as role players within the observation process although they really are not. This
complexity, which emerges as a result of growth within the data collection process when the
number of involving factors increases, is due to the classical logic system with which humans
have been acquainted for over two millennia. In classical logic, the first attempts to introduce the
uncertainty factor in concordance with complexity resulting from a mass expansion of available
information was made no sooner than the early 20th century, however, when the uncertainty
principle22 was introduced in modern physics.
Before these attempts to introduce and embrace uncertainty as an inevitable but manageable
part of human knowledge, it was long treated as an undesirable problem when dealing with
information. This was because it was understood to have detrimental effects on the decisionmaking process. However, human beings, even before Heisenberg and Born introduced the
uncertainty principles, have always managed to make the most complicated decisions with a lack
of comprehensive knowledge. This has been necessary partially due to the nature of available
information. As Bouchon-Meunier and Yager (1987) assert, An inherent characteristic of the
information available to humans is that it is imperfect in the sense of being incomplete,
uncertain, inconsistent, or otherwise not totally suited to the judgmental task at hand (p. 4).
That humans successfully made such decisions even in the absence of full knowledge and the
desired information can also be understood in relation to the mechanism of the natural human
reasoning system. This systems triangulation capability partly comes from a continuous learning
process. The system also relies partly on its strong capability of comparing a given case with
other identical or similar situations (a process that can be compared to logical abduction but is
not limited to its classical restrictions). And another characteristic that facilitates this approximate
reasoning method is the ability to build up the decision-making process even with some
apparently and logically missing bits.

Although fuzzy logic was basically set to handle uncertainty and its due complexity, the
evolutionary development process that resulted in fuzzy logic, as an alternative mainstream to
the dominant formal logic, contains an inherent historical complexity. An idea highlighted by
Wang, Ruan, and Kerre (2007) illuminates this point: According to Professor Sir G. Elliot Smith,
Invention is not an isolated phenomenon in the history of civilization. Even the simplest advance
represents the interweaving of many threads of knowledge that took centuries or thousands of
years to spin (Wang et al., 2007, p. 1). This fact substantiates the very theorem that no
emergent phenomenon, including fuzzy logic, happens quite independently. Quite to the contrary,
it has been, in fact, the product of the progressive evolution of formal logic, which reached a point
where its conventional bivalued system proved not as useful and operative as it allegedly used to
be for over two millennia. According to Wang, Ruan, and Kerre (2007),

22

Also known as the principle of indeterminacy, this is a principle in quantum physics, put forward by Werner Heisenberg
and Max Born in 1927. It explains a fundamental limit on the precision of the simultaneous measurement of the
momentum and position of a particle at the subatomic level, irrespective of the quality of the measuring tool (i.e., its
measuring tolerance). The result of uncertainty in position and uncertainty in momentum exceeds h/2, where h is
Plancks constant. Thus, precise measurement of the position of a subatomic particle means that the uncertainty in its
momentum will be large, and vice versa.

112

The enormous
T
s complexity of
o the process and the fact that a progresssive development is built on
o
th
he foundations of the accumulated know
wledge of the whole world of
o civilization are fatal to th
he
c
common
opinion that signifficant inventio
ons can be made
m
independ
dently. A casse in point, th
he
s
subject
matter of this volume
e dealing with fuzzy logic is no exception.. (p. 1)

5.5.3

Types off Uncertain

nty

Episte
emologically,, there are
e different taxonomiess regarding uncertainty. Provided
d that
uncerttainty, if studied in the framework
f
of
o risk assesssment, can be considered the source for
dange
er or risk, an
nd the frame
ework will se
et up a grou
und to look at uncertainty from a diifferent
angle. This will bring forward
d the outlined
d differencess between human
h
know
wledge and human
h
ignora
ance; the form
mer results in
i risk, while the latter lea
ads to dange
er, and they are differentt levels
(of implications) of
o uncertaintyy. Although the
t pure natural scientistts Tannert, Elvert,
E
and JJandrig
determ
ministically acknowledge
a
e the involve
ement of pro
obability in the
t
process of the creation of
knowledge or ign
norance (wh
hich is not necessarily the case when
w
the su
ubject of study is
humanities), their approach to
o the issue of
o certainty iss still quite worthwhile.
w
That is becau
use the
igloo of uncertainty,23 as theyy tend to calll it, providess the underlying discuss
sion for the further
develo
opment on th
he theme of vvariation of uncertainty
u
a
and its types (see Figure 5.4).

Fig
igure 5.4. The igloo of uncerta
ainty, Note. Fro
om The Ethics
s of Uncertaintty, 8 (10), p. 893, by (Tannerrt et al.,
2007
7) EMBO Reporrts, Inspired by
y (Faber et al., 1992)

They argue that to

o pin down the
t gaps in knowledge,
k
t type of uncertainty
the
u
s
should
be sig
gnified.
The u
uncertainties based on th
his account are divided into objectiv
ve and subje
ective uncerttainties
(see Figure 5.5). Building up
pon Van Assselt and Ro
otmans (200
02), Tannertt et al. argu
ue that
objecttive uncertaiinty can be subdivided into epistem
mological un
ncertainty, where
w
the gaps in
knowledge can be filled by research,
r
an
nd ontologica
al uncertainty, in which stochastic models
m
domin
nate the tecchnical, social, or biolog
gical fields and cause complexity. In the latte
er, the
23

Tann
nert et al. explain
n open and clossed ignorance/k
knowledge according to the leve
el of adherence to the premisess and
conditio
ons that will lead
d to the creation
n of each, regarrdless of their be
eing created or imposed. For in
nstance, they asssert: If
the cau
use of ignorance
e is a lack of kno
owledge, which cannot be redu
uced owing to sttochastics and the
t randomnesss of the
matter under study, an
nd/or the structure of our cognittive apparatus, it
i is called close
ed ignorance or nesciencean
n
e (Gross, 2007). Closed ignoran
nce also results from rejecting or
o ignoring available knowledge
e, which
absencce of knowledge
we refe
er to as the Galiileo effectinspired by the carrdinal in Bertolt Brechts play Galileo
G
Galilei, who
w refused to lo
ook
through
h a telescope in order not to acccept the knowle
edge that the pla
anets revolve arround the sun.F
For further read
ding,
please refer to TANNE
ERT, C., ELVER
RS, H. D. & JANDRIG, B. 2007.. The Ethics of Uncertainty.
U
EM
MBO Reports, 8, 892-6.

113

compllexity is norrmally chara

acterized by
y nonlinearityy, which ma
akes it impo
ossible to resolve
r
uncerttainty using a deterministic approach
h to reasoning
g (Shrader-F
Frechette, 19
996).

F
Figure 5.5. The taxonomy of uncertainty
u
and
d decisions. Note.
N
From The
e Ethics of Unc
certainty , 8 (1
10), p.
894, by (Tanne
ert et al., 2007) EMBO Reports
s

The ssecond main category off uncertainty

y is subjectivve uncertaintty, which is divided into moral
and ru
ule uncertain
nties. Moral uncertainty,, Tannert et al. argue, involves thosse uncertain
nties in
which no moral ru
ule can apply. The way through here is to step
p back and apply
a
the rules (of
a
to deduce the guidance for the decisions th
hat are to be made.
morality) applicable in levels above
ategory is ru
ule uncertain
nty. Although
h the type of decision strrategy attribu
uted to
The ssecond subca
each of those sub
bcategories iss different, the explanation here failss to clarify th
he two succe
essfully
pection, the two appear to be exacctly the sam
me at the sta
age of
and cclearly. In a closer insp
uncerttainty with different
d
wayys in which the decisions are to be dealt with
h. It is admiissible,
howevver, that whe
ere the uncertainty is dom
minated by th
he lack of orr ambiguity in
n the (moral)) rules,
there should be tw
wo different ways
w
out of the
t problem. In addition to
t applying the same rule
es that
d elsewhere successfullyy, relying on intuition is known
k
to be another solu
ution to
have been applied
the prroblem.
Regarrdless of the
e source of uncertainty, the types of
o decisions, as pointed out in the journal
j
article
e by Tannert et al., are very
v
much the same as the ones app
plied in the decision
d
proccess of
urban planning. Although
A
it might look simplistic, other accou
unts of unce
ertainty with
hin the
p
are definitely worth
w
conside
ering. For in
nstance, wha
at is suggested by
decision-making process
d and Hicklin
ng divide uncertainty witthin decision
n making into
o three different subcate
egories
Friend
(see F
Figure 5.6): uncertainties

s about the working

w
envirronment (UE
E), uncertain
nties about guiding
g
valuess (UV), and uncertaintie
es about rela
ated decision
ns (UR).

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Fig
gure 5.6. Three types of uncerrtainty in decis
sion making. Note.
N
From Plan
nning Under Prressure: The Strategic
S
Choice Apprroach (p. 11), by
b J. K. Friend & A. Hickling, 1987, Oxford, England: Perg
gamon Press.

To invvestigate these methods critically, this

s research will
w focus here
e on two diffe
erent aspects: first,
slight differences in matching
g the given definition wiith what is really
r
dominating the pla
anning
realm as a traditio
on or trend an
nd, second, where
w
the de
efects turn up with regard
d to those de
ecision
strategies taken in
n planning.
ant point is that the pa
aper by Tan
nnert, Elverss, and Jandrig comes from
f
a
The vvery importa
biome
edical contexxt in which the definitio
ons, principle
es, and philo
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er from those
e of a
discipline such as planning. Th
he inherent differences
d
between the two
t
discipline
es in particullar and
wo as repressentatives of pure sciencce and mixed
d science (h
humanities) are
a importan
nt. This
the tw
makess such decision strategie
es hardly dire
ectly applicab
ble in the pla
anning discipline.
That ssaid, the sam
me strategiess are being advocated
a
in planning. Yet there is litttle concern, if any,
about the defects and inefficiencies this co
ould potentially cause. Th
he problem can
c be probe
ed from
some different an
ngles particular to each
h decision category
c
wh
hen it come
es to the de
ecision
strategies being applied in planning.

5
5.5.3.1 Knowledge-Drriven Decisions
Where
e these dec
cisions are prescribed, this very im
mportant poiint should be
b borne in mind:
of the principles of
planniing is not pu
urely science thereby nott only the pursuance of employment
e
knowledge. In oth
her words, what
w
was adv
vocated by the modernists as ration
nal planning has a
very weak
w
ground
d for validatio
on, should planning
p
be handled
h
only
y by pure knowledge-guided or
knowledge-based decisions. Decisions in
nformed by knowledge
k
w apply we
will
ell in experim
mental
sciencces where a set of prea
acquired data
a and prem
mises repeattedly seen as
s acquired, stored,
s
mulled
d over, and generalized information in an estab
blished mann
ner and turned into know
wledge
about a single casse makes the
e decisions very
v
likely to
o be the bestt (or at leastt optimum) solution
to thatt case.

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5.5.3.2 Quasi-Rational Decisions

The problem with a quasi-rational decision (in the case of ontological uncertainty) is that it is
extremely reductionistic, meaning that because of the complexity involved as a result of the
nonlinearity of the process, parts of the information (given or acquired) that are neatly referable,
clearly comprehensible, and reasonably deductable will be used in making the decisions. The
reductionism involved in this method is what has been established as the principle for the
scientific method for over two millennia. The other problem involved is that this method is
normally applied in the fields in which the results cannot be seen in the short term, and by the
time the implications start showing up, the involving and influential factors have changed such
that the same goals, strategies, and principles hardly apply to the decisions to be made. This
does not mean that had any other approach been taken, this response time would have been cut
down. It means only that if some actions cannot be justified based on their consequences, they
should, at least, be defendable based on the procedures they take.

5.5.3.3 Rule-Guided Decisions

It is important to notice carefully that the meaning of the term rule-guided here is nowhere near
what the term rule-based means in many-value or multivalued logics (e.g., fuzzy logic). Here, the
rule-based decision means that the lack of enough information at a particular level requires the
decision maker to refer to the upper levels and deduce the guides for making decisions based on
similar situations. The most important problem with having such a strategy is that in this
taxonomy where the solution involves rule-guided decisions, it is deemed that the guidance,
principles, or rule are deducted from the upper levels. This remedy does not work in humanities
in general and planning in particular. Although some similar cases may be used to deduce the
most viable solutions for similar decision cases, upper levels usually have different dimensions,
different role players, different problems to tackle, and different sets of stakeholders and
beneficiaries. Although same-level experiences might be worth considering, their being extremely
contextual makes their validity vulnerably exposed to reconsideration.

5.5.3.4 Intuition-Guided Decisions

As the name of these decisions indicates, they are made on a purely personal basis and are
based on intuition rather than knowledge. In planning, the rationalists, represented outstandingly
by Faludi, advocate the cases in which the planner makes a decision based on the absolute
belief that what he or she has done is the best action to be taken, to his or her fair and unbiased
personal knowledge. Here, whether it is in biomedical science or planning, the very likely danger
to avoid is that the decision process becomes very personal and the solution is therefore very
difficult to declare as the best possible one or even more difficult to achieve under the same
conditions but by alternative decision-making bodies. This means that the process of
investigation, justification, and defending the course of action in the decision process becomes
very hard to achieve. Furthermore, the issue of how much the intuitive judgment of the individuals
or organizations is under the influence of their knowledge, level of expertise, and their previous
experience is subject to debate, and this defeats the main concept of intuition in the first place.

5.6

Fuzzy and Crisp Sets

As discussed before, crispness is one of the basic characteristics of the classical sets theory.
Wherever intended by sets theory, the boundaries are deemed to be lucid, clear, and
unambiguous. In classical knowledge, crisp sets as a representative of sets theory tend to deal
with the type of problems whose nature lends them to classical scientific problems. In other
words, using classical sets with crisp boundaries is widely acknowledged to be one of the
strategies taken to deal with natural problems rather than arithmetical ones. Studying sets with
crisp boundaries is very worthwhile because it, first of all, provides a platform for having binary

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operations as opposed to arithmetic operation. This, in turn, provides a workable tool to bridge
the gaps between the world of mathematics and the real world. Second, crisp sets and sets
theory in its advanced meaning also have now been widely adopted by different branches in
mathematics, helping them further their areas of focus and their depths of study. Third, the crisp
sets, as per their relation to logic, have offered applied logic opportunities to link with the
semantic web.
Despite all those benefits, crisp sets do not include all the dimensions of the real world. In reality
and in different branches of knowledge, the crisp boundary does not always exist between the
sets involved. Although those clear boundaries can work perfectly in a specific or limited case,
the problems usually occur when it comes to generalization. In other words, the principles of
reductionism are inherently imposed by the limitations of the methods, in which the studied sets
are taken as in specific (and usually limited) cases, and this is to some degree due to the
limitation of the tools in accommodating a real-world reasoning mechanism. The reality is that, in
very limited cases, there are very clearly separated sets with sharp boundaries and with no
ambiguity involved.

5.6.1

Crisp Sets in Planning

Despite existing fuzziness and sets with fuzzy attributes, some look only for crisp and fragmented
sets in every field, and there is no exception with planning. These sets are usually looked at as
reliable sources of clarification. First and foremost, it should be borne in mind that, like any other
discipline, urban planning is faced with impreciseness in all its aspects.
In light of the previous section, however, it can now be concluded that in some aspects of
planning, there is no trace of fuzziness. Nevertheless, this does not mean that even those
specific areas are fully and perfectly safe from ambiguity when they are about to be used by,
applied to, or developed in other stages, applications, or disciplines within planning.

5.6.2

Crispness in Data Gathering

First, in basic quantitative data gathering, fuzziness is not involved. This means that in pure data
gathering stages (and not even data processing, let alone data analysis and other subsequent
stages), when they are purely numerical (i.e., in pure quantitative methods of data gathering), no
fuzziness is entailed. This is evidently because, by the selection of the method, fuzziness has
been intentionally eliminated from the process in the first place. This does not, however, imply
any defect in the process; the process has been structured in this way, and so, the method is
selected accordingly. This concept is relied on with nonlinguistic and nonhuman-based
characteristics. In fact, the quantitative data, where they entail no qualitative analyses and social
intercourses, act as liaisons with the pure numbers and numerical calculations. For instance, as
far as data gathering is concerned with existing factors such as population, crime rate, average
household net area, and growth rate in its absolute meaning, with no interpretation or estimation
involved (i.e., when data gathering is carried out using a census, and not a sampling), the nature
of the activity is binary based. It is very important to recognize that if the methods of data
gathering change or the data-gathering process itself involves a comparisonfor instance,
between the present and the pastthe concept of fuzziness starts emerging.

5.6.3

The Binary-Framed Sets and Values

Second, intrinsically, in simple binary-framed comparisons, there exists no fuzziness. This latter
type of crisp set in the planning discipline, which arises from comparisons and contains linguistic
(merely linguistic rather than any other type of human-based attributes) values, can be used
individually and within framed sets for dual contradictions. Sets with these attributes are very few,
primitive, and of limited or no use or functionality in the planning process. More often than not,
dual comparison, such as whether the population of a city, town, or neighborhood will increase or
decrease over a given time frame in the future, might be of use in planning (the question in such

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a case is not about the population of the given area itself; it is rather about which one is correct,
less or more). This type of comparison is somewhat framed into a binary-coded area of two
values (in extreme like true versus flase) that have no intersection with each other. As long as the
defined sets are so crude and neatly separated, there is no problem in taking them as part of a
nonfuzzy process. But once the quality starts contributing in that duality in a binary-framed
comparison, the duality itself starts vanishing. For instance, if the question changes to whether
the condition of a specific neighborhood will be better- or worse-off in the coming year, the
binarity makes very little sense, if any. This is because the adjectives better-off and worse-off
involve two different aspects, which challenges the apparent duality of the question. First of all,
better (or worse) on its own implies a type of vagueness involved in the meaning. There is no
consensus on better or worse, no matter what the context is. Moreover, and equally importantly,
good and bad, and hence better and worse, as a couple of sets, have some overlaps or
intersections with each other. This means that even in the clearest cases, despite that duality, the
vagueness of assumptions about good/bad or better/worse makes that duality very sketchy. This,
in fact, defeats the idea of duality in its early stage.
The major difference between the above cases of less/more and better/worse is that, although
the first pair is qualitative, it still entails a quantitative set of input data. The latter pair, by contrast,
is qualitative and inherently covers an absolutely qualitative set.
Another example of framed values is the traffic light. The question of whether a traffic light is on
or off relates to a binary-framed system. The question is certainly not whether the color is green
or blue, even though the representatives of a green-category color may well vary from yellowish
green in one country to bluish green in another, or from one traffic light to the other. There is no
question about the greenness as it is categorically separated from red, no matter how red it is. It
is a dual-valued framed set. Even if one points to yellow in considering the relevance of fuzziness
to the traffic light, the discussion will be that adding yellow between green and red is by no
means anywhere near adding fuzziness. The yellow, at best, adds a third value to the definitevalued system of a traffic light, altering a bivalued frame system to a tri-valued one. It cannot be
compared to a many-valued or multivalued system of fuzzy logic in which values are so smoothly
altering that no clear boundary can be recognized between them. At most, the yellow light is only
the transitional stage between the two values, the stage that literally takes no independent valueladen status (except providing information for the next status which is red) of its own and hence
has no credit in the framed value set.

5.7
5.7.1

Fuzzy Logic
Etymology of Fuzzy

In addition to its broad application, fuzzy as an etymological term has appeared to be appealing,
fashionable, and stylish, particularly over the past two decades, in different fields of knowledge
and science. However, its usage does not carry its very technical connotation in all cases. For
instance, in the planning discipline only, and in one of the leading planning journals, Planning
Theory, from the date it was first published until 2009, the term fuzzy has been used in seven
different articles, of which only one, an article that reviews the book Fuzzy Planning (See Roo
and Porter, 2007), denotes what is meant by fuzzy in its technical sense. The other six use fuzzy
in the general sense of unclear or ambiguous. Here, a brief definition of the term, from the
Oxford Dictionary of English, is given to clarify what it means etymologically:
fuzzy
adjective (fuzzier, fuzziest) 1 having a frizzy texture or appearance. 2 indistinct or vague 3
Computing & Logic referring to a form of set theory and logic in which predicates may have
degrees of applicability, rather than simply being true or false. ((Soanes and Stevenson, 2005)

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Alternatively, these definitions for and examples using the adjective are available from the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:
fuzzy adjective
fuzzy /fLzi/
1 if a sound or picture is fuzzy, it is unclear [ blurred]:
Some of the photos were so fuzzy it was hard to tell who was who.
2 unclear or confused [ clear]:
There's a fuzzy line between parents' and schools' responsibilities.
3 covered with soft short hair or fur:
I stroked the kitten's fuzzy back.
4 fuzzy hair is very curly and sticks straight up
fuzzily
adverb
fuzziness noun [uncountable] (Summers, 2003, fuzzy entry)

According to one account, the word fuzzy etymologically dates back to between 1600 and 1700
with the word fussig, meaning loose in Low German.
Taking into account that fuss in (High) German also means foot, the Online Etymology
Dictionary (2010) relates fuzzy to fuzz and defines fuzzs etymological roots in this way:
1601, fusse, first attested in fusball "puff ball of tiny spores," of uncertain origin. Meaning "the
police" is Amer. Eng. 1929, underworld slang, origin and connection to the older word unknown.
Perhaps a variant of fuss, with a notion of "hard to please." Fuzzy is 1616 as "soft, spongy;" 1713
as "covered with fuzz;" 1778 as "blurred;" and 1937 as "imprecise," with ref. to thought, etc.

5.7.2

Logic

The classical philosophy and its logic had been shadowing every piece and aspect of nonbinary
phenomena, thoughts, and logics. This dominance is widely known to be in debt to Aristotle and
his fellow thinkers. As Li (2006) states,
The precision of mathematics owes, to a high extent, its success to the efforts of Aristotle and the
philosophers who preceded him. In their efforts to devise a concise theory of logic, and later
mathematics, the so-called Laws of Thought were posited [1]. One of those, the Law of the
Excluded Middle, states that every proposition must either be True or False. (p. 1)

Despite the existence of a multivalued (or many-valued) way of thinking in other non-Western
philosophies even prior to the blooming of classical thinking, some concerns arose with the dawn
of classical logic in ancient Greece. Li (2006) explains that even when Parminedes proposed the
first version of the Law of the Excluded Middle (around 400 B.C.) there were strong and
immediate objections: for example, Heraclitus proposed that things could be simultaneously True
and not True (p. 1).
Interestingly enough and despite the wide acknowledgement backed by hard evidence to support
the idea that many-valued logic, including fuzzy logic, originated in Eastern schools of thought,
some have claimed, as Li (2006) does here, that it mainly comes from the same context where
classical logic originated: It was Plato who laid the foundation for what would become fuzzy
logic, by indicating that there was a third region (between True and False) where these opposites
appeared (p. 1).
The more recent re-emergence of fuzzy, however, is unanimously agreed upon to have appeared
in Lukasiewiczs works in the early 1900s. Li (2006) provides this background:
it was Lukasiewicz who first proposed a systematic alternative to the bi-valued logic of Aristotle
[2]. In the early 1900s, Lukasiewicz described a three-valued logic, along with the mathematics
to accompany it. The third value he proposed can best be translated as the term possible, and

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he assigned it a numeric value between True and False. Eventually, he proposed an entire notion
and axiomatic system from which he hoped to derive modern mathematics.
Later, he explored, there was no difficulty in deriving an infinite-valued logic. Lukasiewicz felt
that three- and infinite-valued logics were the most intriguing, but he ultimately settled on a fourvalued logic, because it seemed to be the most easily adaptable to the Aristotelian logic. (p. 1)

However, as Li (2006) explains, at the same time, there were other thinkers who were
investigating alternatives for the bivalued system of classical logic:
In about the same time, Knuth proposed a three-valued logic similar to that of Lukasiewicz, from
which he speculated that mathematics would become even more elegant than that in traditional
bi-valued logic. His insight, apparently missed by Lukasiewicz, was to use the integral range [-1,
0, +1] rather than [0, 1, 2]. Nonetheless, this alternative failed to gain acceptance, and has fallen
into relative obscurity. (p. 2)

It should be kept carefully in mind that a three-valued logic, as discussed before, does not
necessarily equate to fuzzy logic. Nor does it validly lay an underlying philosophical infrastructure
on which to base rule-based systems in general and fuzzy logic in particular.
Inspired by pure human reasoning, the notion of establishing nonbinary logics and their sets was
revived and rebranded in the 1960s, when fuzzy logic was first coined by Zadeh. The
background Li (2006) provides about this is also helpful:
It was not until relatively recently that the notion of an infinite-valued logic was brought forward. In
1965, Lotfi A. Zadeh published his seminal work fuzzy sets [3, 4], which described the
mathematics of what is called fuzzy set theory today. This theory proposed a membership
function) or the values False and True) to operate over the range of real numbers [0, 0, 1.0]. New
operations for the calculus of logic were formulated, and showed to be, in principle, a
generalization of classic logic. (Li, 2006, p. 3)

Zadeh himself describes the idea behind fuzzy as approximate reasoning:

It is truism that much of human reasoning is approximate rather than precise in nature. As a case
in point, we reason in approximate terms when we decide on how to cross a traffic intersection,
which route to take a desired destination, how much to bet in poker and what approach to use in
proving a theorem. Indeed, it could be argued, rather convincingly, that one a small fraction of our
thinking could be categorized as precise in either logical or quantitative terms. (Zadeh et al.,
1996, p.238)

He then goes on to discern three different features for fuzzy as a newly introduced logic:
Perhaps the simplest way of characterizing fuzzy logic is to say that it is a logic of approximate
reasoning. As such, it is a logic whose distinguishing features are (i) fuzzy truth-values expressed
in linguistic terms . . . ; (ii) imprecise truth tables; and (iii) rules of inference whose validity is
approximate rather than exact. In these respects, fuzzy logic differs significantly from standard
logical systems ranging from the classical Aristotelian [1] to indicative logics [2] and many-valued
logics with set-valued truth-values [3]. (Zadeh et al., 1996, p.239)

It is significant, but less known, that Zadeh recognized the need for fuzzy mathematics a few
years before he published the seminal paper on fuzzy sets. This recognition, which emerged from
his work on system theory, is expressed, for example, in the following passage from his 1962
paper From Circuit Theory to System Theory:
there is a fairly wide gap between what might be regarded as animate system theorists and
inanimate system theorists at the present time, and it is not at all certain that this gap will be
narrowed, much less closed, in the near future. There are some who feel this gap reflects the
fundamental inadequacy of the conventional mathematics the mathematics of precisely-defined
points, functions, sets, probability measures, etc.for coping with the analysis of biological
systems, and that to deal effectively with such systems, which are generally orders of magnitude

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more complex than a man-made system, we need a radically different kind of mathematics, the
mathematics of fuzzy or cloudy and quantities which are not described in terms of probability
distributions. Indeed, the need for such mathematics is becoming increasingly apparent even in
the realm of inanimate systems, for in most practical cases the a priori data as well as the criteria
by which the performance of a man-made system is judged are far from being precisely specified
or having accurately known probability distributions. (Zadeh et al., 1996, p. 2)

Focusing mainly on the theory and mathematics of fuzzy, Zadeh also addressed other aspects of
fuzzy thinking every now and then in his several articles and papers, as here:
Another important concept recognized by Zadeh in his early papers is the concept of a fuzzy
language. Although he did not develop fuzzy languages beyond their coverage in these four
papers, they were further developed by other researchers and applied to pattern recognition and
other areas. (Zadeh et al., 1996, p. 4)

Other key contributions of Zadeh that most directly relate to the subject area of this research are
his works on fuzzy decision making (FDM). He and his colleagues write,
It is easy to recognize that the important and broad area of fuzzy decision making was initiated by
a key paper, which Lotfi Zadeh co-authored with Richard Bellman. The paper is a rich source of
ideas regarding fuzzy decision making, including fuzzy dynamic programming. Zadeh presented
further ideas concerning fuzzy decision making and fuzzy optimization a few years later in
another paper. (Zadeh et al., 1996, p. 4)

In addition to all different areas that fuzzy thinking may practically cover, more recently, as can be
seen in the following passage, the technical definition of fuzzy logic has started to differentiate
itself from pure philosophical (logical or, best said, theoretical) accounts of fuzzy:
Fuzzy logic has two different meanings. In a narrow sense, fuzzy logic is a logical system, which
is an extension of multivalued logic. But in a wider sense, which is in predominant use today,
fuzzy logic (FL) is almost synonymous with the theory of fuzzy sets, a theory which relates to
classes of objects with unsharp boundaries in which membership is a matter of degree. In this
perspective, fuzzy logic in its narrow sense is a branch of FL. What is important to recognize is
that, even in its narrow sense, the agenda of fuzzy logic is very different both in spirit and
substance from the agendas of traditional multivalued logical systems. (MathWorks, 2006)

The Fuzzy Logic Toolbox users manual gives seven different reasons to use fuzzy logic as an
alternative to classical logic but neither as a rival to it nor as an ultimate remedy:

Fuzzy logic is conceptually easy to understand.

Fuzzy logic is flexible.
Fuzzy logic is tolerant of imprecise data.
Fuzzy logic can model nonlinear functions of arbitrary complexity.
Fuzzy logic can be built on top of the experience of experts.
Fuzzy logic can be blended with conventional control techniques.
Fuzzy logic is based on natural language and semantics dispute. (MathWorks, 2006)

As expected, some of the reasons belong more to the set of reasons than the others do! For
instance, the last reason is the most important one whose membership function in the set of
reasons is very close to 1.
Despite the extensive literature on fuzzy, both at a theoretical level and regarding its practical
application in different fields of science and technology, it seems that the classical deficiency that
led to the materialization of fuzzy is still a justification for complaint for some researchers who
have recently set out to explore fuzzy in some particular disciplines.
Wang, Ruan, and Kerre (2007) mention the issue in psychology that highlights the lack of
attention to the logic and its application in other disciplines too:

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Hence at the very outset, we would like to claim that despite the enormous literature available at
present on fuzzy logic, it just started the study of its very foundations and that important
application field such as the highly relevant discipline of psychology research and its relations is
of particularly lacking (Wang et al., 2007, p. 1).

As was mentioned before, it is very important to bear in mind that fuzzy logic is not in
contradiction with classical logic. Nor does it aim at ignoring it. Quite to the contrary, fuzzy logic is
a step forward that results in the logic of considering the details of values. It is a natural and
expected step in the improvement process of the human reasoning tree, which perhaps should
have been taken far earlier. Fuzzy logic is a tool to bridge the gaps wherever the nature of the
available data is insufficient for other established methods to handle the process of data analysis
correctly and effectively. It is not witchcraft. It is an alternative way of reasoning, considering a
spectrum of values with which we are so familiar in our everyday life and language that we
cannot easily see them. It comes to help where a lack or shortage of data leaves no room for the
established methods but to compromise or cling to estimation or interpretative or predictive
remedies. It is also helpful when a great deal of inconsistency is involved as a result of the
impreciseness of human language, which thrives on a dynamic and ever-progressing learning
process rather than a one-off precise incident in decision making. It may be argued that many
decision-making processes will arrive at a yes/no condition. This might be true in many cases.
But in many other cases, they just seem to be correct. This is because, as acquainted as we are
with the simplicity of the duality of bivalent systems, we like and tend to simplify the process of
decision making to a crippled equivalent in the binary system. In reality, however, we think,
decide, and act in a multivalent manner. In addition to the general reasons to justify fuzzy logic as
a way of thinking that are given later in this chapter, this research sets out to corroborate fuzzy
logic as its core argument for some specific reasons, put forward below.
Planning as a multidisciplinary task involves many factors, role players, and stakeholders, and it
comprises a series of complex interlinks between them. This provides a colorful variation of
solutions. Many alternative and some evidently controversial alternatives may be conceivable
from which choices should be made. Many decisions need to be made during the planning
process to choose from those alternative solutions. These decisions have different dimensions
and by nature consist of many parameters with many values. In many cases, the choice is not
possible simply, and different measures need to be introduced for supporting those decisions.
These measures may (and almost always do) vary in the nature, type, and degree of their input
and output variables and cannot easily be summed up, integrated, or combined to form a single
uniform measure that can replace all those different measures.
This heterogeneity requires a very firm yet flexible contingency plan, should any unforeseen or
unpredicted incident happen. To devise this contingency plan and make it work to the full
satisfaction of all parties involved is very difficult, if possible at all.
Even having a highly responsive contingency plan sometimes does not work. Therefore, when
some unpredicted incident happens, or when the dominant rationale of a decision-making
method simply does not apply or does not work, the other measures should be exploited, usually
from outside of the ongoing process of decision making. The legitimacy of those on-loan
measures is hardly justifiable and remains open to extensive disputes.
In addition to the above specific reasons, there are some general reasons, discussed in the next
section, to employ fuzzy logic in similar cases.

5.7.3

Uncertainty and Fuzzy Logic

In the real world, there are different types of uncertainty, some of which can best be handled by
fuzzy logic. In discussing the prevalence of uncertainty, Nguyen and Walker (2006) raise a
question about fuzzy logic: There are many kinds of uncertainty arising in real-world problems
and a variety of techniques are needed for modeling them. What are some of these techniques,
and when does fuzzy set theory provide appropriate models? (Nguyen and Walker, 2006, p. 11)

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One form of uncertainty arises when there is no sharp boundary between the sets defined. This is
best demonstrated by the example of a man 180 cm tall and the question of whether he belongs
within the set of tall people. Nguyen and Walker (2006) suggest,
Fuzzy sets deal with the type of uncertainty that arises when the boundaries of a class of objects
are not sharply defined. We have seen several examples of such vagueness already: young and
high income, for instance. Membership in such classes is matter of degree rather than certainty
one way or another, and it is specified mathematically by fuzzy sets. (p. 11)

Vagueness or ambiguity is another kind of uncertainty deemed a serious obstacle when trying to
solve a problem or to make a decision using ordinary logic. This is due to the unknown-ness of
some preexisting conditions. Nguyen and Walker (2006) discuss this:
there is uncertainty about any nominal value chosen from that interval for that parameter (Nguyen
and Walker, 2006, p. 11).

Another type of uncertainty caused by unknown contextual conditions can result in randomness.
Randomness usually occurs when the laws about how an incident or combination of incidents
happens are fully or partially unknown. They also state that an example is
that of randomness, as exemplified by the uncertainty of the outcome of some experiment such
as rolling a pair of dice, or of the observations made of some physical system. Randomness is
typically modeled using probability theory. That is, outcomes are assumed to be observations of
random variables and these random variables have distribution laws. These laws may not be
known, of course, but each random variable has a unique one. This is in contrast to the fact that
many different membership functions can be assigned to the same fuzzy concept. Again,
probability and degree of membership are distinct things. (Nguyen and Walker, 2006, p. 11)

In formal logic and sets theory, randomness in its limited (and fairly predictable) sense is usually
handled by the principles of probability. Although these are sometimes called rules, they actually
are nothing but blind principles that provide a fairly wide range of possibilities in which for the
incident to happen. In more complicated cases such as meteorological studies, other patterns or
tools may come to help predict the highest possibilities.
In reality, however, one type of uncertainty will rarely be experienced alone. Quite to the contrary,
two or more types of certainty may exist simultaneously. As Nguyen and Walker (2006) state,
In complicated real-world cases, several types of uncertainty can coexist. For example, to each
population of humans, chosen at random, one might be interested in its morality, its political
spirit; to each town chosen at random, one might be interested in its shape, its beauty and so
on. (Nguyen and Walker, 2006, p. 12)

5.7.4

Theoretical Applications of Fuzzy Logic

Ragin (2000), by providing an ample of application for fuzzy logic, discusses the capabilities of
fuzzy logic in dealing with qualitative sets:
Today, fuzzy has a new usage unrelated to its original meaning of unclear or muddled (Kosko,
1993, Grint, 1997). When applied to a set, it signals that relevant objects can have varying
degrees of membership in the set (Zadeh, 1965). For example, people can have varying degrees
of membership in the set tall; investments can vary in their degree of membership in the set
low-risk. Fuzzy sets are especially useful for categories that are imprecise, like tall or complex
in construction, like low-risk. (p. 1)

The examples below are patterned on the ones Zadeh used in his analysis of fuzzy logic but are
applied to urban planning (and take the form of elementary examples of approximate reasoning
based on Aristotelian syllogism):

123

A1: Most metropolitan areas are disorganized. (Most postmodern theories in planning are loyal to
political accounts.)
A2: Los Angeles is a metropolitan area. (Advocacy is a postmodern theory in planning.)
A3: It is likely that Los Angeles is disorganized. (It is likely that advocacy is loyal to political accounts.)
or

A3 : It is very likely that Los Angeles is disorganized. (It is very likely that advocacy is loyal to political
accounts.)

In this example, both A3 and A3 are admissible approximate consequents of A1 and A2, with the
degree of approximation depending of the terms most, likely, and very as fuzzy subsets of their
respective universes of discourse. For example, assume that most and likely are defined as fuzzy
subsets of the unit intervals by compatibility functions of the form shown in Figure 5.7, and let very be

defined as a modifier that squares the compatibility function of its operand. Then A3 is a better
approximation than A3 to the exact consequent of A1and A2, provided very likely, as a

Figure 5.7. Compatibility functions (not to scale) of most, likely, very likely, unlikely, few, and very unlikely.
Note. Unlikely and likely are symmetric with respect to u=0.5; very likely is the square of likely; and very likely if
the square of unlikely.

Fuzzy of [0,1], is a better approximation than likely to the fuzzy subset most. This is assumed to
be the case in Figure 5.7.
Additional examples of approximate reasoning in fuzzy logic are the following (in which u1 and u2 are
cities).
A1: u1 is big.
A2: u1 and u2 are approximately equal.
A3: u2 is more or less big
or
A1: (u1 is big) is very true.
A2: (u1 and u2 are approximately equal) is very true.
A3: (u2 is more or less big) is true.
The italicized words in these examples represent labels of fuzzy sets. Thus, a fuzzy proposition of
them, u1 is big, represents the assignment of a fuzzy set (or, equivalently, a unary fuzzy relation)
labeled big as a value of u1. Similarly, the fuzzy proposition u1 and u2 are approximately equal
represents the assignment of a binary fuzzy relation approximately equal to the ordered pair (u1, u2).
And the nested fuzzy proposition (u1 is big) is very true represents the assignment of a fuzzy-value
very true to the fuzzy proposition (u1 is big) Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

Naoum (2007, p. 37) identifies two basic types of research strategy, quantitative research and
qualitative research, and asserts that deciding on which strategy to adopt depends on the
purpose of the study and information (at hand and) required. Creswell (2009, p. 3) suggests that
the quantitative and qualitative approaches to research are not polar opposites or dichotomies
of each other, but that they represent different ends of a scale. A third research strategy can also

124

be identified. A combination of the quantitative and qualitative approaches, it is known as the

mixed method (Creswell, 2009, p. 4).
Quantitative research is a method by which a hypothesis or theory is tested by an objective study
of the relationship among variables (Creswell, 2009). The variables may be measured in a
number of ways, but most typically, an instrument is used so that numbered data can be output
and in turn statistically analyzed in order to test and determine the hypotheses or theory. Naoum
(2007) identifies an instance where the quantitative research method could be employed for a
purpose other than to determine a hypothesis or theory. This is simply when facts about a
concept, question, or attribute need to be determined. With regard to social sciences in general
and planning in particular, however, the case of at-hand and required information or data sets is
not as simple as prescribed for or favored by quantitative methods. Many issues in the process of
decision making require more than only pure numerical data, and in a vast number of cases,
obtaining consensus is a way of making decisions, while in many others, discretion plays a
crucial role.
Qualitative research can be described as research that does not obtain its results by statistical
procedures or methods of quantification. Some data may, however, still be quantified, but the
analysis is qualitative (Bouma et al., 1995). Qualitative research allows for the exploration and
understanding of social and human problems through the study of individuals and groups
(Creswell, 2009). Qualitative research is subjective in nature and lends itself to an open method
of investigation, while the quantitative method is objective in nature and ordered. Bouma,
Atkinson, and Dixon (1995, p. 208) summarize the two methods by stating that quantitative
research is structured, logical, measured, and wide, while qualitative research is more (p. 208)
intuitive, subjective, and deep. Although, as per the late account, the qualitative method may be
subjective and intuitive, it might not get as deep in the planning decision process as it can get in
rather more solid subject studies. That said, even being intuitive (especially in the case of
decision making) and being subjective (particularly in nonmeasureable subject areas of
knowledge) are explicitly downturns for the data gathering and data processing of research. With
more detailed focus on the decision process, purely qualitative methods ease the process, yet
they open up an endless and broad way to debate on the validity and equity of the decision made
or taken.
The mixed method is a strategy of inquiry that employs both quantitative and qualitative
approaches. However, the strategy involves not only the employment of both approaches but the
mixing of these two approaches combined with philosophical assumptions (Creswell, 2009).
Rather than there being just a collecting and analyzing of both types of data, the methods are
performed concurrently with one another; the overall strength of the study is then greater than
either qualitative or quantitative research (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007). Quite evidently, a
mixed method has both the weaknesses and strengths of the two strategies, thereby opening
room for discussion on why and to what extent one specific case should lend itself to each
method. Obviously, different parties involved in a decision process in planning can argue for
different combinations of both methods as per their very own costs and benefits. How the two
methods are going to be combined is another, utterly different, subject to scrutinize within the
main subject of the decision process. Traditionally, there is no established method to justify that
combination, and there is no supporting argument or theoretical basis to endorse such a
combination.
The crucial point is that, despite a few recent thinkers who have tried to portray qualitative
methods as fuzzy logic or those who have implied that fuzzy logic is nothing but a rebranding of
qualitative methods, fuzzy is something utterly different from qualitative or quantitative or mixed
methods, as the underlying philosophies of fuzzy and the others differ fundamentally.
The current research will next explain fuzzy as opposed to classical sets, and then fuzzy models
will be contemplated as an alternative to classical research strategies, whether they are
quantitative, qualitative, mixed, or combined.

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5.7.5

Fuzzy Sets

Fuzzy sets have used been with the main aim of tackling the inherent problems of the classical
sets. Ragin (2000) explains,
Most theoretical arguments, as verbal formulations, deal with set-theoretic relationships. Because
fuzzy sets also address set-theoretic relationships, they offer the opportunity for creating a very
close correspondence between theory and data analysis. In short, with fuzzy sets researchers
can analyze evidence in ways that directly reflect their theoretical arguments. (p. 2)

They are theoretically supported by fuzzy logic as an alternative way of thinking to classical logic.
As explained by Zadeh et al. (1996),
Classical logic is like a person who comes to a party dressed in a black suit, a white, starched
shirt, a black tie, shiny shoes, and so forth. And fuzzy logic is a little bit like a person dressed
informally, in jeans, tee shirts, and sneakers. In the past, this informal dress wouldnt have been
acceptable. Today, its other way around. (Zadeh et al., 1996)

To tackle the linguistic fuzziness, the scientific language separates itself from the human
language. In other words, to speak scientifically, one should be accurate and precise where each
and every phenomenon should prove itself either to be or not to be X. In classical sets theory, as
seen before, the same rule exists. Each element either belongs to a set or does not. In the real
world, though, there are statements that are true but only to some degree; simultaneously, they
are false but only to some extent. In other words, they are both true and false, or neither true nor
false, rather than being either true or false. The real-world system is a multivalued system. This
makes a multivalued logic a more suitable tool to deal with real-world problems (see Table 5.1).
Bivalence

Multivalence

Aristotle
A OR not-A

Buddha
A AND not-A

exact

partial

all or none
0 or 1

some degree
continuum between 0 and 1

digital computer (machine)

Fortran (machine language)

neural network (brain)

English (human language)

Bits

fits

Table 5.1. Value systems of classical logic and fuzzy logic. Note. From Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of
Fuzzy Logic, by B. Kosko, 1993

The language of new logic is both/and, as opposed to that of classical logic, which is either/or
(see Figure 1.2). Likewise, in a multivalued-set theory, the membership function is not certain.
The membership function is a matter of degree (see Figure 1.2). Each element belongs to a set
to a certain degree varying between 1 and 0the absolute values of belonging or not belonging
to a classical set. No longer are the values either black or white. They are a spectrum of grays,
ranging from the darkest, or full gray (i.e., black or 1), to the lightest, or nongrey (i.e., white or 0).
No longer do we have the problem encountered in dealing with the issue of the tall set.

126

Two Valued
Logic

Multi Valued
Logic

Figure 5.8. Logical operators in bivalent and multivalent logics.

Ragin (2000) cites a fearless statement from Diesing that highlights the range of capability of
fuzzy sets as: Fuzzy sets [fuzzy logic in its broadest sense] have the potential to transform
research that is oriented toward discovery, toward gaining new insights about the world
(Diesing, 1971, as cited in Ragin, 2000, p. 2).
The vagueness inherited in the natural language has made its way through the very scientific
approaches, not to make them less reliable, but to help them in employing the common sense of
natural language. A word, as Kosko (1993) suggests, stands for a set. The word house, for
instance, stands for many houses, a set of houses, a list of houses, a group or collection of things
but does not depict what is a house or what is not. Terraced, semidetached, detached, castles,
trailers and mobile homes, duplexes, time-share condominiums, teepees, yurts, lean-tos, caves,
tents, and cardboard boxes in alleys are all houses and nonhouses, but each one to a certain
degree, each one to an extent. Expectations blur the boundary between house and nonhouse.
So, A and not-A holds. So, fuzziness holds: the noun house, Kosko (1993) states, stands for a
fuzzy set of houses. He then continues and concludes that the numbers, which he describes as
pure forms, are fuzzy too.

Figure 5.9. Membership in fuzzy sets.

127

With regards to fuzzification and defuzzification processes, with addressing Fuzzy Inference
System (FIS) model, Espinosa, Vandewalle, and Wertz (2004) explain,
Fuzzy set theory can be used in the modeling of systems. The modeling task is carried by socalled Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). Fuzzy Inference Systems are processing units that convert
numerical information into linguistic variables by means of a fuzzification process, process the
linguistic information using rule base and generate a numerical result from the conclusions of the
rules by means of the defuzzification process. (p. 3)

Figure 5.10. Interpolation and surfaces generated with triangular membership functions with overlap different
than . Note. From Fuzzy Logic, Identification and Predictive Control (p. 19), by J. Espinosa, J. Vandewalle, and
V. Wertz, 2004, London: Springer.

However, there are still barriers to acceptance of fuzzy at a higher belief level of the methodical
legitimacy. As Ragin (2000) explains, [in social science research] the main problem is the
dominance of conventional forms of quantitative analysis. While there is nothing wrong with
qualification (Ragin, 2000, p. 2).

5.7.6

Fuzzy Models

Practically every fuzzy system needs to use a model to feed the fuzzy system with information; to
handle, manage, and utilize the systems in the processing procedure; and finally to prepare the
output in a form that can be used in the decision-making or control process. Because fuzzy is
able to manage literally any type of information, different models will be needed.
Fuzzy systems, based on the type of information they are expected to process, fall into two
categories. These two differ in their abilities to embody different types of information. The first
model, the Mamdani model, is the linguistic model and includes rather pure fuzzy rules. Models
of this sort
are based on collections of IF-THEN rules with vague predicates and use fuzzy reasoning. In
these models, fuzzy quantities are associated with linguistic labels, and a fuzzy model is
essentially a qualitative expression of the underlying system. Models of this type form a basis for
qualitative modeling that describes the system behavior by using natural language. (Li, 2006, p.
3)

128

This model is used in fuzzy controllers, and as Li (2006) explains, A corresponding fuzzy logic
controller is a prototypical example of such a linguistic model, in which its rules give a linguistic
expression of the control strategy in the common sense (Li, 2006, p. 3).
The other model is known as the Sugeno model and is capable of combining the linguistic and
mathematical patterns together. In reality, this model is used when a degree of preciseness
needs to be integrated in the process of data processing. Li (2006) adds,
The second category of fuzzy models is based on the Takagi-Sugeno method of reasoning [9,
10, 11]. These models are formed by logical rules that have a fuzzy antecedent part and a
functional consequent. They are combinations of fuzzy and nonfuzzy models. Fuzzy models
based on the Sugeno method of reasoning integrate the ability of linguistic models for qualitative
knowledge representation with great potential for expressing quantitative information. (p. 3)

This model incorporates human learning patterns. He also writes In addition, this type of fuzzy
models permits a relatively easy application of various powerful learning techniques for system
identification from data and controller design (Li, 2006, p. 3).
In addition, the Sugeno model will be useful when linearity itself is combined in some
subdisciplines and a nonlinear discipline will likely be the consequence. As Li (2006) states,
Because of the linear dependence of each rule on the input variables of the underlying system,
the Sugeno method is capable of acting as an interpolating supervisor of multiple linear
controllers that are to be applied, respectively, under different operating conditions of a dynamic
nonlinear system. . . . Similarly, a Sugeno fuzzy system is suited to model nonlinear systems by
interpreting between multiple linear models. (Li, 2006, p. 3)

For example, an airplane may perform differently at different altitudes and speeds. Linear
controllers, which manage the performance of the plane as per different isolated conditions,
though easy to compute, must be interpolated with other controllers, each of which work in
isolation, to guarantee the smooth overall performance of the aircraft.
A Sugeno model is more computationally efficient and hence more compact than a Mamdani
model and normally uses adaptive techniques to build up a fuzzy system.
Here are some of the advantages of the two models:

Mamdani

Sugeno

Intuitive
Easy to use
Has broad applicability

Computationally efficient
Works well with linear techniques
Works well with optimization and adaptive
techniques
Guaranteed continuity of the output surface
Well suited to mathematical analysis

Widespread acceptance
Well suited to human linguistic input

Table 5.2. Mamdani model versus Sugeno model.

5.7.7

Practical Applications of Fuzzy Logic

Li (2006) explains the development of the applications of fuzzy logic as:

Industrial automation and commercial production have successfully been developed worldwide
using fuzzy control. In this regard, Japan has led the way. Its success includes Hitachi automated
train operation of the Sendai subway system that has been in daily operation since 1987. The

129

trains, controlled by fuzzy predictive controllers, consume less electric energy, and ride more
comfortably than the ones controlled by conventional controllers. Another Hitachi product is the
group fuzzy control operation for elevators. The waiting time and ideal time of the elevators are
both reduced during the rush hours; and riding and stopping are smoother. (p. 4)

The most important problem fuzzy is facing in its practical application is the issue of decision
making and/or control. Fuzzy controllers form one of the epitomes of the practical application of
fuzzy logic in the manufacturing industry. Fuzzy controllers are microchips that use the principles
of fuzzy thinking and make the best possible decisions utilizing a fuzzy inference system (FIS),
which is preset in them. Many everyday tools, instruments, and electric and electronic devices,
such as washing machines, refrigerators, microwaves, fans, sound systems, and digital cameras,
use fuzzy logic to improve their performance or the quality of the task to which they are assigned.
Building upon others work, based on what Dubios, Prade and Yager (1993) suggest, Ragin
(2000) explains,
Today, fuzzy sets are used in many different fields and technical arenas to address a variety of
questions and problems, both mundane and abstract (Ross 1995). The range of applications is
ever-expanding, reaching from artificial intelligence to washing machines and the stock market.
Much of the literature on the fuzzy sets is concerned with the problem of controlhow to develop
machines that act smart [rule-based and effective] in the face of ambiguity or complexity [and
uncertainty] (p. 2).

Fuzzy controllers are also widely used in cars. A car can have several fuzzy devices to control
different tasks or to assist the driver to control or operate the vehicle more easily, efficiently,
safely, and conveniently. One system in which a fuzzy controller may be employed in a car is the
suspension system. A shock absorber, for instance, may use a fuzzy controller to build up a
database of the pattern of the road bumps in a vehicles daily, weekly, or monthly routines or
random trips. This database, when sufficiently built up, will be compared, in real time, to the
patterns that have been preprogrammed in the controller by the manufacturer. The chip then
decides about the best possible movement pattern of the shock absorbers, in order to let the tires
move on top of the bumps and fill the gaps properly while moving up and down as the road
changes. This will help the car move as smoothly as possible to give the passengers the subtlest
feeling during their ride. Li (2006) also reports,
In the late 1980s, a real-time fuzzy control drug delivery system was successfully developed and
clinically implemented to regulate blood pressure in postsurgical open-heart patients at cardiac
surgical intensive care units. This is the worlds first real-time fuzzy application in medicine. (p. 4)

Surprisingly enough, in technical fields, even with the lack of human factors, experts have started
to welcome fuzzy, using the human mind reasoning system, and to improve technical decision
making based on what they have learned from this system. To add to this surprise, but in a
contrary way, in planning, a field tightly related to human factors, and where there should be
constant talk of human factors, the thinkers and scholars try to keep safe distance from this
approach. They prefer to use an old-fashioned technical system fully and utterly based on binary
formal logic. Very few, however, who try to take into account the human factors do not seem to
be seeking for generic solutions that offer the most systemic approach to those factors. Some are
simply fascinated by these applications. However, the use of fuzzy sets does not strike close to
home for planners, and their impact on planning and theories in planning has been slight. The
terminology of fuzzy sets does crop up occasionally, and a few scholars have attempted to apply
some preliminary ideas, but for most scholars, the potential of the fuzzy sets to transform
planning methodology is yet to be recognized. Part of the problem is that scholars have
attempted to integrate fuzzy sets into their existing repertoires of methods without altering their
usual practices in any way. In fact, to appreciate the power of fuzzy sets, it is necessary to adopt
a broader understanding of data analysis and its place in the process of planning research, with
special reference to the decision-making process in planning. In addition he asserts,
Fuzzy control is the most successful and active branch of fuzzy system technology, in terms of
both theoretical analysis and practical applications. The primary thrust of this novel control

130

paradigm, created in the early 1970s, was to utilize the knowledge and experience extracted
from a human control operator to intuitively construct controllers so that the resulting controllers
were able to emulate human control behavior to a certain extent. Compared to the traditional
control paradigm, the advantages of the fuzzy control paradigm are twofold. First, a precise
mathematical model of the system to be controlled is not required; second, a satisfactory
nonlinear controller can often be developed empirically without using complicated mathematics
in. (Li 2006, p. 5)

5.7.8

Limit of Influence

The territories interacting with each other and influencing planning or any other real case
problems are not classically isolated. The tradition of investigating involving factors in a
phenomenon separately in a linear method will dismiss or overlook some of the correlations and
falsely magnify some others. As a result, a linear method should be set aside and a nonlinear
method instead should be chosen to have a holistic understanding of the influential factors. The
internal mechanism is rather a multidirectional, multilayered interaction that is to cover the minor
alterations of the role players values and to monitor these changes and reflect them in the whole
system. This also includes the reciprocal reflection of different factors on each other because a
simple increase or decrease in one factor may, and in fact, in most cases will, affect some other
factors on the same systemic level as well as those on higher or lower levels. These relations
may happen to be positive or ascending, which means an increase in one variable will cause an
increase in another, or it will cause a negative change or descent, meaning that an increase will
be reflected with a decrease (see Figure 5.11).

Fuzzy based

Binary based

Figure 5.11. Limit of influence.

5.7.9

Thinking

In addition, the methods of thinking underlying the two thoughts are utterly different (see Figure
1.1). This means that talking about a linear system can be satisfactorily fulfilled by a binary
method of thinking. It consists of limited and separate areas that can slip over each other and
form overimposed layers of relatively connected sets of factors. In a nonlinear method, on the
contrary, any factor may influence other factors or may be influenced by them. This makes any
factor capable of making a freelance plus or minus relation with any other factor. They are not
bound in a predefined set with a series of other factors.

131

Fuzzy based

Binary based
d

F
Figure
5.12. Thinking.

5.7.10
0 Problem
m Seeking and
a
Problem
m Definitio
on
Proble
em seeking follows
f
the same pattern. A problem belongs to a certain area
a, and its inffluence
is limited. In turn
n, it can be influenced limitedly by some and only some other factorss. The
em, therefore
e, should be
e looked forr in a frame of the posssible relation
ns. Nothing out or
proble
beyon
nd the set lim
mits can be imagined or can happen
n. In reality, however, a minor altera
ation in
just one factor may resonate exponentially and affecct the otherss. This magn
nifies the pro
oblem;
ed multiplica
ation of it. Therefore, tra
acking the problem is no
ot as easy as
a it is
there is a repeate
osed to be, and
a the probllem cannot be
b dealt with or cured thrrough a linea
ar problem-seeking
suppo
metho
od.

Fuz
zzy based

Binary based
d

Figurre 5.13. Problem

m seeking.

5.7.11 Problem
m-Solving Methods
M
Proble
em-solving approaches
a
based on classical logiccs binary th
hinking meth
hod function in the
same way. As the
ere are solutio
ons limited to
o the bounda
aries, their effectiveness is limited. A single
remed
dy can, at be
est, be expeccted to provid
de a cure in the very set where it belo
ongs. In mosst realworld cases, despite the veryy complicate
ed nature off a problem and its roo
ots and afterrmaths
where, the re
emedy targetts only the core
c
of the problem whe
ere it is beliieved to belo
ong or
elsew
origina
ate. Tradition
nally, a direcct act of remo
oving the cau
use is unders
stood to reha
abilitate the system
s
complletely. No in--between linking relations or nonphyysical conduc
ct can be tak
ken into acco
ount in
these linear methods. By con
ntrast, in reality, a system
m is a thoroughly harmo
onious and entirely
e
interre
elated set of a number off subsystems
s, elements, and mechan
nisms. If the system appe
ears to
work improperly, an exclusive
e sole solutio
on cannot an
nd will not reconcile
r
the
e situation. Nor
N will
ed investigattion help find or prescribe
e a remedy, for
f that is deceiving or at least mislea
ading.
isolate

132

Figure 5.14. Problem-sollving methods.

5.7.12
2 Conclusion
Simila
arly, the proccess of conccluding in a linear metho
od is restricte
ed to a presccriptiona precise,
one-off, yes/no, do/dont
d
state
ement. By contrast, in re
eality, in ma
any cases, th
here is no sstraight
answe
er for a cerrtain question. A questio
on is ratherr naturally and effectively answered
d by a
spectrrum of answ
wers, varying in a full ran
nge from 0, being
b
an abssolute NO, to
o 1, that is, a total
YES. A series of if/thens implies how any modification in a factor will
w result in a single or multiple
m
ges in the others. What is
i proposed based on th
his thinking iss a proportio
onate decisio
on tool
chang
that has the ability
y to make a decision
d
in re
eality. Having
g had this in reality, one will
w be able to
t offer
a tool that is not a final one-o
off remedy to
o any questio
on that arises during the planning prrocess;
instea
ad, the goal will be to de
evise an ope
en-ended de
ecision tool that
t
can con
ntinue to evo
olve to
improvve the situattion. Being open-ended
o
gives this system the capability of being
b
approa
ached,
modifiied, and tailo
ored by the assessors
a
as time goes on and as the
t circumsta
ances chang
ge or if
this m
method is being used in
i other con
ntexts (i.e., in a planning environm
ment with diifferent
outline
es).

Fuzzy based

Binary based
d

Fig
gure 5.15. Conc
clusion.

5.7.13
3 Generaliization and
d Developm
ment
Finallyy, the devellopment sysstem or generalizing willl happen in
n the same manner. In linear
metho
ods, the gen
neralization happens
h
by developing the same conditions
c
fo
or other oute
er and
seemiingly separatte sets that may
m or may not
n be of the
e same naturre as the ince
eption contexxt. In a
fuzzy rule-based nonlinear me
ethod, which
h resembles very much the real world, the proccess of
d remedies using
u
an exp
panding meth
hod as
generralizing involvves development of the findings and
oppossed to an exttending meth
hod of binaryy-thinking setts.

133

Fuzzy based
Expan
nding

Binary based
Ex
xtending

Figure 5.16.
5
Developm
ment method.

5.8

Fuzzine
ess in Plan
nning

Planning as an ac
ctivity entails an intrinsic fuzziness.
f
W
What
is comm
mitted in plann
ning as a cou
urse of
action
n widely rang
ges from policy to decission and from
m plan to im
mplementation. Above that and
chronologically subsequent to what has be
een carried o
out in plannin
ng as a coursse of action, comes
heorization of
o planning,, which can
n be investiigated from different va
antage poin
nts, as
the th
sugge
ested by diffe
erent plannin
ng thinkers, such
s
as Frie
edmann (See
e Friedmann, 2003b, pp. 7-10).
Fuzzin
ness, as farr as it is co
oncerned witth planning, exists in all different activities
a
with
hin the
planniing discipline
e. Strictly speaking abou
ut fuzziness in
i planning, it may be sc
crutinized fro
om two
differe
ent points of view and the
erefore at two
o distinct levvels.
To de
ecrease the complexity of
o the discusssion, these two levels may
m be asso
ociated with where
planniing is taking place, name
ely, at a practtice level or at
a a theory le
evel.
In pra
actice, plann
ning covers a broad and
d colorful range of differrent activitie
es that need to be
carried
d out at diffferent timess, by differe
ent parties, and with diffferent effeccts, feedbackk, and
productivity. Those activities, which do no
ot occur in any set chron
nological order, include but
b are
not exxcluded to the following: policy makin
ng, decision making,
m
prop
posing plans, evaluation, taking
action
ns, consultan
ncy, impleme
entation, datta collection, analysis, in
nterpretation,, and prioritization.
The ssupposed as
spects of pllanning, as they are tra
aditionally proclaimed
p
by
b the estab
blished
planniing schools of thought
whether the
ey are rational or postmo
odern (empirrical), and whether
w
they a
advocate the
e tool-proced
dure, the pla
an-conseque
ence, or the
e user-client mode of pla
anning
canno
ot be fully an
nd completelyy separated (or compartm
mentalized) from
f
each otther. This is where
fuzzin
ness first com
mes into the equation. Those
T
activities almost always have vague and blurred
b
bound
daries and cannot be fully separated
d from one another.
a
Thiss fuzziness is
i seen not only
o
in
terms of the defin
nitions of tho
ose activitiess; it also occcurs with reg
gard to conssequences each
e
of
as on the oth
hers. For insttance, in alm
most all case
es in planning
g, when a de
ecision
those activities ha
is ma
ade, a plan is provided
d, and imple
ementation is begun, the first min
nor stages of
o that
implem
mentation ha
ave such en
normous efffects back on
o the stage
e of decision
n making th
hat the
decision or even the
t policy ne
eeds to be re
eevaluated, redefined, and reset in order
o
to be able
a
to
retain its validity.
Apart from the bou
undaries and
d the relation
ns between th
he compartm
ments of plan
nning and how they
nintentionallyy affect each
h other at a practice levvel, a given specific are
eafor
purposefully or un
instan
nce, problem
m definition in
n planning
also has so
ome internal fuzziness. A problem iss not a
single
e problem in planning beccause it interracts, resona
ates, or fades as a resultt of interactio
on with

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other problems at the same level and evolves as a result of internal correlations. This same-level
interaction, as well as cross-component interlinks, creates such complex situations that they can
seem hardly solvable. An example is in the case of problem definition, when the planning as a
process is about to begin and the challenges faced can seem insurmountable. In cases like this,
some urban planners and thinkers have put forward the notion of wicked problems, which will be
addressed later on in this section.
In addition to what was said about what occurs at a practical level, fuzziness also subsists in
theories of (or in) planning. Taking theory as what is superimposed over the practice to model it,
to help understand it better, and to provide firm ground for predicting the future in similar or
different cases (by drawing upon and making conclusions from what has happened before),
planning embeds a high level of fuzziness. This fuzziness, however, is slightly different from what
was addressed with respect to the pure practice of planning.
At the theory level, what is deemed a theory in planning or theory of planning traditionally fails to
take into account the fuzziness of the planning and decision making at the practice level. No
matter to which school of thought a theory belongs, reductionism results from simplicity and, to
some extent, the naivety of the theory and its incapability to solve complicated real-world
equations when it attempts to superimpose a pattern over the reality of planning. This ends up in
a failure to link the theory and practice successfully in general and, more specifically, when it
comes to the issue of decision making about controversial subject matters involving uncertainty
and complexity. This is basically because the underlying philosophy of theory and what is going
on in the reality of planning (and to some extent in the practice of planning, even though it is
treated as if it thrives on classical logic) do not comply with each other. At this theory level,
ignoring the internal or cross-component fuzziness of planning practice leads to simple and linear
all-inclusive remedies whose legitimacy lies in their comprehensiveness and capability to respond
to all, forgetting the fact that even one case is so dynamic in itself that passing time, with or
without any action taken in the due course, will change the given context in which the problem
was first recognized, defined, and targeted for solution.
Many thinkers have come across this problem (or what, from their point of view, may be called a
problem, although the current research does not see such an issue as a problem but as an
alternative way of looking at planning in general and the decision process in planning in
particular). Some urban thinkers have even tried to address fuzzy in planning fairly recently. For
example, De Roo and Porter, in their book Fuzzy Planning: The Role of Actors in a Fuzzy
Governance Environment (2007), attempt to address fuzzy as a remedy down in one of the
subcategories of what decision making has to deal with. They discuss the actor-consulting model
(ACM) as a tool to assist in dealing with fuzziness in the decision process of planning with
emphasis on public participation. But what this research argues is that planning as a discipline
and decision making (in its broadest sense) contain fuzziness at their different levels and in their
different aspects. Taking one subcategory only and addressing what has been in practice for
ages as a tool to handle fuzziness is not what examining and orchestrating fuzziness in planning
implies. There are also other relatively inferior problems regarding such new approaches to
planning that address fuzziness that are by no means more important. Even the most radical
critiques on such approaches fail to consider the premises for their dispute.
In a book review of Fuzzy Planning, Briassoulis (2008) asserts,
The planning process is circular (decision-plan-implementation-evaluation-decision). Decision
makers know a priori the types of planning problems and determine a priori the suitable planning
approach, which is real and not a theoretical construct identified ex post. Facts are distinct from
opinions; that is, data are value-free. (Briassoulis, 2008)

Not only does she simply fail to notice that what makes fuzzy distinctive is that it is an alternative
yet more comprehensive logic than classical logic, but what De Roo and Porter do not consider is
that, frequently, the relation between the compartments of planning is nonlinear, or, as Brassoulis
cunningly defines it as the closed cycle of processes in a circular way. The book focuses on

135

user participation, which is merely one aspect of decision making, in the form of ACM down to the
level of detailed decision making and within the framework of sustainability. This down-to-aparticular-level approach cannot apply, through generalization, to the whole decision-making
process. In addition, the very basic premise of a book that claims to advocate fuzziness in
planning has been based on reductionism to limit its scope. From another critical point of view,
although sustainability is a very fashionable selling point, fuzzy is far too complex to need that
kind of spin to be of interest to planners. This brings a very cautious consideration forward as to
whether the book has enough content on its main subject matter (i.e., fuzzy planning) if it needs
to cling to another broad subject such as sustainability.
Quite interestingly and most likely unknowingly, Briassoulis (2008) also picks up on what has
been coded in this research project as fuzziness of planning at the theory level when she
criticizes the authors on their failure to link theoretical and analytical reasoning to define degrees
of complexity practically:
Although central to the books theme, the discussion of fuzziness, complexity and uncertainty
. . . is often loose, incoherent, unclear, confusing, unnecessarily repetitive, based on questionable
assumptions and lacking rigorous theoretical and analytical reasoning. The extensive literature
on complex systems thinking and its application in the social, policy and planning sciences is not
used to define the degree of complexity that serves as an indicator of fuzziness . . . as well as a
measure of uncertainty . . . . Confusion arises as the statement complex planning issues . . .
[should] not be interpreted as the so-called complex systems referred to in complexity theory .
. . is followed by complexity theory is . . . a form of conceptual thinking that embraces fluidity,
fuzziness and uncertainty. (Briassoulis, 2008)

Not only is this the problem of De Roo and Porters text, but it also has existed in the whole
planning discipline for a long time, as there is a big gap between the theory and practice. Several
reasons for failures to link them interactively were discussed before in this section.

5.8.1

Noncrispness of Planning

Apart from the two main very limited domains that were pointed out above, all of the meanings,
definitions, values, methods, and approaches used in or denoted or employed by planning imply
the notion of ambiguity. They each do this to some extent, whether in domain, territory, definition,
understanding, interpretation, or justification. Noncrispness of the sets of values or concepts, a
direct result of the state of ambiguity, implies fuzziness. Fuzziness can occur as an effect, but
regardless of its respective direct or indirect causes. Evidently, how this fuzziness affects
different processes in planning in general and the process of decision making, in particular, is
subject to many different parameters. Attempts have been made to deal with some of these
parameters using established (or to some extent innovative and emergent) approaches to
planning, while other parameters have simply been ignored or treated as though they do not exist
at all.

5.8.2

The Issue of Wicked Problems

Rittel and Webber (1973), in their seminal paper, suggest

If you work in an organization that deals with long-term social, commercial or organizational
policy planning, then you've got wicked problems. You may not call them by this name, but you
know what they are. They are those complex, ever changing societal and organizational planning
problems that you haven't been able to treat with much success, because you haven't even been
able to define and structure them properly. They are messy, devious, and reactive, i.e. they fight
back when you try to "resolve" them. (1973)

The concept of wicked problem was formally introduced by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in
1973. It was then put forward a year later, in Re-designing the Future (Ackoff, 1974), as a
mess and later became a social mess (Horn, 2001). Wicked problems refers to problems
that are difficult or impossible to solve. This might be because of partial, contradictory, or

136

changing information or preconditions of the problem. This might also happen as a result of the
complexity of the interdependency of the involving factors, which might result in altering the
preconditions or the emergence of new problems. Fishman and Cobarrubias, later in 1983, put tamed
problems against wicked problems and describe them as:
Wicked problems in contrast to tame problems are those where the goals of planning are
difficult to establish because of the complex network of cause and effect (Fishman and
Cobarrubias, 1983, p. 338).

Ritchey (2005) cites 10 criteria for wicked problems, as first mentioned by Rittel and Webber in
1973:
Rittel and Webber characterize wicked problems by the following 10 criteria. (It has been pointed
out that some of these criteria are closely related or have a high degree of overlap, and that they
should therefore be condensed into four or five more general criteria. I think that this is a mistake,
and that we should treat these criteria as arising from 10 more or less specifically encountered
"frustrations" the authors have experienced in dealing with complex social planning issues.)
1. There is no definite formulation of a wicked problem.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rules.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false (right-or-wrong), but good or bad (better or
worse).
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity
to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential
solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated
into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another [wicked] problem.
9. The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of
explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
10. [With wicked problems,] the planner has no right to be wrong. (pp. 2-4)

The important point to bear in mind about wicked problems is that they first emerged in social
planning. No longer, however, is the case the same as it first appeared in social planning.
Although it is still almost equally if not more importantly in place, the issue of wicked problems is
driven by pushing planning as an entire discipline to pronounce the significance of working more
on its social side (i.e., involving individuals and communities more in the planning process).
As Fishman and Cobarrubias (1983) assert,
The lack of evolution of the results is related to a number of problems. Perhaps the most
important problem is that the very nature of language and social problems is different from that of
problems of a more technical nature. (p. 338)

Despite all these uncertainties involved, the point is that even in the case of wicked problems,
planners should never give up doing their best to approach the most viable solution to those
problems, and they always can, and should believe that they can, do better. They also add,

Wicked problems have other characteristics: there is no stopping rule, whereas in solving a
problem in a game such as chess the problem-solver knows when he has done his job. But with
wicked problems, there are no criteria to ensure sufficient understanding and no ends to the
causal chain; the planner can always try to do better. (Fishman and Cobarrubias, 1983, p. 339)
Hence, there is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem (Rittel and
Webber, 1973, p.163).

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It is very important to keep in mind that what has been called a wicked problem is the problem
that has been defined on a large scale containing many integrated variables and their relations in
a fuzzy way. This means that these types of problems are engaged with fuzziness in different
senses: fuzziness of goals, locations, intervening fields, and so forth. Therefore, the analyses or
solutions for them cannot be as simple as the title of the problem seems. For instance, How do
we solve the issue of the gangs? is a seemingly simple problem, but this single question has a
very large set with a great deal of fuzziness within it (see the section Type of Fuzziness). And if
those who ask such a question mean, How do we get rid of the issue of gangs, vandalism,
etc.?, there is no final answer or finite prescriptive method for the problem in all cases in its
binary sense. This can be seen as the symbolic certain truth of binary logic in planning, which
has no relation with the nature of the practice of decision making in an urban setting and is
therefore not useful.
The aim of the current research, if the wicked problems are supposed to be the case, is not to
help approach the best possible solution for them or even to discuss whether approaching them
with any defendable strategy is justifiable. Nor is the aim to determine which one of the solutions
is more likely to be the best, as there might or might not be an ultimate solution to any of those
problems. In addition, the ever-changing complex nature of cause and effect in wicked problems
makes any of those solutions subject to a continuous scrutiny to establish their merit. The aim of
this project is to show that devising a solution ought to contain the shares of various decisionmaking parties who were influenced by, and hence, should influence, planning and the built
environment.

5.8.3

The Response of the Planning Discipline

Despite employing the general strategies from case to case, planning as a major discipline with
its own dimensions seems to have its very own responses to the problem of uncertainty where a
decision needs to be taken. Here the authentication and validity of those responses will be
challenged.
Uncertainty, which may (or may not) lead to acknowledgment of the notion of fuzziness in
planning, has different levels of application in planning. De Meyer, Loch, and Pich (2002) classify
uncertainty in four different types, based on which the current research addresses the planners
role, planning tasks, and planning relations.
Type (Level) of
uncertainty

City planners role

Planning tasks

Planning relations

Variation

Trouble-shooter and
expeditor

Simulate scenarios,
incest buffers; set control
limits; monitor deviation

Identify, communicate,
and monitor performance
criteria

Foreseen
uncertainty

Consolidator of planning
achievements

Anticipate alternative
paths to project goal;
identify foreseen risks

Increase the awareness

for changes in form and
motive

Unforeseen
uncertainty

Be flexible in orchestration
and networking as well
as in being an ambassador

Build in flexibility; plan

iteratively

Mobilize new partners;

maintain flexible
relationships and strong
communication

Chaos
(incremental
learning)

Entrepreneur and
knowledge manager

Gradually select final

approach; verify goals on
the basis of learning

Build long-term
relationships; replace
contracts with
partnerships; solicit direct
and constant feedback
from markets

Table 5.3. Characterizing uncertainty in planning. Inspired by Managing Project Uncertainty, by A. de

Meyer, C. H. Loch, & M. T. Pich, 2002, Sloan Management Review, 43

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The most notable finding regarding this classification is that, despite its invaluable classification of
uncertainty (which may indicate the level of complexity), and despite how it admits to the
importance of communication, awareness, relationships, networking, and monitoring between
different parties, no firm ground is provided to make sure that a defendable and methodologically
justifiable solution will be guaranteed. In other words, despite the good start to address the issue
of uncertainty (and complexity) in planning, no further attempt has been made to
epistemologically carry on the problem to the next level for problem solving. The tasks and the
relations defined could have provided a good support for carrying the subject of uncertainty into
the stage at which fuzzy as a tool that embraces uncertainty, builds upon it, and develops
solutions based on it could have been approached.
Besides the account of uncertainty by De Meyer et al., which remains to some extent
epistemologically inconclusive, other thinkers have also acknowledged uncertainty widely across
the planning discipline for a long time. This has been known to be due partially to a lack or
explosion of information (a full account of this argument has been given in the earlier decisionmaking chapter). More detailed discussion can be made when the goals and the approaches to
those goals are separated in planning based on the level of the decision makers
acquaintanceship with them. Christensen (1985, p. 67) discusses four possible combinations of
factors in situations: well-understood technology and agreed-upon goals (which is when
optimization is called for), unknown technology but still agreed-upon goals, well-understood
technology but no consensus, and finally, what she calls problematic knowledge and no
consensus. Christensen (1985) suggests,
Instead of trying to predict as many consequences of a potential action as possible, the planner
acts first and then waits to see what consequences actually occur. If they are acceptable, then
the action is deemed workable and may be repeated. If the consequences are unacceptable, the
planner tries a new variation. . . . Over time, this process tends to generate knowledge of
workable means and thus reduces uncertainty. In this incremental, adaptive process, the planner
is a pragmatist and adjuster. (p. 67)

Faludi summarizes Christensens suggested approaches for each combination that may occur.
Under planning for unknown technology and agreed-upon goals, Christensen envisages a "trialand-error" and a "planning-as-learning" approach. The former is the opposite of the classic
rational response to uncertainty (Faludi, 1987, p. 106).
The model suggested by Christensen can be perceived as one of the basic specifications of the
human reasoning systemlearning by doing and learning from experiencewhich forms one of
the underlying bases of fuzzy logic. However, no direct reference has ever been made to the
human learning process or fuzzy logic; instead, the emphasis has been put on classical
rationality in handling uncertainty (which requires a selective reductionism as per the given
premises and is very much dependent on the individual personality, preferences, dimensions, or
knowledge of the decision maker).
Faludi (1987) goes on exploring Christensens next proclaimed approach:
As regards uncertainty caused by lack of consensus, Christensen quotes Davidoff (1965) and
Friedmann (1973), the latter for his emphasis on the interpersonal dimension of decision-making.
A second approach "derives from a more scientific tradition that tries to discover means more
self-consciously. . . . (It) treats uncertainty . . . with conscious experimentation." (Christensen,
1985, p. 67, quoted in Faludi, 1987, pp. 106-107)

Following the discussion, Faludi builds on Christensens ideas to address the last combination as
the most complicated case. The remedy, however, as it is couched in her book, remains an
approach that is not defendable for the decision-making process. What is important here is that, if
she had incorporated fuzzy logic, her remedy could have been justified much more easily than
one that tries to fuse a classical rationale to it where there seems to be little, if any, solid ground
upon which to build the discussion. Christensen states,

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Planning for unknown technology and unknown goals [(Rittel and Webber's wicked problems)]
presents the greatest challenge. It asks for compelling formulations so as to provide stable
motivation for resolving problems. This may come from a single planner or from an interactive
process. Such problem finding . . . may require planners and participants to reformulate the
problem: casting the problem in a new light so that people can agree that it is the right problem to
tackle. To do that planners need insight both into the nature of problems and into political forces
to ensure that participants agree as to what the problem is. When reformulation is successful, it
reduces uncertainty about goals and simplifies conditions so that planners and participants can
focus on technical aspects of how to solve the problem. (Christensen, 1985, p. 68)

Faludi then addresses another dimension of uncertainty as a result:

One is reminded of Harris's disagreement with Scott and Roweis. Harris would regard this
problem-finding as a political task. Be this as it may, if successful, problem-finding thrusts us into
the area where only the means are uncertain in. (Faludi, 1987, p. 107)

Complication seems to have had its bearing on the planning discipline, where it has finally been
shown a green light to take reductionism on board, something that has been approached in other
disciplines more cautiously and more consciously. Alternatively, Christensen (1985) writes,
problem finding may require planners and participants to sift through and articulate confused,
vague goals to show how debate could focus on competing goals that already have effective
technologies. This way the problem is articulated as conflict (Christensen, 1985, p. 68).
Faludi (1987) then examines her fourth combination and compares it to what was advocated by
IOR:
With her strategies fitting different situations, Christensen takes in effect the contingency
approach. In attending to uncertainties she follows the line also of the "IOR School". But,
neglecting uncertainties caused by the interrelatedness of various areas of choice, she does not
specifically address what Friend and Jessop identify as strategic choice, or planning. Rather, her
argument concerns problem-solving generally. . . . So the parallels to the "IOR School" in the
literature concern adaptations of the concept of planning, and the rejection of the rational
planning model. But that model is not based (a) on the assumption of there being certain
knowledge; (b) nor on that of a pre-existing consensus. Like the "IOR School", the authors
quoted do not seem to appreciate this point. (Faludi, 1987, p. 107)

With no intention to undermine the complexity of the subject matter, and of course with no
intention to imply that fuzzy is a simplistic alternative, the current research asserts that easier
ways can be deemed viable in addressing the problems. There seems no stamina left to deal
with the problems practically, as recognition and portraying them take too much effort to be done
on a wider bases. New theories, therefore, may be assumed to emerge much more frequently.
Faludi also detects,
They have one other thing in common. Their approach represents what Rittel and Webber (1973)
have already been quoted as describing as approaches of the "second generation", relying on
argumentation. Rafter (1983), quoting Wildavsky (1979) and Lindblom and Cohen (1979),
describes it as a revised theory of policy analysis. It employs interactive methods (e.g.
bargaining) and bases solutions on the "ordinary knowledge" of decision-makers instead of the
scientific knowledge of experts. "In other words, policy relevancy, social interaction, and
qualitative data are key features of the 'new theory' of public policy analysis." (Faludi, 1987, p.
367)

This does not end here with new theories emerging every now and then but with claims for the
alternative logic and thinking to have happened or have commenced at a faster pace than ever.
This will be addressed later in this chapter.

5.8.4

An Example

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Whether or not current approaches to planning admit this, they are utilizing what is conveniently
used by normal language to describe and segregate the vague boundaries of the overlapping
sets of values to carry out different tasks in their course of action.
Even those bodies who advocate quantitative methods, in many cases, have to use qualitative
methods to be able to illustrate and justify their action. This issue is not brought forward so long
as those qualities are quantifiable using ordinary methods of qualitative approaches. In reality,
however, in many cases, the problems they are facing are far beyond what is manageable by the
ordinary quantifying methods, and by no means could a defendable justification be given for
them, even by the most qualitative methods. The blurred boundaries between the values and
definitions can be handled only by what is advocated by fuzzy sets, by applying fuzzy logic and
fuzzy thinking.
For instance, the ordinal data on Geographic Information System (GIS) in general and specifically
on what the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON) uses in their definition for
mapping overall accessibility and its relation to economic performance of different locations
embed a high degree of ambiguity that cannot be dealt with by any means but a rule-based,
many-value approach (i.e., fuzzy) (see Figure 5.17). In other words, even if they start advocating
rationalism, which builds up its bases on the pure quantitative methods, they are dragged into
embracing qualitative methods. Nevertheless, even using those methods, they admittedly cannot
provide a firm ground for their acts because the level of vagueness (not in the sense of
disapproval but as a fact) is far beyond being manageable even by the most radical qualitative
methods. In fact, they can be dealt with only using the notions of fuzzy logic. They did not at first
acknowledge their need for and dependence on qualitative methods but then went on use and
stick to them to further their queries.

Figure 5.17. Accessibility versus economic performances. Note. From Transport services and networks:
Territorial trends and basic supply of infrastructure for territorial cohesion (Final report) (p. 22), ESPON 1.2.1,
2004, Tours, France: University of Tours

141

In the given example, these agencies use the following to define different levels of performance
in relation to locations within Europe:

Strong underperformance
Clear underperformance
Underperformance
Little underperformance
Little overperformance
Overperformance
Clear overperformance
Strong overperformance

By no means is a bivalued logic able to draw a clear line between any two of the above sets.
Although ESPON, like many other planning organizations do, dramatically try to stick to the
quantitative analyses (for more information, see the full report) , but the truth is that not only there
are many qualitative cases of inquiry in planning, but, after data mapping stage, the work should
be mostly followed by using qualitative analysis. Quite expectedly, ESPON is not the first or the
only planning body to do so. In fact, they are heirs apparent of a long-lasting legacy in planning.
The importance of their failure is that, unlike many of their predecessors, they belong to a
generation in which the call for change is almost a common outcry, as a result of problems
initiated by the established methods of planning.

5.8.5

Fuzziness

Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic were initiated by a general notion of fuzziness applied to the existing
concepts in the sets theory and in formal logic. Li (2006) writes, Zadehs proposal of modeling
then numbers, led to the introduction of fuzziness into systems theory and to the development of
a new class of mathematical systems called fuzzy systems (p. 6).
Quite evidently, there is a need to make this connection and the data transition between the two
mainstreams work. There might be some personal understandings even between the fuzzists
about the notion and how it relates to the prevailing paradigm. Yet, as Zadeh has recognized on
various occasions and in different papers, a fuzzy logic, FL, may be viewed, in part, as a fuzzy
extension of a nonfuzzy multi-valued logic which constitutes a base logic for FL (Zadeh et al.,
1996, pp. 240-241).
Other most recent thinkers seem to have gone too far, as Li (2006) does here: we shall refer to
fuzzy systems as those resulted from fuzzification of a conventional system (p. 4).Their rather
nonphilosophical viewpoints, like these of Li, remain, however, highly valid:
A central characteristic of Fuzzy systems is that they are based on the concept of Fuzzy coding
(partitioning) of information. Fuzzy systems operate with Fuzzy sets instead of numbers [then it is
not only mathematical]. Each Fuzzy set has more expressive power than a single number. The
use of Fuzzy sets permits a generalization of information. This generalization is associated with
the introduction of imprecision. In many real problems the imprecision is admissible, even useful,
because the categories of human thinking are vague ideas which are very hard to quantify. In
essence, the representation of the information in Fuzzy systems imitates the mechanism of
approximate reasoning preformed in the human mind. The precision of conventional systems
theory is obtained as a limiting case in the continuity of varying levels of abstraction. (p. 5)

The concept of fuzziness, regardless of its applications and implications, which are deemed to be
emergent and equally challenging, has established a new general order. It has defied a traditional
notion of opposites. As Barker (1993) declares, Order and disorder, order and change, are no
longer presented as irreconcilable opposites but as dimensions of the same process. Order
generates chaos and chaos generates order (Barker, 1993, p. 27, cited in Westwood and

142

Williams, 1997, p. 52, See also Baker, 2007). In this sense, the symptom and the remedy are
homogenous.
Interestingly, the notion has been long present in planningmore generally and more implicitly
than in pure engineering disciplineswhen it is acknowledged as an intellectual action. Faludi
(187) points out that, like Webber, Friedmann regards planning as an attitude of mind" (p. 108).
Thus, as an attitude of mind, it should be pursued with all kinds of complexity, uncertainty, and
fuzzy-based decision making.
Faludi (1987) states, Planning for unknown technology and unknown goals (Rittel and Webber's
wicked problems) presents the greatest challenge (p. 106). Here, the concept of unknown goals is
associated with vagueness of the goal(s), whereas it needs to be associated with fuzziness of the
goals; they are clear in the fuzzy sense with natural fuzziness but not clear in the classical sense. The
goals that might contain inherent contradictions are not known, but they are the goals (with
consideration of the other juxtaposed goals) that have a degree of truenessthey are semi-true.
Therefore, Webber and others who criticize those who look for certain answers try to characterize the
unanswered problems as the problems without answers. In a binary sense (within a binary system
driven by binary logic), lack of certainty equates to lack of existence. In other words, if something has
no certain answer, it has no answer at all. However, if the logic changes, the new system can have
infinite answers.

5.8.6

Types of Fuzziness

There are different ways through which fuzziness can be classified. Two of these accounts seem
to be more important than the others. The first one is significant for the interrelationship of the
meaning of words (semantics) with the theory of language. This is based on different sentence
compartments, or so-called parts of speech; types of words like justice (which can be a noun
too), good (adjective), and condemn (verb), whether they are being studied semantically or
structurally, which is the fuzziness to be pursued in semantics. The second important account is
the fuzziness of the epistemic approach to knowing the concepts (Fisher, 2000).24 Both
semantics and epistemic fuzziness shape our conception of every phenomenon, including
planning and its decision-making process. The fuzzy notions within these two types of fuzziness
are transfigured in qualitative, normative, descriptive, and discursive forms.

5.8.6.1 Simple Fuzziness of Words (Qualitative Fuzziness)

With regard to the concept of justice and the justification of actions Rawls (1982) simply brings up
the fuzziness of a crucial value: there are many conflicting and incommensurable conceptions of
the good (p. 160).
This type of fuzziness is the consequence of the fuzziness of the words. It is natural to use
language in a fuzzy way. Words like good, well, bad, true, truly, false, and so on, which are
mostly adjectives or adverbs, are engaged with a fuzziness inherent in language and the logic
behind the words.
For instance, where it is claimed that planning was conceived as the means by which the best
use of land could be secured irrespective of market conditions and this required unreserved
acceptance of the need to subordinate private interests to the public interest (Expert Committee
on Compensation and Betterment, 1942, cited in Campbell and Marshall, 2002, p 168), the word
best is used in a fuzzy sense. However, in this case of the word best, there is also the problem of
comparison with the other cases that would be characterized in the sets of better and good.
24

Giving a brief introduction to semantic and epistemic fuzziness, in his paper, Fisher examines the issue of vagueness in
geography and categorizes the vague areas of geography into three sections: geographical relations, geographical
objects, and geographical processes. Focusing on Geographic Information System (GIS) as a spatial decision-making
support system, however, the paper does not mention the general category of epistemic fuzziness as causing the
vagueness and impreciseness of decision-making processes or operations in GIS, whose ability is usually considered an
important advantage.

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Basically, the differentiations come out of this type of fuzziness rooted in the differences of
personalities of people and their personal backgrounds, tastes, habits, interests, and
understanding of values as well as their degrees of tolerance. Shortly, they are based on a scale
of personal values and understanding.
This type of fuzziness can take place in three different situations. First, it can occur where there
are fuzzy words, such as large, short, many, and practical. In any of these cases, the word itself
entails a degree of ambiguity. Although it might be a matter of hard talks in philosophy, ideology,
or ethics, in the everyday usage of any of these terms, this ambiguity of vagueness in meaning,
and the extent to which it is stretched, usually does not pose a serious obstacle in the course of
discussion, even at a technical level.
Second, this kind of fuzziness exists wherever there is a comparison between two (normally
opposite) fuzzy concepts (binary fuzzy sets), such as false versus true. It is, however, important
to bear in mind that where the question itself is designed in a binary way, the fuzziness will
vanish. For instance, Will the world population increase or decrease in five years? is a question
designed with two and only two available opposite answers. (When it is asked by what percent
the world population will change in two 5-year periods in a row, the answer is statistical and
quantitative. If, however, the amount is questioned, as when one asks how much the world
population will change in 20 years, the expected qualitative answer will denote fuzziness.)
The third situation with this type of fuzziness is where there is a comparison in multisector sets,
such as the set of the expansion of cities, including qualities such as very small, small, average,
large, extremely large, and huge. As is apparent, there is no statistically crisp limit between these
qualities, and also, quite evidently, the assigning of these qualities depends on the background
and understanding of the persons who answer questions about the cities.

5.8.6.2 Fuzziness of Framed Sets and Phenomena (Normative Fuzziness)

This is a very basic notion for understanding the differences between fuzzy and nonfuzzy sets.
As explained before, all around, in everything from everyday life to scientific applications, are
fuzzy concepts: large or small, utilitarianism, enhancement, and so forth. There have been two
traditional ways to tackle these problems: first, through the adjustment of the sets so that the final
answer is between two options (see the previous section) and, second, with clarifications.
The clarifications, usually, contain the sets of limitation(s) that belong to the domain of the
concept through reductionism. This may be the case because the size of the concept to be
defined has been reduced (by excluding, diminishing, or obliterating the aspects of the issue).
Alternatively, new terms may have been set that imply smaller areas and are located in between
the existing terms. For instance, village, town, city, metropolis, metropolitan area, and suburb are
among those terms that are assigned to particular types of urbanization. On the one hand, the
terms definitions have been clarified and modified to apply to a particular single concept or
phenomenon. On the other hand, some new terms (such as urban sprawl, edge city, suburbia,
hyper-urbanism, and urbatecture) are being generated to clarify the phenomena in a more
precise way. This tackling method is engaged with fuzziness for four reasons.
First, it is not feasible to generate a specific term for every phenomenon. Second, the
differentiation (and fuzziness) of the variables within each phenomenon do not allow for such
complete clarification of the terms that each signifies only one object. Hence, the third reason is
that the terms generated have overlaps with each other, and finally, there is no broad agreement
on the clarifications, either in theoretical or practical aspects.
Therefore, the second type of fuzziness and fuzzy notions is recognizablethe fuzziness of the
framed sets and terms such as green, sustainability, planning, and so on.

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We ought to note that this analysis does not intend to downsize or decrease the importance of
generating the terms, categories, and subcategories (in the traditional way) within an everexpanding world, but it attempts to remind the skeptics (about the notion of fuzziness) of the fact
that, in spite of any attempts to make things clear(er) (as opposed to the concepts of vagueness
and ambiguity), fuzziness and fuzzy concepts will continue finding new applications. This means
that the reductionist process of clarification cannot result in the exclusion of fuzziness from this
activity and its related fields and processes.

5.8.6.3 Composed Fuzziness (Descriptive Fuzziness)

The third type of fuzziness appears where, either the first and second types are combined
together in a notionfor instance, large city, safe area, good planningor two (or more
concepts) of the second type are juxtaposed with each otherfor example, comprehensive
planning or systemic or modernist decision making.
A composed concept of fuzziness will combine two or more fuzzy notions that usually belong to
different areas. The degree of fuzziness of the final combination and the complexity involved are
functions of the degree of complexity of all basic realms combined together. This does not work
as a result of arithmetical summation or multiplication. Nor is it a union or Cartesian product of
two sets, as it is in classical sets theory. In many cases, the resultant is far more complex than
the sum of its components. Furthermore, higher complexity in fuzziness is expected when more
fuzzy concepts are being composed; examples are the fuzziness entailed in substantive planning
theory or in a successful postmodern decision-making process.
Composed fuzziness is established and developed from a composition of two or more fuzzy
concepts, either subjective or objective. It typically contains what is usually called ambiguity.
Fuzziness of this type is rather descriptive. Fuzziness of this type is rather descriptive for several
reasons.
First of all, it deals with how a fuzzy embedded system is expected to act. In other words, a
normative measure for each participating basic notion cumulates, and then, out of that
combination, a reading emerges that aims to describe that combination based on the norms
involved. Second, this type of fuzziness draws upon some precedent experience. In this sense, it
has a knowledge-based nature and builds upon a collective experience from the past. This has
nothing to do with prescriptive approaches. Lastly, being descriptive for this class of fuzziness
means it very much lends itself to how it is comprehended or interpreted in different contexts.
This means that a certain combination in distinct contexts, being semantically, culturally,
geopolitically, etc. different, is understood utterly differently. These factors can independently
cause to produce other types of descriptive fuzziness, in each of which one of those
characteristics is predominant.
The composed or descriptive fuzziness contains the least amount of reasoning, and it does not
aim to dictate, prescribe, or even assert what should be done. It simply references what has been
done and comparatively concludes based on the most similar previously recorded experiences.
This is much like what happens in normal human reasoning, the approach that has been in
practice for years and has been working very well. In this sense, fuzziness normally provides the
basis for further reasoning in the reasoning process, which itself may or may not be subject to
fuzziness.

5.8.6.4 Fuzziness of Evaluations, Conclusions, and Interpretations (Discursive

Fuzziness)
The last category of descriptive fuzziness, if developed accordingly, can lead to a new category
that is equally important and comparable to the previous classes of fuzziness, if not more
important. However, this type is not merely the outgrowth of the last type of descriptive fuzziness.

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It can be developed as an independent ontology that is very helpful wherever a discussion is

involved. This type of fuzziness, which the current research has named discursive fuzziness,
usually happens when pure negotiation takes more credit than other phases in the process of
reasoning. In addition to the statistical and mathematical analysis of data, in research, other
phases, such as evaluating, assessing, and reasoning as well as concluding (and any type of
decision making, in its broadest sense), are severely interfered with by linguistic and technical
fuzzy concepts. It should be borne in mind that what is meant by evaluation is not any of the
conventional mathematical or statistical methods normally used in the established theory and
practice of planning. Quite to the contrary, here, evaluation is what takes place when a preferred
or privileged choice is to be made about a number of equally validated policies, plans, or
decisions.
However, this does not overshadow the fuzziness involved in rather technical layers of the
planning process. When dealing with the most technical aspects of science (e.g., social, natural,
physical, etc.), evaluation, interpretation, and interim conclusions drawn upon the basics of
human reasoning systems are very much in use and subject to discussion. For instance, when in
hydraulics in the car industry, the suspension system of a car and the shock absorbers25 are
supposed to be designed employing the basics of fuzzy logic (i.e., using a fuzzy controller), the
most technical side of mechanical and product design must use the most interpretative side of
language, considering the physical comfort conditions of the passengers. How this comfort is
understood, interpreted, and translated into fuzzy rules for the fuzzy controller is a matter of
discussion. This discussion certainly has some dimensions and needs to include some premises
not only with regard to comfort itself but also in terms of how it is defined, favored, and expected
in different contexts. Those contexts may well vary from the most cultural ones to the most
geological ones (even here, the terms the most cultural and the most geological and the
degree to which they are combined with each other imply fuzziness). An off-road car such as an
SUV has or needs different comfort conditions from a sedan or a sports car. The definition of
comfort itself varies from culture to culture and from country to country. The discussion also
needs to preclude some factors and needs to provide a solution that is achievable and financially
viable. Each of these concerns denotes a type of fuzziness in which agreement upon evaluation,
interpretation, and conclusion (to different extents) is expected.
As another example, when a fuzzy controller is used in a digital camera to help make a
combination setting between the speed and aperture in an automatic mode (or to suggest a more
improved combination of the two in a manual mode), it may use different strategies. In a wide
range of those strategies, the chip compares the given condition to a set of preset conditions to
arrive at the best combination of speed and aperture. Those preset conditions may be in the form
of a knowledge base in the RAM/BIOS of the camera or in the form of preset rules with different
combinations of contextual features, for instance, the lightness of the background and lightness
of the subject (if a portrait is supposed to be photographed) or the overall white balance of the
frame (where, for example, the best shot of a landscape is the aim). In the first strategy (where
preset conditions are being used as a knowledge base for the given condition to be compared
against), although the main fuzziness type is somewhat descriptive, it becomes more of a
discursive type when, after a comparison, the decision or suggestion is to be offered, for it
involves the process of conclusion. In the latter strategy, which might happen more slowly
compared to the former strategy, the entire process of fuzziness is discursive. This strategy
involves a process of using different predefined sets of rules, each set of rules entails the process
of interpretation and conclusion.
As mentioned earlier, planning as an activity entails many ever-changing factors, of which some,
like tastes and interests, are vague, unclear, or subject to change even for their beholders. Those
factors and their subcategorical values cannot be fragmented to the crisp sets. Not only does this
overlapping happen between the different factors (both in terms of their meaning and the degree
of preference or desirability), but it also occurs within each with regard to the values involved or
25

A piece of equipment connected to each wheel of a vehicle to make travelling on uneven ground more
comfortable (Summers, 2003, et al., shock absorber entry)

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desired. In this sense, planning entails a double discursive fuzziness in many respects (see
Foglesong, (2003, pp. 103-104)).

5.9

Justification of Operations in Fuzzy Environments

Whenever an act is to be performed or an operation is to be undergone within a multijudgment,

multivalued, multiobjective process or environment, it needs to meet certain specifications of the
fuzziness in that environment. An environment with a multiobjective, multivalued, and
multijudgment nature needs to take into account the influential or intervening factors and to give
them a share in its equations. Otherwise, it will be accused of eliminating some influential factors
from the list of those intervening on an arbitrary and selective basis. And this compromises its
legitimacy and justifiability.
This is inclusiveness different from that of classical logic and even pragmatism, which attributes
the truth and falseness of a proposition relatively to a condition (such as time, place, or society).
This means that, in taking into account the intervening factors in an operation, true and false are
not absolute; those intervening factors are contributing in the formation of the final condition,
each to an exclusive extent. This occurs as per the existing knowledge regarding the intervening
factors, so it differentiates from what is intended by comprehensiveness, although it constantly
attempts to improve the existing knowledge about each participating factor wherever possible. In
other words, what is available in terms of the knowledge should intervene (or be taken into
account) fully in the process of that action.
Therefore, the planning operations cannot and should not be seen in a linear longitudinal (or
vertical) relationship. This means that they do not need to surpass or outdo any other parallel
parameter to prove themselves true or false. This is first of all because this surpassing is a
means of including or excluding a parameter from a given equation, which is a reductionist
strategy. Second, it is because there is no true or false in their absolute meaning. Each and every
parameter has a relationship with the rest of the parameters and is unable to eliminate them. It
also cannot intervene in the process or condition of the existence or nonexistence of the others.
Each of those factors should contribute in the whole process to its individual degree, not
vertically, but horizontally. This is because, if such a relation is taken vertically, as it is in the
conventional methods of decision making, each factor needs to pass a true/false filter to be
qualified to participate or to be eliminated from the equation. This is not simply the case in a
fuzzy-based environment. Those parameters are cross-linked. Each has its intervening role, to
some degree, and all together comprise a whole, which does not thrive on the correctness of its
individual parts.
Therefore, to summarize, the justification of an operation in a fuzzy environment is achievable
through inclusion of the role players in that operation to the best knowledge of the operator,
proportionate to the level of their importance, and taking into account their influence on the whole
operation and on the other role players while avoiding bivalued true/false reductionism in the
process.

5.10 Fuzziness of Decision Making

Considering the nature of the decision-making process regarding the idea of fuzziness in
planning, the decision-making process engages with fuzziness in two different senses:

the fuzziness of processThis involves the various technical criteria (in the broadest
sense). The objective outcomes are the plan-making process and the plans.

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the fuzziness of degree of membershipThis concerns the degree of membership of

every influential group within both plan making and final decision making on the plans
provided and the way that every (interest) groups share is seen accordingly. This is the
matter of the subjective justification of ethical consideration of and in the process.

The first type of fuzziness defines the fuzzification and defuzzification of the methods containing
different processes, from data gathering to analyses of further implementations and
implementations to having the possible feedback to provide for further developments to
decisions. The latter type of fuzziness works by providing various membership degrees of
influential groups in a multijudgment atmosphere of decision making for planning. This can be
understood in relation, for example, to a situation in which there are two political and economic
factors in a democratic system (as an abstract extreme) and a free-market economy (as another
abstract extreme). Based on the research framework, as was mentioned before, the decisions in
the course of action (in reality) cannot be made based either on both extremes at the same time
or on only one of those two extremes by ignoring the other one. If we suppose that this idea is
achievable even in practice, and even with limited and specific conditions, the ignorance about
one can damage the other (Planners, politicians and economists look at achieving one of the
extremethe one comprises their ideological premises; the one they would be loyal to as an
ideal to arrive at the related promised planning statue). Therefore, these two extermes arose from
two different spheres. Though they are not contradictory, actually concerning some of the same
matters, they have some divergence. This divergence generates the sets of contradictories in
spite of the existence of the set of common values. The sets of contradictories exhibit that, in the
course of action, all values from distinct areas are not completely achievable. As a result, they
need to be synchronized in a way that the degree of membership of the values is proportionate to
the type of the decisions to be made.
Therefore, two types of defuzzifier are needed in any decision-making process. The first one is
the defuzzifier that targets the technical side of the work and involves different professionals from
various disciplines. This means that in an environment like planning, in which many fields are
trying to tackle the problems, each field ought to have a portion of this multidisciplinary
environment. These portions are dynamic variables that must be set based on values attributed
to the plans. Thus, this multivoice scheme (or pattern) depends on the degree of importance of
some factors within every plan, the plans specifications. These specifications let the planner or
planning institute make the adjustment proportionate to the required premises. Then the
(dynamic) adjustments should be considered as the guidelines of the defuzzification.
The defuzzifiers for the second type are those that cope with the degree of membership of users
and owners of the urban spaces and their influences on decision making. These parties are
rarely professionals, and even if they are, their professional affiliation is not what acts in this
equation. Some may tend to reason that, according to this model, every citizen is the user and
owner of alltheir own property, town or city, region, state, and country. This statement is
moderately correct. But with a small modification, the current model works on the membership of
the clusters of users who are influential only if they have a greater degree of influence than users
who would be characterized merely as being influential. This parameter itself (which is not
constant) is determined by those characteristics such as scale of plan, level of interference of
plan, and type of plan, the three crucial factors used to build up the fuzzy model of decision
making and that will be explained later in more detail. This type of defuzzifier is directly involved
with the matter of the justification of legitimizing the decision-making process. It can then be
concluded that a decision-making process that can work proportionately with the share of
decision makers in the process can be legitimized.

5.10.1 Fuzziness of the Term Decision Making

In addition to the fuzziness embedded in the notion of planning as a process of decision making
and the fuzziness in the term decision making, there are different levels of ambiguity in the
factors of decision making and the mechanisms by which those factors interact in the process.

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This ambiguity results from noncrisp definitions, territories, and roles, and it, in turn, results in
fuzziness in almost every single feature of planning, from the data gathering to making or
providing plans.
The noncrispness in planning regarding the subject matter of the current researchdecision
makingstarts with the meaning of the term itself. In decision making, in its broadest meaning
ever, at least four utterly different and apparently separate concepts are involved: policy,
decision, plan, and (the course of) implementation. Strictly speaking, decision making, as far as
very specific cases are concerned, cannot be treated in isolation. It has some links to what is
going on in upper scales as a point of reference for it, and it also interacts with or affects what is
going to happen at lower levels as its resultants in further stages during the planning process. In
one sense, what is deemed a decision at one level may well be a policy at the respective upper
level and can be imagined as nothing but a plan for the successive lower level. In other words,
when different parties are provided an identical act, what it appears to be very much depends
upon the acts relative closeness (or size) within each partys context. The scale (of a project)
might be assumed to be the point to be addressed here but it is not the only significant concept.
How, from which viewpoint, and for which purposes a project is looked at are some, but not all, of
the other factors that determine what the terms decision and decision making may actually
denote.
In this sense, the term decision making is interwoven into at least two other notions, policymaking and plan making, the former being more subjective, while the latter is more objective than
the decision making itself. Policy making is to deal with goals, objectives, and targets, whereas
plan making is supposed to be handled by distinctive methods, institutions, attitudes, groups, and
so forth. Evidently, a great number of distinctive decisions are to be made in each of these
practices. Therefore, decision making is not a process that starts when a precedent process
finishes or finishes when the successor process starts. Even in the so-called implementation
process or evaluation, there exist different types and models of decisions. Although these are not
widely acknowledged as pure decisions as means of the decision-making process, they lend their
existence to making a choice.
For instance, while speaking of targeting a more sustainable built environment, policy making
means explicitly deciding towards meeting a goal or objective. At the next level (perhaps at a
more local level), when a strategy is chosenfor example, the elimination of waste as opposed
to the choice of a more sustainable public transportation a decision should be made to
prioritize one action over the other (this is not carried out merely in the decision-making arena).
This explicitly contains a decision and includes a plan that allocates resources to the selected
priority. It goes further to show how those resources should be allocated. At a lower level, for
example, having bins with separated cells for disposing of recyclable materials such as paper,
glass, and cans is another form of plan making in which a decision has been made to choose this
course of action over other possible ones, and it is a form of plan making that sets its own goals.
From these examples, it can be concluded that there is no clear boundary between the decisionmaking process and the other related stages of planning. It is not possible to distinguish when the
decision enters the realm of policy from when it turns to a plan. This indicates the fuzziness of the
term decision making (see Figure 5.18).

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Case 2
Level 1

Case

Implementation
Policy

Level 2

Case

Plan

Decision

Implementation
Policy

Level 3

Decision

Plan

Interlevel
Influences

Implementation
Policy

Level 4

Decision

Plan

Implementation
Level 5
Implementation

Implementation
Figure 5.18. Fuzziness in decision making.

The main focuses of the current research, however, remain as follows: how the different role
players should get involved in the decision-making process to make sure that the democratic
nature of a free society is most reassuringly guaranteed; how and to which degree their votes
should count in the decision-making process; and which mechanism should be used to include
dynamically every role player, each to the appropriate respective extent and each exclusively to a
specifically tailored case. To further clarify this method, it is necessary to expand general
knowledge about fuzzy thinking, fuzzy logic, and fuzzy sets.

5.10.2 Fuzziness of Process of Decision Making

In the previous chapters, it was shown that decision making is working as a multiobjective,
multivalued, multijudgmental process. It is, therefore, an operation in which the major actions
should be justified based on what happens in a fuzzy environment. This means that, whatever
the focus of a mindsetwhether the consequences, procedures, or methodologiesmeeting the
core focus of each mindset individually cannot on its own justify the process of decision making
for (or on) each type of planning case. This is because, if this is supposed to happen that way, in
fact, in a fuzzy decision environment, there would have been an attempt to attribute a certain
truth to a single role player within a cluster of role players and decision-making parties whose
truth/falseness was interdependent on those of the others. If the dual separating of the
dimensions of decision making and putting them against each other is supposed to be valid,
those dual values, such as procedure versus consequences, political versus apolitical, rational

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versus empirical, bottom-up versus top-down, and so on, within modern versus postmodern
decision processes will have to be governed by the above premises, which have all been formed
based on the principles of duality. In other words, none of them can be definitely true nor
definitely false to justify the decision making. Therefore, this fuzzy set of elements for decision
making will require a fuzzy process using fuzzifiers and defuzzifiers proportionate to the process.

5.11 Defuzzification of Decision Making

Iglesias, Lowen, and Verschoren (2005) explain,
Defuzzification is a necessary tool to make a fuzzy control system interact with real-world
models. This is in its strictest sense contradictory to the idea of fuzzification, which extends the
notion of crisp sets with a degree of uncertainty. But nevertheless defuzzification is unavoidable
when a crisp output is denied, as is the case in many practical applications. A defuzzification can
be seen as an operator [we do have the lack of this operator in planning]. (p. 37)

Basically, what a fuzzy system does is transform a set of crisp data or numerical values into fuzzy
results. This happens through the application of a set of fuzzy rules that resembles the very basic
rules of the human reasoning system. These rules are usually linked (or combined) using logical
connectors. In this way, a process of fuzzification usually occurs, processing the crisp input
variables and transforming them into fuzzy results. Also Pedrycz (2001) states,
Defuzzification is an important operation in the theory of fuzzy sets. It transforms a fuzzy set
information into a numeric data information. This operation along with the operation of
fuzzification is critical to the design of fuzzy systems as both of these operations provide nexus
between the fuzzy set domain and the real valued scalar domain. We need the synergy of both
these domains to solve many of our ill-posed problems effectively. (p. 143)

Although those fuzzy results are in accordance with the rules that act as the syntax of a fuzzy
grammatical system, they can hardly be utilized when a decision is to be made. This does not
indicate any inefficiency in fuzzy systems. Those fuzzified results, which have been through a
processing stage, need to be interpreted into crisp concepts to be usable again in the binarized
world. This process is called defuzzification. The term defuzzification is typically attributed to the
process of producing quantifiable results using some methods exclusive to fuzzy logic. However,
in a broader sense, all types of processes that are applied to the existing options in order to
reduce their number (or to narrow down the course of action) to make the ultimate decision
among many (in a many-objective system) or between two (in a binary system) can be named
defuzzification. In the case of binary systems, defuzzification is also used prior to the final step of
limiting the options to only two choices. Zimmermann (2001) claims,
Since technical processes require crisp control actions, a procedure that generates a crisp value
out of one or more given fuzzy (output) sets is required. These defuzzification methods are very
often based on heuristic ideas, such as take the action that corresponds to the maximum
membership, take the action that is midway between two peaks or at the center of the platau,
etc. Of course, these methods can also be characterized by theory formal (mathematical)
properties. Also, defuzzification is not only relevant for fuzzy control but also for other types of
problems, e.g. multi criteria analysis . . . and other areas in which fuzzy sets have to be
transformed into crisp expressions (real numbers, symbols, etc.). (p. 232)

This means that where the defuzzification, which is applied to a decision, follows the rule of fuzzy
logic, this term is limited to its application in fuzzy sets; otherwise, the reductionist (based on
classical logic) rules with classical epistemological features utilize a method similar to
defuzzification but with a more general purpose.
In order to defuzzify the results of a fuzzy system efficiently, the most established techniques
need first of all to add up the results of the fuzzy rules together, using some particular methods.
When those resultant rules are applied to the most common type of fuzzy memberships (i.e.,

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triangular membership graphs), those triangles will be cut somewhere between their tops and
bases. Then the result of the application of each rule will add up together to form a total resultant
graph for the summation of the rules involved. This total resultant needs then to be decoded or
defuzzified. Defuzzification can be carried out using several established methods, of which the
trapezoid and centroid are the most practical ones. In the trapezoid method, the total resultant
will be cut to form a trapezoid whose top sides midpoint will form the numerical amount for
defuzzification. In the other of the most common methods, centroid, first, the total resultant is
devised (usually in the form of a trapezoid as well), and then the gravity center of that trapezoid
will be picked as the defuzzified outcome.

5.11.1 Implications of Fuzzy Thinking

What is almost always understood by fuzzy, whether it is fuzzy thinking, fuzzy logic, or fuzzy sets,
is somewhat bound to the human (or high-level) languages. The fact of the matter is, however,
more delicate and needs more deliberation. The most important point to bear in mind is that fuzzy
as a way of thinking is not just an agreed-upon premise or disputed definition. It is an attribute
given to an existing fact out in the real world that has been in existence for as long as humankind
has lived. Not only is the human language or human reasoning inspired, influenced, or even
formed by it.
For instance, when a spectrum of a particular color, green, is being seen by an observer,
although all the greens within it are not actually exactly equally green, they still are all green.
Olive green, asparagus green, fern green, forest green, jungle green, moss green, myrtle, pine
green, sap green, shamrock green (Irish green), tea green, and teal as well as hundreds more
variations on green are all different colors with natural or artificial sources, but fuzzification in
visual perception results in all of them being perceived and categorized as green. Admittedly,
there might be nonconsensus on teals being green, but this does not defy the validity of this
discussion. Quite to the contrary, this openness to any challenge within the range of the fuzzy
notion of the color green is to support the existence of the thinking concept of fuzzy as a thought
and as a fact, well beyond all its applications in or within the semantic domain or logic arena.
More specifically and regarding the decision case in planning, a range of different actions may be
understood as decisions while they are quite evidently different from each other. Although those
decisions have no clear boundaries to which they are confined, they can be segregated from
each other one way or another. However, this separation is not precise and crisp enough for
them to be classified as per principles of classical logic. Being blurry and having overlaps does
not mean that any of those decisions are less valid even if they might belong to different levels in
a decision procedure when being looked at from different perspectives.
Another example can be a person whose ultimate materialistic limits do not end where their
physical entity ends. In other words, the person continues well beyond where his or her physical
molecules appear to come to an end. This is because, as per the quantum physics accounts, the
molecules of a solid substance still move freely quite far from it. The only difference is the density
of those molecules, which differs exponentially between where the substance admittedly exists
and where it allegedly does not. Another, simpler example with the same denotation involves the
case of smell. Individuals have exclusive scents. These may be boosted when people wear
perfume. Even an identical perfume smells slightly different on different people. This is because
the biological odor of each individualthe bodys natural odor, the persons eating or drinking
habits, or even his or her bathing routinesis slightly different from that of others. Individuals can
be recognized, or felt, from their combined odors, how they smell. In this sense, the presence of
a person is not limited to physical presence, as it might be felt from his or her smell even long
after he or she has left the premises. These examples, both the complicated and the easy one,
highlight the fuzziness of the notion of existence. They also indicate the fuzziness of the human
perception receptors, organizing the senses of seeing and feeling and, hence, of perceiving the
reality of existence by smelling, feeling, and simulating or imagining someones existence.

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The case of smell also speaks to planning and the decision case in planning. A decision, in
addition to having overlaps with other similar decisions, has marginal boundaries, as in the case
of the small. A decision, as in the case of smell or the case of substance, never ends at a
certain point. The effects of a decision, like the molecules of a substance that will expand beyond
the substance itself, can well resume beyond where the decision purportedly dissolves. In this
sense and as per epistemological reading, a decision will continue as long as its consequences
go on. This means that the notions of on/off, exists/does not exist, 0/1 are not valid anymore. In
other words, the concept of decision in planning involves fuzziness not only in the areas in
between but also at the extreme end boundaries of where a decision stops subsisting.
In one word, there is a quality in the real world that has been labeled fuzziness, no matter
whether some may argue that it is subjective, while its advocates may adversely reason for its
objectiveness. Whatever the case, the most important implication of believing in fuzzy as a
method of thinking and, subsequently, in fuzzy as a school of thought (valid equally for looking at
the subjective or objective phenomena) is to become closer to the actuality of the world. The
thinking based on actual attributes that contain concrete complexity even in its epistemological
sense is a more feasible way of thinking of the real rather than of imagining the abstract.
Therefore, the goal of the logic, instead of being to simplify decision making, is to model the
sphere of planning to be as coherent to the concrete reality of the world as possible. This means,
before getting into the practical level, that the fundamentals of thought have been set in
proportion to this reality. In fact, the way of thinking of a phenomenon epistemologically and
ontologically as it happens (or exists) in the real world and of which degree of certainty it involves
contains fuzziness. This method of thinking has been named fuzzy thinking.
This grand theory of epistemology was later followed up by respective logic and then its
mathematical tool, the fuzzy set. In fuzzy thinking, as a grand theory, the complexity is welcomed,
whereas in the established classical logic, the common practice is to simplify everything and then
add the complexity to the reduced (and reproduced) system. Interestingly enough, reductionism
as an all-purpose premise has been permeating even into the specifications and dimensions of
reality. For instance, there have been efforts to simplify even the principle notions, such as
complexity, as much as possible. Through these approaches, the acquired system, which has
been supposed a system covering actual events, could turn into a system that would be
selectively and arbitrarily dealing with reality as much as it desires and to the extent to which it
can manage.
Therefore, the models given by binary thinking work merely theoretically. Regardless of some
failures, they have also been practically applied. But by considering only the failures of the
defuzzification method of classical logic during its use, one will be able to imagine how many
times the defuzzified decisions may have been correctly justified and how many times they have
failed to provide a clear and defendable justification.
In light of the above discussion regarding planning, it can be concluded that the decisions shaped
through classical logic have little validity in planning, if any. Provided fuzziness in general, as a
way of thinking of the real world and how phenomena are taking place, evolving, and
transforming there, one can understand that planning contains the quality of fuzziness too. The
reasons given above are not the only reasons that planning has a fuzzy nature. First and
foremost, planning entails no certainty, as there is no general theory attributable to it. Second and
equally important is the fact that the compartments (or components) of planning (and decision
making) have no definite boundaries. The set of the involved compartments is not a crisp set. Not
only does this noncrispness exist at the upper levels between the major disciplines involved, but
it also continues down to the members of the subset of each participant discipline. In addition,
different domains in planning have intersections with each other. But where these intersections
lie is subject to scrutiny and depends on which theory is used to study planning and where the
emphasis is supposed to be in the process of planning.

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Epistemology of
Planning

Implementation of
Planning
Where?
When?
How?

Figure 5.19. Borders between epistemology and implementation of planning.

Third, and very importantly, when an agreement is made, it is not usually as a result of a clear
consent or approval by all parties. By contrast, it most often is a result of general consensus that
is usually arrived at with compromise, negotiation, and reconciliation. Last, planning is not a
linear process. Neither is it a bottom-up process or a top-down procedure.

5.11.2 The Reality and the Theory

Popperians always admire Popper because of his objection to classical justification, his
inductivist account of the scientific method, and his replacement of them with critical rationalism
and empirical falsification. In a closer look, Popperian falsification is the principle of science.
Being falsifiable does not mean that a scientific theory is false. Quite to the contrary, Popper
believes that being falsifiable attributes the quality of being scientific to a theory. As per a
Popperian account, a theory, which cannot be assumed as reality, has only the capability of
matching the real world, because a proposed or a structured theory is not true but only fits the
truth that already exists in the actual world.
From another perspective and as the theory should be able to explain, justify, or match to a
reality, it needs to be able to model that reality that exists in the actual world. There are at least
three fully distinguishable types of modeling reality: iconic, analogue, and mathematical. The
iconic model is what resembles the actual reality but on a smaller scale. Any model, in the
broadest sense of that term, that is mimicking a real artifactfor instance, an airplane model or a
model of the solar systemis an iconic model of reality. By contrast, analogue reality is what is
set or defined as a measure for an outside reality. For instance, the meter as a measure of length
or the equation proposed by Sir Isaac Newton to indicate the gravity pattern are both analogue
models of reality. The last category is the mathematical model. A mathematical model is a model
in which a tool is used to compare actual reality or to reproduce or to simulate it for further indepth study. For example, when the height of a person is measured using a measuring tape or
when a computer simulation is used to model a reality, a mathematical model has been used at
different levels of complexity and with technology applied.
In fact, according to Popper, theory, as a model of reality, differs from the actual world, just
because analogue and mathematical models do not correspond (as iconic models do) with actual
reality. As per Poppers account, the proposed or devised theories are not real. Nor are they true
(they are not true as the falsification principles apply to them; this, however, as mentioned before,
does not mean that they are false either). These theories just fit the reality, and when falsification
occurs as a result of testing those models against the problems, a process of error finding and
error elimination will be carried out, with an adjustment thereby taking place that will help improve
that model (or theory) to match better with the reality of the actual world.

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Replacement

Test:
Against the
Problems

Theory

Falsification

Error
Elimination

New
Theory

Feedback

Figure 5.20. Linear process of theory development in planning.

In this account, a problem is the result of an action carried out by an actor, within a specific time
frame and in a particular place. As a consequence of the above process, the new theory will be
fitter than the old one. The difference, when it comes to planning, is that planning, like many other
fields related to humanities, is by no means a science, and therefore, the principles of empirical
falsification or critical rationalism do not apply to it. Dendrinos (1992) asserts,
All major contributors to the nature of scientific knowledge and its development, evolution or
revolutions, from T.S.Kuhn (1962) to K. Popper (1963b), W. Salmon (1967), R. Miller (1987) and
others, failed to note the speculative nature of social science formation. Such a shortfall is
particularly acute when the intrinsic link between the theorist and the system under investigation
is so pervasive in social science. Social (present and expected future) events render themselves
open to multiple interpretations on which agents take bets and therefore, through betting, affect
their perceived outcome. (p. 332)

Planning, in fact, is an activity rather than a science. In planning, as a fuzzy entity, there is no
fixed pattern in general or for the cost-benefit equation in particular; hence, no concept of fitness
is applicable. Here it has been argued that, despite the fact that the core concept put forward by
Popper is right, the reason for that mismatch is not what Popper points out. The reason for the
mismatch is that the logic underlying those models (merely analogue and mathematical ones)
does not match the logic of the real world. It will be explained in the following section that the
logic of the latter is a result of believing in fuzzy as a method of thinking.

5.11.3 Implications of Fuzzy Logic

Despite the fact that fuzzy thinking is no doubt as old as the documented history of the human
race, there is no long record of fuzzy logic. To theorize and formulize the basics of fuzzy as a
method of thinking, there was a need for the respective logic. Fuzzy logic was, in fact, formed as
a result of fuzzy thinking. It was born as a tool to facilitate this need. Before fuzzy logic came into
existence, the supporting tools for classical logic had long been establishing themselves both to
develop practical applications of formal logic and indirectly to reinvigorate the position of classical
logic. In this logical domain, lots of binary sets had been defined. Those sets were the produce
of creating contradicted duality by contrasting two allegedly opposing (or at least nonconforming)
tasks, meanings, domains, values, and so forth with each other.
For instance, when A comes into existence, B has to be created to contrast with A, because for
an extreme notion of A there should be an extreme opposite of B (and this is nothing except what
is advocated by fuzzy logic but in its specific condition). Likewise, B as a notion will have another
contrasted notion as C. C, as a result, may have something in common with A, as they both
contrast B. But in reality and in many cases, C might have the least in common with A, if not
being in full contrast with it. This, in fact, represents a many-valued logic, of which one of the
most outstanding representatives is fuzzy logic. Nevertheless, classical logic has always tended
to ignore or undermine what could or would have happened between A and C by limiting the case

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to specific conditions. This carries on by introducing D, E, F, and so on, with each being the
opposite of the former and thus spreading the notion of multivalued-ness even more.
One of the greatest implications of developing logic as a philosophical tool for fuzzy as a method
of thought is that the nonconformity between the real world and the models representing it can
potentially be tackled. Planning theories (or planning models) and planning logic should not be
iconic, for the models they offer are not capable of including all the dimensions, correlations,
interactions, and incidents that are taking place in the real world. They are not iconic, as their
underlying logic is not fuzzy logic. Their supporting logic is binary logic, while the real worlds
logic is fuzzy. This major difference causes the difference between the nature of the model and of
reality, the former being iconic, and the latter being either analogic or mathematical. This is quite
evidently because the embedded thinking of those theories has not been fuzzy. In best scenarios
and mostly in mathematical models, the attempt is to create a quasi-iconic model, which counts
as remarkable progress in the theory of modeling but yet suffers from some major failures in
terms of the basics of the scientific approach. Quasi-iconic models, despite all the benefits they
have to offer, still heavily rely on simplification of the actual reality. This happens through different
methods, such as elimination, reduction, or contrasting (phenomenon B to phenomenon A).
As mentioned before, in empirical falsification, a process of error elimination brings improvement
of the theory every time it is tested against the given reality. Another implication of thinking fuzzy
and developing a fuzzy logic is that doing so means that there is nothing such as wrong or error.
All that happens within a fuzzy environment is a trade-off between the cost and the benefit, which
is achievable by moving within a spectrum of continuous (or consecutive but intercorrelated)
values. Every adjustment in the theory (or more precisely, in the model), although it might help to
come closer to what happens in the real world, is achieved through reducing (reductioning) or
elimination.

5.11.4 Implications of Fuzzy Sets

To further develop the rediscovered fuzzy as a method of thinking into a reasoning system
supported by fuzzy logic, the latter domain, like any other type of (classical or formal) logic,
needed to have its mathematical tool to facilitate its practical applications. This resulted in the
establishment of fuzzy set theory. As for fuzzy thinkings major principle and what was advocated
and represented by fuzzy logic, the fuzzy set theory was formed around the very evident yet most
controversial principle in fuzzy: noncrisp sets. This, in turn, concluded in the redefinition of the
concept of membership in sets as per fuzzys concept of the gray spectrum between the mere
white and the mere black, or the continuous variable linking the absolute 0 and absolute 1 as the
main and only indicators of membership in the classical set theory.
As was discussed, fuzzy set theory is, practically, characterized by two different meanings: first,
the sets in which values are not divided into two values of true or false, 0 or 1, or black or white
(binary fuzzy sets) and, second, those sets in which values are to be divided into more than two
values. An example is the set size containing values such as very small, small, average, large,
very large, and huge. In fact, fuzzy set theory sets up to retrieve all the knowingly or neglectfully
forgotten linkages among those supposedly opposite As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and so on as a result of
opposing each to the previous one and artificially creating a desired simplistic binary condition in
each case.
The former notion, where the values are not constrained to only two, can be seen as a serious
obstacle to dualism (at either an epistemological or a practical level). By contrast, the latter
notion, in which a continuum of quality ends up with linguistically and conventionally separable
notions that are more than only two is a break to reductionism even in a multivalued and
multiobjective environment. This means that in the former notion, the reductionism acts as an
instrument to reduce the values to two (usually) contradictory values, and in the latter one, there
are more options to defragment the values and distribute them in different categories. On the
contrary, fuzzy sets (as infinite-value sets), instead of defining new terms (between the existing

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ones) by using linguistic tools, define a degree of membership to each side of an axis of decision
(to determine how much a phenomenon belongs to each side of the axis and, therefore, where it
sits on the continuous line linking those two ends to each other) by using mathematical tools. Not
only do these sets provide for an infinite number of valuesa task that language is hardly able to
dobut they also change the atmosphere from a single dimension of contradiction to a multiinterrelated dimension space. Therefore, this system will be able to hold both many-value and
many-objective sets simultaneously. This is practicable through re-recognizing and
reacknowledging the lost or eliminated correlations between the dualized concepts in formal
logic, thereby relying on the same rule as the formation principle of classical set theory.
Therefore, the process of defuzzification, which is an inevitable part of every decision, is
conducted more precisely without the omission of influential parameters and values in an
arbitrary manner. Now, one can imagine how much better the analysis of previous levels would
be and how much more reliably further steps could be built up if defuzzification were applied in
more than one cycle of repetition.

5.12 Decisions in a Fuzzy Environment

Bouchon-Meunier and Yager (1987) state,
There exists a number of taxonomies of the ways in which humans approach problem solving
tasks. One particularly useful taxonomy according to Rasmussen (1983, 1986) conceptualizes
three distinct types of problem solving, or reasoning which we describe as:
Formal knowledge based behaviour
Rule based behaviour
Skill based behaviour
The choice of which type of reasoning to employ is made by the problem solver on the basis of
experiential familiarity with the task at hand, and the environment into which this task is
imbedded.
Often, there is a mismatch between the problem solving behavior that a particular human will use
in a given situation, and the behavior that a machine might be programmed to emulate.
(Bouchon-Meunier & Yager , 1987, p. 11)

Evolution in decision theory and its related field is what has formed a major field in fuzzy logic as
a rule-based theory. The fuzzy inferers,26 like scientists in other disciplines, are too concerned
with the decision and how it interpolates itself to theory on one hand and how it correlates to the
practical decision-making process on the other. Zadeh (1996) writes that the 1970s and 1980s
decades have witnessed many important theoretical advances in decision theory as well as in
such related fields as mathematical programming, statistical analysis, system simulation, game
theory and optimal control (Zadeh, 1996, p. 261).
There is a lack of what can be perceived as a solid ground for decision theory to be sensibly and
scientifically applied in practice; it seems to have a long way to go. He also adds,
And yet, there are many observers who would agree that it is by no means easy to find concrete
examples of successful applications of decision theory in practice. What, then, is the reason for
the paucity of practical applications of a wide-ranging theory that had its inception more than
three decades ago? (Zadeh, 1996, p. 261)

Implicitly acknowledged by social scientists including planning thinkers, the impreciseness of the
natural language started being incorporated in both the theory and practice of social sciences,
including planning. There have also been attempts to incorporate some other strategies, first
developed systematically through fuzzy systems, into the basics of decision theories. BouchonMeunier and Yager (1987) claim,
26

Those who use fuzzy sets theory, logic, and thinking in its practical or theoretical applications to infer given data from a
fuzzy set to come to real-world decisions or conclusions.

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The stress based model of choice due to Janis and Mann (1977) is one particularly useful model
that explicitly incorporates these considerations into a descriptive model of judgment and choice.
This model suggests that judgment style will range from unconflicted adherence to a present
pattern or change to a new but familiar option, to hypervigilance or panic, to decidophobia, to the
vigilant information processing of the economically rational actor. The dominant variables
influencing this choice of style are experiential familiarity with the task, the significance of the
decision, and the time allowed to exercise judgment and choice. (p. 10)

This indirectly refers to pattern recognition, comparing the given situation with what has already
been most similarly experienced, along with experimental familiarity, which are normally and
naturally (and to some extent instinctively) developed and used by human beings when a
complicated decision must be made.
Yet no one up until fairly recently seems to have been willing to take seriously on board
approaches tailored to incorporate impreciseness and uncertainty systematically, regardless of
source, type, or their degree of complexity. However, Zadeh (1996) has a more radical point of
view, generalizing the case with regard to decision theory and excluding the discipline in which
the decision is to be made. As he explains,
Although this may not as yet be widely accepted view, our belief is that the limited applicability of
decision theory to real world problems is largely due to the fact that decision theorylike most
other mathematical theories of rational behaviorfails to come to grips with the pervasive
fuzziness and imprecision of human judgment, perception and modes of reasoning. (p. 261)

Building upon his assertion, he goes on to explain how fuzzy introduces the degree to which a
member belongs to a set and how an approximate inference can be made to cover this
multivalued membership:
An important part of the linguistic approach relates to the treatment of truth as a linguistic with
values such as true, very true, not very true, more or less true, etc. The use of such linguistic
truth-values leads to what is called fuzzy logic which provides a basis for approximate inference
from possibly fuzzy premises whose validity may not be sharply defined. As an illustration, an
approximate inference from (a) x is a small number, and (b) x and y are approximately equal,
might be (c) y is more or less small. Similarly, an approximate inference from (a) (x is a less
small) is very true, and (b) (x and y are approximately equal) is very true, might be (c) (y is more
or less small) is true. In these assertions, small is assumed to be a specified fuzzy subset of the
real line
; approximately equal is a binary fuzzy relation in R x R; and true and very
true are fuzzy subset of the unit interval [0,1]. (Zadeh, 1996, p. 262)

He extends his reasoning directly into the decision making by application of the impreciseness
inherent in the human language onto the decision and its relative validity, asserting, Insofar as
decision analysis is concerned, the linguistic approach serves, in the main, to provide a language
for an approximate characterization of those components of a decision process which are either
inherently fuzzy or are incapable of precise measurement (Zadeh, 1996, p. 262).
Giving examples, which are, in most cases, applicable to decision processes in planning, he
explains two different scenarios for such situations, indicating the unknown probability of an
expected outcome and the relative preference of one choice over the other(s):
For example, if the probability of an outcome of a decision is not known precisely, it may be
described in linguistic terms as likely or not very likely or very unlikely or more or less likely, and
so forth. Or, if the degree to which an alternative is preferred to an alternative is not welldefined, it may be assigned a linguistic value such as strong or very strong or mild or very weak,
etc. Similarly, a fuzzy relation between two variables x and y may be described in linguistic terms
as x is much larger than y or If x is small then y is large else x is approximately equal to y, etc.
(Zadeh, 1996, p. 263).

Giving a classic example of belonging and comparing it to the meaning of probability, he

highlights that, when the human language is used, in fact, no probability distribution is implied:

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a linguistic characterization such as x is small may be viewed as a fuzzy restriction on the

values of x. What is important to realize is that the assertion x is small conveys no information
concerning the probability distribution of x; what is meant, merely, is that x is small induces as
elastic constraint on the values that may be assigned to x. Then, if small is a fuzzy set in R
whose membership function takes the value, say, 0.6 at x=8, then the degree to which the
constraint x is small is satisfied when the value 8 is assigned to x, is 0.6. (Zadeh, 1996, p. 263)

In this paper, he finally sets out to address what he calls the linguistic approach and how it can
be applied in decision analysis. He cunningly highlights the fact that those applications are still in
a booming process and that new findings may lead to fundamental changes in their application,
stating,
we shall outline the main feature of the linguistic approach and indicate some of its possible
applications to decision analysis. It should be stressed that such applications are still in an
exploratory stage and experience in the use of the linguistic approach may well suggest
substantive changes in its implementation. (Zadeh, 1996, p. 263)

5.13 Fuzzy Negotiation in Planning Decision Making

The process of contemporary planning involves a great deal of coordination, modification,
justification, and reconciliation. The large number of stakeholders and beneficiaries as well as the
vast number of involving factors makes almost every initial plan, planning decision, or even policy
subject to reconsideration. This reconsideration rarely occurs only behind closed doors. Even if it
happens there, the final outcome is still subject to careful scrutiny by traditional decision takers,
by politicians, or recently, by the public, by the interest groups. More often, the procedure of
planning, no matter whatever the form, entails negotiation. Negotiation basically forms an
inevitable part of the process of planning, especially among contemporary accounts of planning.
It forms the core idea in some of most recent concepts or movements in planning, categorically
known as emancipatory planning, such as Davidoffs advocacy planning, Friedmanns
transactive planning, equity planning, and communicative planning. The term emancipatory
does not, however, necessarily imply that those approaches or movements are political; they well
may or may not be.
By contrast, political theories of planning, stemming from its political aspects, definitely involve
negotiation in the process of decision making. The crucial issue, however, is whether the
members of the public are subjects in those negotiations. The simple answer, given by the
advocates of those theories, is yes. But the more precise and more realistic answer to that
question is that participation of the public is understood to be practiced through their selected
representatives in the democratic body of the once selected government. How big a majority that
government stands for and whether its political view really reflects the general publics opinion
are matters of dispute.
Although those planning theories known as political certainly involve negotiation, they are not the
only category in planning to do so. All those so-called emancipatory planning theories, whether
they are political or nonpolitical, highlight the necessity of negotiation when it comes to decision
making. Despite this fact, however, they usually only emphasize the importance of negotiation
rather than successfully integrate it into the decision process in planning. Nevertheless and
despite all these deficiencies, they are still a step in front of those so-called technical (or, in the
terms broadest meaning, apolitical) theories, which totally failed to include negotiation anywhere
near the decision-making process of planning.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, rational planning in general and technical accounts of planning
in particular tried to integrate users in the process of planning. This happened as a result of
heavy criticism of those planning theories for undermining the users role and neglecting them in
the planning process. A very important point to bear in mind is that those theories accentuating

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technocratic aspects tried to imply that they were taking into account the role of the people as the
final users in their process of planning, but this mainly happened only in the process of data
gathering by consulting a large number of members of the general public. Although this guided
the ways in which the data was gathered, the type of data, and the general publics concerns,
needs, desires, and preferences in the process of planning rather indirectly, one of the important
questions was how and to what extent. The more important questions were whether the result
was satisfying the purpose of the taken course of action and whether the general public thought
the plan (decision, policy, action) was prepared to best serve their needs and preferences and
comply with their benefits while costing them the least.
Regardless of the source, underlying philosophy, or supporting ideology for negotiation, some
thinkers in and writers on planning have asserted that this knowingly highlights the importance
and tries to respond to fuzziness in planning. Or an opposite assertion is made, the other way
around, that fuzziness has nothing to offer to the planning realm but a time-old, but always timely
and important, technique, consulting planning actors. It proposes the actor-consulting model
(ACM) to tackle uncertainties in planning that are not always recognized as such (Briassoulis,
2008). That sounds interesting but regrettably rather simplistic and nave. ACM, as cunningly
picked up by Briassoulis, is a time-old . . . technique. Needless to repeat, ACM takes into
account the general public but only very subtly in the data-gathering process, and there is no
guarantee that the users participation actually plays a significant role, if any at all, in the process
of decision making. The matter of uncertainty will not be cured by shifting the focus away or
distracting the attention from the subject of uncertainty itself by trying to imply that consultation
will compromise uncertainty, when, in reality, consultation, and consultation only, will just add to
the degree of uncertainty. The remedy is to make this participation work in a functional manner,
on a fair ground, transparently enough for everyone to be able to observe it, and open to
negotiation yet firm enough to be democratically defendable. This is what is intended to be
addressed by a real multivalued approach in general and a fuzzy rule-based approach in
particular.
The other important critique of such a simplistic point of view is that, despite the advocating some
of the new (or old) approaches in planning as including fuzziness, this is simply not enough.
Fuzziness might be the underlying concept of many human activities, such as reasoning or
decision making, but to develop it as a rule-based tool that can systematically handle a case with
respective degrees of complexity, ambiguity, and noncrispness of the basic participating sets,
more than just implying fuzziness is needed. What is needed is a method of thinking, certain logic
as well as a sets theory developed based on the notion of fuzziness: fuzzy thinking, fuzzy logic,
and fuzzy sets. Attributing fuzziness to whatever has been traditionally in use or rediscovering
whatever has been an established trend or widely accepted practice in planning as fuzziness
semantically is nothing but deceptive intellectuality in the planning profession.
Back to the traffic light example and its binary-framed (or trinary-framed) values, when it is a
single traffic light, the case can sufficiently be represented by a bivalued system. When it comes
to a set of traffic lights, however, the case will be totally different. Supposing that the case is in
downtown New York and includes a number of traffic lights in a grid network of streets, it requires
more than a binary-framed set. The traffic lights cannot be operated by an equal number of
independent binary-coded systems or be controlled by separate operators, not even by those
working with fuzzy logic, because they work separately. Appointed independent operators for
each traffic light may well refer to the simple rule of on/off when there are/are not enough cars in
each direction. But as the congestion builds up at the consecutive traffic lights in each direction,
the self-ruling controls for the traffic nodes do not work. An overall control system able to take
into account all the nodes at any time is required to manage the traffic smoothly. Not only will this
control system control every node singularly, but it will also control the whole system in a bigger
picture, adding the secondary conditions to its time allocation for each traffic lights turn from
green or red.

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The above case is far simpler than what in reality happens during a decision process in a
planning case, simply because the number of the involving factors in the traffic light example is
fixed and constant, which is rare in a real decision-making process. In reality, the determinants of
a decision-making procedure are changing both in terms of the number and their influence.
Second, in the traffic light case, because the traffic network is a grid system, everything is fairly
obvious and straightforward. This is again hardly the case in reality in a planning process. Finally,
traffic lights individually have a very simple working pattern. In other words, their value set is a
binary set when reviewed independently. In a real decision case, each of the participating factors
usually follows a very complicated behavioral pattern that hardly complies with any definitevalued set of values. In addition, operators of a traffic light are electrical boards with no other
contextual identity involved, whereas the participants in a decision, whether they belong to
political bodies, to the general public, to interest groups, or in another category, are, as human
beings, a combination of logic and emotions. In this sense, they all are fuzzy-embedded agents.
There is another account that needs to be investigated regarding the notion of negotiation in the
planning process. Decentralization is a fairly recently emerging debate in planning. As per
discussion, the reasoning behind decentralization is not justified because the political and
economic defragmentation, which it brings forward, defeats the notion of holism and entails
reductionism. Back to the example in which the network of traffic lights operates independently,
problems arise when the network is downsized to its participant nodes, forgetting the linking
streets between the nodes; their length; the traffic flow in them; the number and locations of bus
stops, taxis, and private cars; and any unforeseen incident, like a passenger crossing a street
and causing an unforeseen breakage in the traffic flow; and so on and so forth. Decentralization,
as a very attractive incentive that brings about autonomy and apparently promotes democracy by
giving the centrality to the citizens (or to relatively very small communities) as nodal points,
ignores the linking arms between those societies and adds exponentially to the degree of
complexity.

5.14 Paradigm Shift Versus Alternative Way

It is argued that paradigm shifts, in its modernist, linear sense, (have been claiming to) have been
occurring for a relatively long time in the planning discipline. The current work may be seen as a
paradigm shift in the logic of planning. But this section argues that what has happened to
planning has not had the dimension of a paradigm shift and also questions whether the term
paradigm shift can be assigned to a human activity like planning, which has a fuzzy nature.
Classical thinking has dominated the whole notion of planning. With classical thinking as the
basis, various ideas have been seen through this thinking. There is no exception for an issue
such as a paradigm shift in planning and decision making. The process has been seen in the way
that, before establishing a new paradigm, the dominating paradigm should be abandoned. Based
on this thought, Taylor suggests that no paradigm shift has taken place in planning (see Taylor,
2009). With a review of the nature of planning, it is evident that planning for the city (designbased view), planning for people (system-based view), and planning with people (person-based
view) can none of them be fully abandoned with any single planning theory. In fact, the
superobjectives of planning, including the built environment and cities, the outcomes of planning,
and the role of people in planning cannot be seen as disaggregated aspects that can be
discarded in a period of time to achieve a paradigm shift.
Actually, the major problem has been the misreading of the initial idea of Kuhns paradigm shift,
which was originally designed for scientific disciplines, and the adoption and direct application of
the definition to planning with no proper modification. Planning as a continuous activity that has
many objectives to achieve and a large number of decisions to make cannot be fundamentally
adapted to what Kuhn suggests as a paradigm shift. The mindsets of planning, however, have
been changed and modified many times.

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Nevertheless, every little development has been magnified and seen as a paradigm shift by some
thinkers. In 52 out of 170 papers, articles, and book reviews in the Journal of Planning Theory
between 2002 and 2009, the word paradigm is used by authors. And more than 30 of these 52
pieces of writing talk about a possible paradigm shift in planning. However, almost all of them
have focused on a much smaller area of planning than what can have the proper dimension of a
paradigm in which such a shift could have happened.
Therefore, two types of binary thinking are distinguishable here. The first is the one that, by
downsizing research and limiting the horizon of knowledge, based on the reductionist tradition,
would reduce the paradigm shift to the domain in which research works and on which it focuses.
And the second is the idea that arises from very traditional binary thinking (i.e., drawing neat lines
between events) and tends to pretend that no paradigm shift has happened in planning, because
the previous planning mindset is still valid and, without giving up the previous paradigm, one
would not be able to embrace a new paradigm, to witness a paradigm shift.
Although the process of knowledge production has gotten faster, by clinging onto the former idea,
one should expect a couple paradigm shifts every season and that paradigms would shift so
frequently that, even before the last one matured, there would be no choice but to replace it with
another. This would happen in every small section of planning and related disciplines. And by
accepting the latter idea we would never see a paradigm shift in planning. Because of the
inherently integrated subspecialties of planning, there would be no general huge changes at the
same time that could change the planning objectives, goals, procedures, willing outcomes,
methods, and so on. Therefore, moving to the extremes of the definition for paradigm shift is not
reasonable.
Barker (1993), who defines the notion of a paradigm shift as a change to a new game, a new set
of rules (Barker, 1993), points out two different prerequisites for a paradigm shift to happen:
change to a new game that will be played using a new set of rules. With this definition in mind,
it is also evident that within the planning discipline, no major change has taken place that can be
taken as a new game that requires new rules. What has happened is playing on the same ground
with the same basic rules but selectively choosing some subrules wherever appropriate and
where they best suit the selected set of premises based on the principles of reductionism.
However, if the discussion about planning responsibilities, methods, and outcomes is moved to a
higher level of foundations, such as the logic of planning, planning theories, or theories in
planning, the influences of this change can be vast. This can result in that can arrive at the scale
of presenting an alternative way of thinking and logic instead of claiming a paradigm shift.
Therefore, as in many other disciplines to which fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets have been applied,
the proceeding research has tried to take the activity to this realm. However, as was explained,
all of these considerations will happen in an already binary-based defined planning decision
making where attempts can be made to apply the newer logic as a new activity but not with an
utterly different set of rules.

5.15 Conclusion
First, the current research argues that planning interested in discovery must relinquish many of
the homogenizing assumptions that underlie conventional quantitative analysis. These
homogenizing assumptions structure how planners view decision making, cases, and causes,
thereby constraining the dialogue between ideas (in a pluralist way) and evidence (in an elitist
system) in ways that limit discovery. The research argues that planners should instead focus on
diversity, using analytic strategies that are more common in qualitative inquiry. These strategies
are easy to implement when the number of factors are small and values are extremely
unrealistically clear. Planners do not usually intend to focus on the portion of each group of
decision makers. Therefore, they prefer having the maximum authority of interpretation of

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diversity by using more argumentative approaches and finally coming up with their own ideas to
be assigned as the best solution of all possible assortments. Since this method is not justified to
give the necessary voice to different stakeholders, the current research argues that the idea
acknowledges diversity and its significance but fails to suggest proportionate diversity-oriented
techniques to investigate the large numbers of factors involved and their relationships.
Second, the research argues that it is possible to use fuzzy sets to extend and deepen diversityoriented decision making that attends to heterogeneity and difference, especially to differences in
kind, using what Ragin (2002) calls a configurational approach to the multiobjective and
multivalued field of planning:
This approach searches for heterogeneity within given or preconstituted populations and
conceives of difference in terms of kinds and types of cases, replacing the conventional view of
differences as variation (i.e. as deviation from the mean). Fuzzy sets augment the configurational
approach by allowing degree of membership in type and kinds. Thus, the incorporation of fuzzy
sets allows for variation without forsaking the core and data emphasis on types and kinds of
cases. (p. 5)

Third, by examining the issues of fuzziness in planning and fuzziness of planning, this research
argues that the link between theory and the practice of logic in planning, and in decision making
in particular, can be greatly improved using fuzzy sets for the simple reason that fuzzy sets can
be carefully molded to fit theoretical concepts.
In his book Fuzzy Set: Social Sciences, Ragin (2000) gives an account of fuzzy sets when strictly
speaking about decision making:
A conventional (or crisp) set is dichotomous. All object (e.g., a survey respondent [or a
normative consensus]) is either in or out of a set, for example, the set of Protestants [or
specific stakeholders in decision-making process]. Thus a conventional set is comparable to a
binary variable with two values, 1 (in, i.e., Protestant [or effective]) and 0 (out, i.e., nonProtestant [or non-effective]). A fuzzy set, by contrast, permits membership in the interval
between 0 and 1 while relating the two qualitative states of the full membership. Thus, the fuzzy
set of Protestant [or Effectives] could include individuals who are fully in the set (fuzzy
membership = 1.0), some who are almost fully in the set (membership = .90), some who are
neither more in nor more out of the set (membership =.5, also known as the crossover point),
some who are barely more out than in the set (membership = .45), and so on down to those
who are fully out of the set (membership = 0). It is up to the researcher to specify procedures for
assigning fuzzy membership scores to cases, and these procedures must be both open and
explicit so that they can be evaluated by others scholars. (p. 6)

The goal, however, remains the acceptance of fuzzy as an alternative logic. After a long time
during which fuzzy has been denied as a worthwhile subject and its originality has been
questioned in pure mathematics and even philosophy, now it is time to make it as clear a new
concept as necessary for it to be understood and accepted by those practitioners in other
disciplines whose main purpose is a rather purely practical one. Ragin (2000) suggest, While it
might appear to most social scientists [and planners] that a fuzzy set is merely the transformation
of a binary variable into a continuous variable, this understanding is not correct (p.6).
This implies that the scientists and planners need to recognize instead that observing the sets
through the binary method is a specific type of observation in which there are merely two values,
0 and 1, and the other values are ignored. In fact, by omitting the values between 0 and 1 in a
fuzzy set, we can achieve a binary set of the same initial fuzzy set. He adds,
Indeed, this common misperception of fuzzy sets may explain why planners (both modernist and
postmodernist) have been so slow to grasp their analytic power and significance. A fuzzy set is
much more than a continuous variable because it is much more heavily infused with theoretical
and substantive knowledge. Despite the adjective fuzzy, compared with the conventional
variable, a fuzzy set is more empirically grounded and more precise. (Ragin, 2000, p. 6)

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Despite all these efforts, the problem, however, is that those settled views of the world have
become so fundamental to peoples whole conceptual scheme of binary logic that it would
become extremely difficult for most people to think of logic as being different. That, indeed, is why
such views are fundamental.

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Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere

and Planning Theory

Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning

Classical and Infinite-Value

Logic: Implications for
Decision Making
Analysis

Conclusion

6.1. Introduction
6.2. The Premises
6.3. Design-Based View of Planning
6.4. System-Based View of Planning
6.5. Person-Based View of Planning
6.6. Conclusion

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6 Analysis
6.1

Introduction

This chapter aims to give an overview of the entire research by analyzing three major points:
1. the common philosophical contradictions between the decision-making styles;
2. the analysis of two major approaches to planning decision-making theory, namely, the
system-based view and the person-based view, and the issues with which these
approaches are associated; and
3. based on the fuzzy nature of decision making and the fuzziness continuously flowing in
different stages of this process, what is given by these approaches and what they are
suffering from in terms of both concepts and methods in theoretical, epistemological
senses.
All three of these points, and hence, their analyses, will be pursued through the analytical
approach based on the rationality that needs to dominate the planning sphere and, specifically,
the decision-making process for decisions to be justified in implementation. The conclusion of
these analyses is provided in the next chapter, which is the last chapter of the research and
conveys the conclusion of the thesis as a whole. However, some points here cannot be without a
conclusion in their broadest sense.
The current chapter will provide an overview on three various views on the decision-making
process and will analyze two major preceding decision-making ways as well as their
methodologies in theory. This part addresses the major issues of justification (i.e., dualism and
reductionism), which are undeniable notions of decision making based on classical logic. These
two exhibit the very nature of decision making under classical logic and its problems as well as
spreading bivalued logic within the processes.
The key point to open the discussion here is that dualism is usually applied to the intellectual and
theoretical side, where most of the traditional dual contradictions have been set up by thinkers.
On the contrary, wherever there are more options, because of the presence of real-world
problems, which are more practical and physical (in the course of action in its broadest sense),
reductionism, as a tool to decide on a variety of answers, solutions, objectives, and so forth, is
brought into the equation to reduce the existing options. However, in many cases, the process of
reducing the real cases would result in two options. And the final decision would likely be taken
between the two.

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6.2

The Premises

Decision making did become more complex not only because of the built environments
complexity (discovering the new factors intervening in ecological changes) but also on account of
increasing the complexity of the justification of the process and the level of uncertainty within it.
The intervening variables of the process, whose relationships are not precisely predictable, have
been discussed for a long time in order to achieve any justified approach. This is along with the
philosophical decentralization with political notions of a democratic society that might cause
planning to move toward using more decentralized methods. However, decision-making theries
have been engaged with methodological and practical challenges during the same time.
In light of the above statements, three styles of decision making in planning are separately
recognizable. First of all, more than any other period, the era in which everything was based on
traditional experiences emphasized visual and physical attributes of planning and followed
aesthetic concerns with a spatial approach. Outcomes of planning in this era were end-state
blueprints and master plans. In the current research, this is called a design-based view of
decision making. Second, having considered the expansion of planning and new outcomes of the
systemic approach, decision making in planning shifted to a systems analysis paradigm in which
different aspects of planning with a systemic approach were involved in decision making. In this
era, the dominant style of decision making with a modernist control managerial attitude tried to
study the phenomenon of the city on the one hand and to examine the known specialties of
planning in the structure of the built environment on the other hand. This was all based on
technical outcomes and scientific methods of planning in a general sense. And third, with
emerging postmodern accounts, in contrast to modernist rationality, and by reinventing the
complexity of human communities, the decision-making mode is transferred to a broader sense
with the rejection of grand theories in planning. The questions here are what the three styles
premises are, what types of implications should be expected by using these methods, and why
these methods cannot be justified separately.
Rothman and Zald suggest that one characteristic of modern society is the systematic attempt to
use tools of rational analysis to lay out pathways to achieving future-oriented goals. As
organizations, both private and public, have become larger and developed professional staffs,
and as the environments they deal with have become more complex, planning and decision
making have become full-blown enterprises (Taylor and Roberts, 1985).
Although freedom, democracy, and equity in decision making are factors as important as rational
analysis to the identity of modern society, are we allowed to sacrifice the future to the vote of
today? If, today, only 51 percent of the voters would vote for an environmental planning system
that is not responsible toward the next generations, would we be justified in implementing it? This
is the issue of rationality that arose from the profession in a dialectical relationship with the
democratic decision-making system. The current planning has been more concerned with the
human sciences in planning than with the technical side of the work. As a result, most
professionals in planning (should) have set aside the planning based on merely rational
technicality (except for some subdisciplines like transportation planning) or functional, which
attempt to deal with future effects in exchange for democracy, or have treated (or have forced to
treat) them as secondary issues.

6.3

Design-Based View of Planning

There are two design-based eras of planning generally recognizable in which the plannerdesigner tries to solve the urban problems (mostly in the cities). The first is what has been
inherited by planning through architecture and the architectural approach to planning, getting
back to the early stages of establishment of planning. The second cannot be considered as the
first major are but was carrying out the revitalizing urban fabrics due to problems recognized

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during the 1990s. This was initiated by urban designers who widely acknowledged their own role
in the glorification of the physical dimensions of the cities.

6.3.1

Analysis of the Design-Based View of Planning

The design-based view of planning has for decades been marginalized as a view with an artistic
approach (see Birch, 2009, Chap. 9). Mostly challenged by recent postmodernist attempts, it has
been seen as the tradition of the architect-planner based on observing planning as large-scale
architecture. Therefore, the attempts in this regards can be considered within what is widely
accepted as urban design. It is worth mentioning that in shifting from the first (and major) period
of design-based planning to rational planning, the first view has never been abandoned or
forgotten completely and, as Taylor (1998) suggests,
The revolution in town planning thought of the 1960s did not involve the complete replacement of
one view of town planning by another. The real revolution was in making a distinction between
two levels of town planning, one strategic and longer term, and the other local and more
immediate. (p. 160)

Therefore, considering the design-based view of planning, not as an approach to planning but as
a subspecialty within planning (with the role of organizing the spatial arrangements in line with
planning in its general sense), it is not outside the imagination and does not seem utterly wrong.
That the design-based view was marginalized as merely a part of planning, because it was not
what planning was assumed to be in the modern era, and that its postmodern attempts went
unrecognized can be understood in light of Taylors statement.
Urban planning involves many factors to provide better urban areas, for instance, with towns and
cities. However, the general containment and concentration of the scope of this activity on town
planning and its commitment to provide blueprints and master plans, is the major issue that
brings us to question seriously the effectiveness of this approach for planning theorists and
practitioners who work as planners. However, a vast responsibility of planners in planning
institutions is still defined by this type of work in which they need to convince physical planners,
architects, and designers.
This approach has been mixed up with and enriched by social sciences and psychological
analysis in recent years and has somehow been revitalized by the new generation of postmodern
urban designers. But it is still categorized as an art-based method of organizing space and as an
action completely engaged with pure aesthetics. This is because the decision making in this
subprofession of planning can be thought to be based on nothing but an aesthetic and functional
view of the city that can, in turn, mean a devaluing of certain built environment issues, of public
concerns, of decision-making process, and of economic problems of the works.
Therefore, it is desirable that this view benefit from fixed goals, objectives, and targets, both in
intellectual and physical accounts in the framework of urban experimental facts and beliefs,
rather than through imagining that the decision-making process should be justified through other
participatory notions. This approach, even in sociocultural issues, can be considered as a mere
taste-based form of decision making for space, even though it cannot be an effective tool to deal
with, plan for, and heal the sociocultural issues rooted in very different factors. Therefore,
inherent ignorance of factors, which is presented by this method, is far from a specification of a
justified decision-making method for a multiobjective planning environment because, as a result,
some objectives of planning will be missed. However, still, in many cases, end-state plans are
needed and can be pursued using this view, but from procedural and technical consequential
points of views, the outcomes could not be justified for the plans to be implemented.
Therefore, as also Taylor (1998) mentions, The emergence of the systems view of planning in
the 1960s can be explained in part as a rational response to the alleged deficiencies of the
traditional design-based theory of planning (p. 65), it is understandable that, in order to tackle

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the problems experienced in both the practical outcomes of and the intellectual discussions about
the design-based view, this view was mostly replaced by other views after the 1950s.

6.4

System-Based View of Decision Making

Perhaps the first system-based style of expressing and defining urban problems and decision
making for planning can be located in nonarchitect socioeconomic activists works of the late 19th
century, years before the systemic approach was applied to planning. In this view, the economic
issues along with social inequalities (which were at the center of attention for many thinkers in the
18th as well as the 19th centuries) were brought to discussions related to planning. Although, for
about half a century, until the 1950s this view was largely avoided, the development of system
theory along with modern rationality has resulted in the reinforcement of those initial ideas.
The system-based processing style that has been used in the current research is not equal to the
systemic view of planning shaped in the 1950s and perhaps later. The current view is broader
than that view and envelopes the early system theory used by planners and thinkers at the time
as well as any other methods of decision making developed by using other fields in which the
systemic analyses of the planning phenomena are used. Thus, this can contain a variety of fields,
from political sciences to ecology, and many different operations, from study to decision making.
Perhaps it can be truly claimed that the expansion of planning and decision making (themselves)
as a whole through the study of their compartments and intervening variables, which stemmed
from other fields, was the consequence of the systemic study of the activity. Despite this strong
possibility, the process has been introduced by other names, mostly in recognition of economic,
social, and political aspects of planning, as opposed to earlier assertions of planning people, for
example, Keebles attitude (see Abercrombie, 1959). However, later on, with the expansion of
systems theory itself, this view was established in different fields, and continuingly, in theoretical
and practical planning. Taylor (2009) states,
the systems and rational process theorists suggested that town planning was a science. For, on
the one hand the analysis of environmental systems (regions, cities, etc.) involved systemic
empiricaland hence scientificinvestigation and analysis of interrelationships between
activities at different locations. And, on the other hand, the conception of planning as a process of
rational decision making was also commonly equated with being scientific. (Taylor, 2009, p.
100)

This implies, first, that the systemic approach used to study the phenomena (observing
phenomena through systemic-view glasses) has the modernist tradition of a scientific approach
and, second, that the systemic approach has been applied to both objective and subjective
aspects of planning within different subspecialties of the field.
One of the most prominent aspects of the systemic approach is to know, realize, and illustrate
any phenomenon by its components in a way that the whole is more than the sum of its
components. This can be carried out knowingly or unknowingly. This means that the systemic
approach belongs to a wider notion of so-called reductionism, but it is pursued to study a
particular subject. Therefore, it is deemed that reducing any framed set to more detailed sets can
help the analyst but with the inductive method in which the whole (which should be viewed as
more important) cannot be seen. In fact, many problems are not caused by an aberration of the
analysts methods but are rooted directly in the underlying logic.
Plenty of research works, studies, theories, and plans carried out using the systemic approach
and systems theory might have had misconceptions or wrong results (here, finding out the
reasons is not crucial). For example, such a view of planning led to the fourth volume of Peter
Halls report (1974) The Containment of Urban England, in which the conclusion on planning
problems in the United Kingdom is

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that the post-war planning system had had three main effects down to the 1970s: urban containment, suburbanization, and an inflationary effect on land and property prices. The first two
were characterised as essentially physical, the third as economic. Furthermore, the first
effecturban containmentis arguably the most fundamental in that the two other effects flow
from it. (Taylor, 1998, p. 99)

After the analysis of Halls report, Taylor asks a fundamental question that implies his doubt
about the nature of the method used by the report: but was it true that the planning system was
responsible for exacerbating existing inequalities? (p. 101). This is not a single question from a
problem carried out in a systemic way that is still pursued in various aspects of planning.
The set of financial solutions presented by the U.S. government in 2009 (including purchasing 60
percent of General Motors, taking control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and helping different
credit institutes by using federal tax money) is a sample of the systemic view tackling the
economic problem in large-scale planning. The components of the system were carefully studied,
and the solutions were presented based on political economic rationality and experiences (which
have improved the systemic view themselves) in ways that may even cause some conflict within
the U.S. economic system. But, more importantly, no one can guarantee the success of such
plans, decisions, and predictions achieved through a system-based study of each field. Then, the
problem is that if these decisions, in either the short or long term, are either unsuccessful or
about to intensify the inequality, the matter of the justification of such a decision-making process
can be brought into serious question, where a democratic system with public interest is the
political system.

6.4.1

Analysis of Attributes

The system-based view of decision making based on rational premises is still vastly applied by a
number of planners, both those who are employed by private sectors and those who are with
governmental planning institutions. The former group aims to give rational reasoning for further
developments carried out by the private sector, and the latter, using almost the same method,
attempts to plan for people. The rational approach utilized to handle the epistemological
problems of legitimization seen in the early modern designed-based view of decision making
gives more weight to various aspects of planning, but it has not been successful for the reasons
discussed below.

6.4.1.1 Unrealistic Model of Decision Making

This part is the final conclusion of the entire section, but it is worth mentioning that, with the
reduction of planning to a system, many space users are seen as blackboxes who have no role
in making the space. Although professionals might point to what can fairly be called the users
lack of knowledge about many aspects of planning, this dismissal of the people results in a very
unrealistic notion of fair planning for the built environment.

6.4.1.2 The Rigid View

The whole view tries to work out a homogenous system, with inspiration from modernist
rationalism, by providing very logical and undeniable axioms and developing them for every
aspect of decision making. By using the idea of the objectivism and universalism of decision
making and by ignoring of regionalism, it also tries to be more genuine (in its rational sense) than
the other methods. This happens along with accepting scientific accounts of decision making (in
its general sense) and using them in planning decision making. These notions, regarding the
ever-changing nature of decision making in planning, change this process into a rigid and
inflexible operation. With this view, efforts are made to establish a collective single method for all
cases, regardless of intrinsic differences of distinct sites and various fields of action.

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6.4.1.3 Vertical Order and Systems Steps

In this view, every aspect is put in vertical order with the others. With reference to McLoughlin
and others chart of decision making, which is cited in Hall (2002), the decision-making parties
have been prioritized in a vertical order. Some of the parties are completely justified to take the
decisions based on a technical, political, or economic view of the work, and some would be put in
the lower levels of decision making. Again, this means some are deemed able to make decisions
for others. Not only can this vertical order cause the omission of some vital aspects of the
process, but it can also reinforce an elitist dictatorship in the decision process.

6.4.1.4 One- or Two-Way Linear Order(s)

Another trait of the system-based view, linearity, relates to the last point about the vertical order.
In some fields in which the issue of nonlinearity is irrelevant, the linear nature of the systems
theory can work to fulfill requirements. On the contrary, if it is already accepted that decision
making in planning and the city is reducible to a system, there is another misconception that
claims that the decision-making process is a linear one. This has proven to be right when
changing one of the components in a supposedly systemic process, with clearly expected results,
actually brings unpredicted results.

6.4.1.5

Systems Within Systems

It is accepted that the modernist view of decision making has sought comprehensiveness to
decide on cases in a comprehensive way. Then, establishing multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary
approaches is the logical outcome of this school of thought because this thought tends to
separate every aspect of work and establish separate fields in order to address more details. This
reductionist system-based process always results in the omission of some factors even within
planning itself. This causes more separate arenas whose relations are not clarified, and
therefore, the multidisciplinary decisions whose scientific relations are not clarified cannot be
carried out in a clear way.

6.4.1.6 Incoherent and Incompatible Logic

The system-based view of planning, including the rational planning model itself, is not justified
enough for dealing with planning problems because it is not using the tools, the languages, and
above all, the logic compatible with the nature of planning as an activity. Therefore, to take even
the first step in revising this view, it is essential to add many-value logic to this system of thought;
this addition is necessary for the sake of coherence between nature and the tool used in the
activity, method, and logic of study. Adding many-value logic can be counted as the development
of rational planning. Alternatively, if more value is given to some other actors and perspectives in
the built environment, rather than maintaining the original version of the rational planning
mindset, the addition could be seen as creating a new paradigm.

6.4.1.7 Lack of a Reliable Method

In spite of the existing assertion based on rationality, there is no unified or comparable weighing
system in which different aspects can be juxtaposed next to each other to be compared. Beside
the uncertain prediction of the consequences provided by this view, there are some technical
problems that have not been solved yet. In the cost-and-benefit calculation system, many
parameters and factors are of different natures are not comparable to each other. The
parameters and factors cannot easily be added to or subtracted from each other. The methods
remind the critics of some type of intuition instead of deductive rationality.

6.4.1.8 Planner as a Technicalist

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The emphasis on the planner and planning institution through the technicalist view of problem
solving turns the employee of the general power structure into an apolitical figure and makes the
planners dominate the councils (at the local level). The planner is then to be a technical
calculator responsible for any political considerations and discretion that can cause many people
pleasure and pain. However, based on the advanced system-based view, some political aspects
have been taken into account in planning, but there would be some differentiations between
planners who work in different scales.

6.4.1.9 Incrementalism Underneath Comprehensiveness

If the incrementalist operation is the opposite of comprehensive, it is widely accepted that many
operations, especially those taken into account in the course of action and implementation, have
incremental dimensions. This means that, in the real world, even on a small scale,
comprehensive implementation and operation is not feasible from an ontological point of view.
Therefore, this view has characterized by some inner contradictions at the theoretical and
practical levels.

6.4.1.10 Rationality and Democracy

As was discussed before, in different models of ruling and controlling the decision-making
process, the system-based view can limit democratic notions both in planning and society. This
can be translated into a dictatorship of rationality (which is not justified itself) based on
utilitarianism. However, some may assert that a very recent version of the system-based view
tries to consider the various aspects of decision making, for instance, by accepting the roles of
different citizens through public consultation. But it is evident that the citizens have no definite
membership in this process, and moreover, as explained in 6.4.1.3, this approach has a vertical
order that is not designed to give citizens an acceptable role in the decision-making process.

6.4.1.11 Traditional Reasoning and Determinism

Determinism and the uncertainty principles are logically in contradiction. The modernist attitude,
whose deterministic stance was crucial to its core axioms, was challenged so rigorously by
uncertainty that a new position resulted, although it was not widely accepted.27 This subsequently
challenged the traditional reasoning method. The consequentalist decision making on planning
cases with unique dominating complexity has the most complex uncertainty; hence, this form of
decision making is far from scientific determinism. Therefore, what are considered systemic and
scientific attempts to determine the consequences of decisions are not reliable anymore.

6.4.1.12 Discretion and Consensus

This view inevitably operates through the use of technicalist discretion in decision making.
However, the scientific aspects are seen, by some, as facts that can intervene in the planning
process. But where these aspects come from semiscientific fields cannot be taken into the course
of decision making in a justified way. The system-based view fails to provide a way to do this,
even though it should be possible.

6.4.1.13 Scientific Facts and Multidisciplinary Decisions

As was explained, the decision-making process is not merely engaged with facts derived from
scientific outcomes. On the contrary, many different ways of deciding on cases in which different
groups could be affected in unknown ways change the process to a multivalued activity. In
27

I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice, a very famous declaration by Einstein, represents the opponents
idea against uncertainty and for traditional reasoning.

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addition, some of the planning facts can come from different technical fields, such as ecology,
geography, and so forth, based on scientific inquiries. In establishing scientific facts from different
nonscientific notions of planning. the system-based view relies on unjustified ideas and
insupportable claims. Therefore, some notions coming from the aforementioned types of scientific
aspects do not result in final scientific decisions for the entire planning sphere, and many other
values should be taken into account in other ways to avoid an outcome that is unjustifiable.

6.4.2

Dimensions of the View

This is the technical and politico-economic elitist view of decision making. The system-based
view of decision making can contain all attempts in which decision making is pursued through
various fields or through an amalgamation of some fields. In line with this style of decision
making, the technicalist view of problem definition, solution finding, and policy making in its
technocratic sense is considered merely the process of decision making. This type of decision
making (and planning as the outcome of the decision making and general policies) is seen in the
frameworks of planning for people and planning for the city. Therefore, what people need and
what is right or wrong should be determined by planners through a technical cost-and-benefit
calculation, although some related data or information is gathered by considering peoples needs,
requirements, and preferences.
In such a process, responsibility for the cost-and benefit-calculation can be shifted to the planner
(or planning authority. The planning institutions choose what the controls, preventions, and
initiatives are and what they should be through their planners. Thus, the matter of complexity and
uncertainty is considered part of the nature of the work that can pose some inherent threat to the
work in policy making, foresight, decision making, and implementation.
Some planning processes, such as zoning and land-use planning, which are upgraded and
modified from time to time, resulted from this system and exhibit the decision-making style in
which the planner plays the central role based on his or her knowledge in a centralized way. This
type of decision making does need the approval of the people (for example, for the large-scale
zoning of a city), but it still is shaped based on the technical view of the profession. This can be
seen as the amalgamation of the ideas behind the person-based view of planning and the current
views to answer some questions that were posed about this centralized and technicalist
approach.

6.4.3

Envelopment and Inclusiveness of Decision Making

It was explained that in a centralized planning system, the planner (or the committee of decision
takers, which includes the planner) has more power in plan-making and decision-making
processes than he or she should have. Although the planners tools include trial and error or a
cost-and benefit-calculation, because of the multiobjective nature of planning, the former is not
justified, and the latter is utilized when there is not enough effectively developed support for this
purpose. Basically, in addition to all other difficulties, the method (which serves people with
rational justification) follows empirical trends. Because, as was discussed, a single objective is
impossible to envision, decision making in planning is not taken as a science in which scientific
methods are applied. But what happens to the same concepts of peoples approval proposed by
the decentralized planning within a centralized atmosphere? There are two possible methods for
handling this problem: first, rejecting and ignoring the notion represented, which needs to be
justified, and second, inclusion of the notion.
What the citizens role is in decision making is a crucial question raised by supporters of the
person-based view of decision making. On one hand, this crucial issue cannot be fully ignored by
supporters of the system-based view because it damages their democratic vision of planning
(even if they assert or accept that they run a form of centralized planning), but on the other hand,
this undeniable requirement of a democratic society cannot be central to the system-based view
by its nature. With explicit admittance of and subsequent succumbing to the necessity of

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decentralization, the solution is then inclusiveness. To be justifiable, the system-based view, or

any other type of decision making, therefore needs to include some points on which the majority
agrees.
This inclusiveness is usually pursued in a way that can be seen as made-up. It has no roots in
and no fundamental influences on the process (if it is supposed that it has, a paradox is created).
This type of inclusiveness, which goes along with the basic idea of the system, is seen as
envelopment. The whole system envelopes a notion proposed by its proponents in this case,
public participation in plan and decision makingin such a way that it has the minimum effect on
the existing criteria. The envelopment usually comes along with the issue of methodological
selectiveness and arbitrariness.
Therefore, with inclusiveness of this type, proportionate weight is not given to additional
operations, which brings justification of the system-based view into serious question. There are
many questions about the effectiveness of the systemic public consultation (or public hearing) for
the same reason. Public consultation in decision making can be considered to answer the
critiques made by the person-centered view. But in the form in which it is pursued and utilized in
the system-based view, it is not justified. This is the matter of exclusiveness within the
envelopment of different aspects of the decision-making process carried out in the system-based
view. In this process (see Figure 4.1), public participation is the last part of the planning chain.
This is, again, the linear and simplified method that underlies the systemic approach, in which the
participatory practice stands at the lowest level of the system and in a vertical order, in spite of
being enveloped. In this view, the value of decision making by people and with consideration of
public concerns is not equal to the other aspects of decision-making procedure. Nor is it
proportionate to its role and weight in the decision process of planning in this view. Consequently,
the strong reasoning behind the technical and politico-economic parts (in which people have no
effective role) has different weights with the spatial parties and interest groups of planning.

6.4.4

Subjective Reductionism and Exogenous Model

Despite the fact that some still think of the system-based view as a clear model for making
decisions, it entails no structured and reliable method, especially for where the plans need to be
implemented. This was picked upon by many scholars including Taylor where he argues that:
protagonists of the rational process model also gave little attention to how plans and policies
were, or might be, implemented (Taylor, 1998, p. 111).
This is not because of the lack of system(s). This is because of the unjustified calculation for the
reductionist process. On the one hand, it was shown that the system-based view of decision
making and planning as a whole, with the centralization of actions, comprehensiveness in the
view, and its components, has tried to see the planning phenomena, and hence, decision
making, in a comprehensive way. This is not feasible (at least for now) because of the complexity
of the parameters. But by emphasizing the interregional influences, this view attempts to keep the
physical comprehensiveness as the central idea for the processes. On the other hand, because
of the complexity of the influential factors and the built environment phenomena, this view would
reduce the decision-making criteria to a practical and manageable size. However, with the
emphasis on the new concept of uncertainty, any assertion about the future consequences of
uncertain factors would be abandoned in this view. As a result, what this view highlights will be
an exogenous model of decision-making forces, along with the subjective reductionism that is
inherently followed by supporters. By prioritizing some aspects over the others, this linear model
not only enforces different types of reductionism and dualism in the decision-making process, but
it also obstructs the horizontal way of dealing with intervening forces.

6.4.5

Imported Fuzziness in the System-Based View

The system-based view is and should be based on scientific methods and a rational mindset.
Whenever it does accept value-based consensus, nonuniversal empirical outcomes, and even

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quasi-scientific disciplines or results or so forth, based on either pragmatism or any other similar
concept, the views axioms, principles, or criteria become engaged with fuzziness. Evidently, this
may happen in theoretical and practical notions of the work.
Beyond all reductionist operations that have taken place in the system-based view, some
inevitable fuzziness is added to the systems, and the systemic views in their best condition
cannot split the systems into their components. With reference to chapter 5, this means for every
little intellectual change, it is not possible to make a new name (for infinite differentiation of
membership) and work out the new areas dimensions and its relations with previous analogues
categories. In addition, from a physical point of view, obviously, wherever there are many parties
with many members (considering the human members of the system as separate subsystems)
involved in the process or system, it is not operable with all its complexities and uncertainties.
It is evident that the systemic observation of phenomena in different fields has been employed to
increase knowledge. But in the multidisciplinary fields, and among them, those in which human
factors play crucial roles, it is not simple, reliable, or very realistic. Looking at human users
(agencies run by humans with different interests) of space as black boxes within the system on
the one hand and, on the other hand, reducing the politico-economic values to unitary instruction
in order to make a system from them, planning is conducted at the highest possible level of
abstraction. However, the optimization method of criticizing the systemic view itself has been
revised many times.

6.5

Person-Based View of Decision Making

Above and beyond all other characteristics of person-based decision making lies the very conflict
between the two schools of thought; modernism and postmodernism. This was believed to be a
major turn by postmodernism in some of substantial principles of modernism:
Postmodernism also struck at the heart of the modernist planning project. Two related themes
are particularly important in this respect. These are, first, the recognition of difference, otherness
and the dynamic nature of situations and, second, the rejection of universalism and the
supremacy of scientific reasoning. (Campbell and Marshall, 2002, p. 172)

After the 1950s, comments such as those below arose mostly because, having invigorated
procedural importance, rather than consequential significance, there have been concerns about
citizens rights in the Western democratic system and about the dictatorship of rationality in
planning that was exhibited in the definitions of the roles of the planner and other parties in plan
and decision making:
Where action and planning are fused, the role of the planner changes fundamentally. The
planner formed in the image of the classical model was primarily a technician, an analyst and a
model-maker. Relatively isolated from the vital forces of change in society, he saw the world in
symbolic abstractions such as figures, graphs, charts, and maps. . . . But a new breed of action
planners, oriented to a different professional image, is moving forward. . . . To be involved in
action is to interact with others who contribute skills and knowledge that are different from those
of plannerssuch as politicians, administrators, influential persons, gatekeepers,
representatives of interest groups, technical staffs from competitive institutions, and many more. .
. . In action-planning, then, the planner moves to the foreground as a person and autonomous
agent. His success will in large measure depend on his skill in managing interpersonal relations .
. . the planner has to learn to live with conflict . . . and to exploit conflicting forces for constructive
action. Only rarely will the planner have his way; he will have to bargain, compromise, and learn
to accept defeat without being crushed by it. (Friedmann, 1969, pp. 316-317)

Newer views of planning emerged in the late 1960s with vast attempts through planning theories
to favor more practical and realistic methods. Although, the concept of such development of
postmodern ideas in planning, in its early stages of emergence, was instigated to tackle the
problems that arose from rational planning, and developed later on in different ways, later it was

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pursued with a larger list of Dos and Donts with some progressive claims. This steered
discussions on a hot topic of decentralization and distantiation between the modernists and their
fellow postmodernists:
This changing idea of urbanism can be seen as a move from the rational to the post-rational city.
If cities are more and more decentralized and distantiated, emergent and networked, full of
automatic activities and surface manifestations this works against the rational city in a number of
ways. Postmodern planners suggest that the decentred and distantiated city works against a
planning rationality that seeks to conceive of the city as a whole with coherent, specialist subdistricts that contribute to the overall efficiency of the urban system. (Beauregard 1989; Dear
2000; Sandercock 1998)
Subsequently other issues were raised as a direct result or indirect implication of this move. This
started right from the citizens right of choice and preference: If cities are emergent and networked this
works against an idea of urban citizens as having given preferences from stable identities which come
into conflict and are argued over in the urban political arena (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985, cited in Bridge,
2005, p. 9).

In light of the above comments, the abandonment of the systemic and rational view of planning
can be seen in the latest mode of planning thought, postmodern planning. In the absence of a
grand theory, the concept resulted in the decentralization of planning phenomena in both
practical and theoretical senses and decision making in the framework of performativity. It was in
addition deemed that the fundamental idea of a systemic approach based on reductionism would
also come seriously into question, but the opposition of a new account to comprehensive
planning logically has revived reductionism in its new mode. Therefore, it can be derived from this
that shifting the mode from system-based to person-based in whatever the idea was not a
change from a logical point of view. In fact, the same logic that was used in the system-based
view was again used in the person-based view of decision making. The changes were
somewhere else (see chapter 4, Changing the Mode of Planning).
Having been inspired by postmodern accounts (in the sense of schools of thought), the planner
then moved from a monotonous order to a diversity of ideas. This is where when what had been
traditionally avoided by modernism was embraced by postmodernism as a fundamental principle.
Young (1990) asserts that instead of the modernist emphasis on simplicity, order, uniformity and
tidiness, postmodernists typically celebrate complexity, diversity, difference, and pluralism.
What Habermas (1981) called the project of modernity was in fact a technological development
of the Enlightenment, and the idea that cities could be made better by rational thought and
actionby planningwas thus part of this project. With the rejection of the rationality (in its
modernist sense) of planning, the methods, tools, and types of outcomes needed to be
reconsidered and modified. This rejection, in its broadest sense, can be considered as a
dissensus that is. Thus the scientific interpretation of planning has changed the new rationality
based on postmodernist accounts. Then the scientific view of planning changed to a critique of
the modernist reliance on science and even reason itself (e.g. Rorty, 1989, see also Anderson,
1995). Dear (1995, p. 28), for instance, believes that postmodernism's principal target has been
the rationality of the modern movement, especially its foundational character, its search for
universal truth (cited in Healey et al., 1995).
Therefore, it could be concluded that all these attempts were translated into observing planning
through users eyes and planners glasses. Public participation (based on giving voice to
users), within all the uncertainty and complexity of societies, facilitated the postmodern planning
as a tool of this mode.
Thus what was proposed by postmodernist accounts was a person-centered style or publicbased view of decision making and planning with emphasis on the diversification of the decisionmaking process. Why decision making, and why planning?

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This was because, in their historical attempts, postmodernist accounts discovered two types of
diversification, first, through the process of educating people about planning matters, along with
learning from them, and, second, through public participatory in decision making that allowed
people and different interest groups to have their independent votes. However, both processes
have been seen as giving voices to different stakeholders and actors of space. The latter, the
form of public participatory, was the one that was incompletely employed by many planning
agents and institutions (even those would employ rational planning) to answer to the critique of
the publics lack of participation in its own future. This can also be considered what could have
transformed planning, as a whole, into a more practical formbut only if effective tools had been
proposed by the school of thought. The process of education people and learning from them can
be used within other levels of planning, such as plan making.

6.5.1

Analysis of Attributes

Some major problems in this view stem from the lack of consensus on decision-making
components, methods, and dimensions, and overall, on any axiom of rationality. However, the
rejection of consensus, which prevents planners to come to the similar decisions, is paradoxical
and controversial. Therefore, everything should be controlled and decided by planners that can
change case to case and person to person.

6.5.1.1 Central Role of Human

In the design-based view of decision making and even in sociological study, which was started
within the system-based view, the responsibility of the planner has never been so vast. At the
same time, citizens with the idea of citizens control had not been taken into account before in the
decision-making process. These two human forces are central to the person-based view of
decision making, although the interest groups had already been engaged with the process
through the politico-economic structure of power and control.

6.5.1.2 Dissensus and Rejection of Grand Theory

Based on the postmodern school of thought, the very nature of a person-based view is engaged
with the rejection of any grand theory. This results in the rejection of any consensus in the
decision-making process and planning as a whole.

6.5.1.3 Decentralization and Isolated Areas

The person-based view of decision making decentralizes planning. Decision making therefore
occurs on a small scale, and the built environment is parceled into sizes as small as possible. In
fact, in this view, it is deemed that through the shrinking of the decisions area, decision-making
processes become more localized and under the users control. However, as a result of this view,
the built environment is fragmented into separated and isolated areas among which there is no
relation, or and if there is, it is not important because the whole planning should be dedicated to
the decentralization process.

6.5.1.4 Exogenous Vision

This means the sources of the forces are seen as unknown and will remain unknown and usually
outside of the system affected by them. And there are no general cause-and-effect relations
among decision-making forces. The view would regard the determining forces of decision making
as exogenous. It is usually deemed that some forces come from outside the model and are
unexplained, but in practice, the person-based view tries to seek enquiries from the users who
are inside the model. This means that, ignoring exogenous forces, the planners try to control the

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situation by setting endogenous parameters to make the decisions. This view typically pays too
much attention to the context and forgets the common points and aspects of planning.

6.5.1.5 Personal Discretion

In the course of action, with the managerialist view of decision taking, the planner exerts him- or
herself tirelessly on behalf of governmental bodies in the framework of the planning institution. In
this view, the planner is the final decision taker who decides which aspects of the work (plan)
need to be considered and how much, although it is usually believed that he or she should
operate as a manager to moderate the different interest groups, discussions, and their values
without representing any specific group. He or she also would be the last person to decide when,
where, and how people should be involved in planning, which interest groups should benefit, and
why, because there is no consensus on the criteria. This can be seen as the exercise of personal
discretion.

6.5.1.6 Differences
In light of the previous point, there are some differences from case to case based on the
planners background, taste, ability, preferences, and so on. Changing the planner, therefore, can
result in serious changes in decisions on individual applications or about public enquires. This
difference can be more tangibly observed where methods of emphasis on the commitment to
public discourse are not defined even if, based on some controlling criteria, the quantity is
dynamic and uncertain.

6.5.1.7 Turbulence of Values

There is no interlink among postmodernist accounts, because it is supposed that there is no need
for a grand theory to be followed by most of them. The only common factor, which is very rare, is
not accepting any other notions, accounts, theories, and so forth. Not only does this
disagreement exist in reaching common values about decisions, but it also affects the processes
such as data gathering and defining problems, causing serious turbulence within the accounts
that brings the reliability of methods into serious question.

6.5.1.8 Lack of Proper Tool(s) in a Diverse Atmosphere (Lack of Proper

Defuzzifier)
When analysis (of planning) is conducted in a nonrational way, the distraction caused by the lack
of a rule-based approach to the process of decision making and implementation makes the whole
process scattered. The negotiation downgrades the decision process to a tool in the hands of the
planner, social activist, and decision-taker institution to interpret the voices into what the decision
maker will intend to do. This vague method, along with the vagueness of traits of the profession,
will help generate fragmented ideas and will contribute to making the whole sphere a tastebased, value-making process and planning system. The confusion of the decision maker, within
the process, may also support the idea that planning and its tasks, responsibilities, instructions,
and methods of data gathering and data analysis are so vague that there is no need to carry out
planning. Person-based turbulence in the dualist and reductionist process of decision making is
obvious.

6.5.1.9 Unrealistic Role of Planner

Unreasonable, infeasible, and unrealistic expectations of planners may take different forms.
Planners might be expected to fearlessly and impartially exercise their independent professional
judgment to the best of their skills and understanding (RTPI Code of Professional Conduct,
1994, p. 1) as people (moral superheroes) who need forever to leave their tastes and personal

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ideological perceptions outside their office doors. Alternatively, planners might be imagined as
individuals with their own customized understandings of decision making that have nothing to do
with their employers. Their acts and they, as people who have been left without any effective
tools or protections (requiring them to be ethical, moral and intellectual superheroes), can easily
be misrepresented and criticized.
This approach also contains some idealistic notions about public contributions (which are not
justified in different scales of plans in democratic ways). In the accounts supported by this view,
people from different groups need to participate in plan making with unrealistic numbers (as in
quantitative utopianism).

6.5.1.10 Unrealistic and Idealistic Environment

With the rejection of grand theories or guidelines, planning decision making is transferred into a
utopian atmosphere in which the planner and people both have to have enormous amounts of
knowledge they cannot realistically possess or obtain (a state of qualitative utopianism). The
planners knowledge and the peoples knowledge, even if supposed to be achievable, do not
necessarily agree with or conform to each other. In this view, it would be deemed that resources
and time are unlimited and the only important issue is the democratic account and public
participation. Noneconomical and impractical principles would be offered by this view, as the
incompatibility of the type of project with its budget dominates such a view and makes it idealistic
in many respects and, above all, in its expectations for the peoples coalition.

6.5.1.11 Incompatibility
The incompatibility of the degree of public participation with the type of plan and the
inappropriateness of the methods in which that participation is practiced are the attributes usually
traded for gaining a broader justification for this view. This can also assure the planning
authorities or politicians that what was called envelopment can be achieved with the lowest level
of alteration (or damage) to the decisions that have already been made, usually clandestinely
before the users become aware.

6.5.1.12 Misconception
In the person-based view, the lack of systematic concern with the dynamics of change,
nonlinearity, indeterminacy, incommensurability, variance, diversity, and complexity, along with
the lack of intentionality in theoretical development, will cause selectiveness. The result will be
arbitrariness in the selection of problems, solutions, and regulations and in a picking and mixing
of theory in relation to the practice of decision making in planning. Cullingworth (1997, p. 63)
refers to the planning ideal of flexibility as anathema to protectionist home owners, and
suggests, in return, that rigidity provides a degree of certainty and security. This is a
misconception embedded in the person-based view. In the person-based view, the nonlinearity,
indeterminacy, incommensurability, variance, diversity, and complexity, as well as the lack of
systematic concern with the dynamics of change and with the lack of intentionality in theoretical
development, will cause arbitrariness in the selection of problems, solutions, and regulations and
in a picking and mixing of theory in relation to the practice of decision making in planning.

6.5.2

Objective Reductionism and Endogenous Model

By considering all the variations and multivoices of the planning environment, the person-based
view of decision making attempts to distance itself from comprehensiveness. Then, the question
is how, with all the differences, proper solutions to cases can be approached if there is no
comprehensive knowledge of the possible options. This is more like a trial-and-error process than
a firm and rigorous methodology. However, in practice, most of the accounts devoted to this idea
consider themselves to involve comprehensiveness in two ways. First, they regard deciding for

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large-sized plans (and what is large is a controversial issue and needs consensus) as symbolic
comprehensiveness, and second, they belief that deciding on many variables and their relations
at the same time requires comprehensive knowledge about a complex environment. Yet neither
of these ideas includes comprehensiveness as intended by critics of the person-based view. This
is where consultation as means of getting a wider community engaged in the governance of
urban projects faces the dilemma of democracy vs. strategic action as Healey suggests with
reference to Latour:
The costs of democracy are then often set against the need for quick strategic action, to take a
key economic opportunity or to safeguard an environmental asset. It is also
suggested that people do not have the time to be continually engaged in governance.
Issues cannot be contested all the time (Latour, 1987). This is to misunderstand the approach. It
is often the case that full consultation on an issue is not possible. Political communities may wish
to delegate areas of decision-making to smaller groupsof community leaders, or officials, or
experts. (Healey, 2006, pp. 238-239)

Therefore, these types of accounts would reduce those factors or shrink the courses of action. As
a matter of fact, they follow the objective reductionism to limit the areas, variables and
relations in which they would intervene or with which they are expected to deal.
Then it can be concluded that there are two crucial problems in following the idea. First, the
variables and relations of a physical region are supposed to be detached from those of the
surrounding areas. Although in some cases with a rule-based method this can be possible, in all
cases with different sizes, scales, and levels of intervention, this is not feasible at all. This can
also lead to the reduction of exogenous forces of decision making that are crucial for specific
regions in the future. This idea enforces the endogenous model of force-recognition for decision
making, which is not realistic for the plan-making process. Second, the lack of embedded
knowledge of the possible methodology (in its broadest sense) cannot justify the act of a planner
(or planning institution). This means that unstructured judgment in choosing the best method
among many for decision making is of questionable justification and can be seen as a type of
methodological reductionism.

6.5.3

Envelopment and Inclusiveness in the Person-Based View

As Schn (1983, p. 207) observes facts started lose their merit even their validity as the planning
problems grew as a result of the conflicts created:
planning problems came to seem more like dilemmas made up of conflicts of values, interests,
and ideologies unresolvable by recourse to the facts (in Campbell and Marshall, 2002, p. 170).

As a result the person-centered mode of decision making was advocated based on the concept
of planning with people. By this newer view of decision and plan making, the public contributions
to the built environment have been increased. In addition, the older basis of planning under
rationality has been rigorously influenced by the (decentralized) methodologies offered by
postmodern accounts and the idea of consideration values in planning theory and action.
Campbell and Marshall (2002) cite, In the face of the plurality of competing interest groups the
idea of an overarching public interest receded and planners searched for new roles given that
centralized comprehensive conceptions of planning could no longer be sustained (Schn, 1983).
It seemed, at first, that in a decentralized atmosphere, postmodernist accounts pursuing
diversification policies were commensurate with such a complex environment, but later on, many
serious questions and critiques of methodology turned up. If such a grand theory (the grand
theory of the rejection of any grand theory) would have been presented to other aspects of
planning, because of the lack of (practically) effective methods, it could have been imputed to this
mode of thought. Then there is an actual need of presenting methods (proportionate to
requirements) along with theorizing the axioms of the school of thought, and suggesting purely
empirical methods cannot offer a set of analyzable data to the planner.

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The planner in such an atmosphere is advised to have more ideas of what citizens need to have,
what citizens know, and what different (private and public) agencies want to see around them.
Yet there is no effective way to determine where, at whom, and how a planner should look or,
more importantly, under what circumstances and why this might be justified as a method of
decision making. What percentage of population of which groups should contribute and in what
scale and with which type of plan to assure that justified decision making is achieved? There is
no reliable justification for the lack of these types of information or for the disproportionateness of
the logic of definitions with values and methods. In this environment, in comparison to with the
system-based view, the planner (or planning committee) has endless authority in data gathering,
problem seeking and finding, model making for effective planning, determining relevant concerns
and also decision making, with all intellectual elements that belong to this model of planning.
Thus, this model of planning, with all the divergence in methods, strictly links the decision-making
process to the planners personal abilities, background, and tastes and, more importantly, to the
daily concerns flowing in and from the planning atmosphere. Then, in this model, the intervening
factors in decision making and their relationships are defined by the planner through the
manageralist view with a cover of democratic aspects of work, and the scope towards which he
or she tends or is inclined is determined in keeping as closely as possible to a semblance of
democratic values and accountability.
With the emphasis on the citizens participation in decision making, the percentage of effect of
unknown envelopment of technical aspects is brought into question. This means that the
technical concerns have remained without answers in terms of methodological approach and
their situation within the methods framework. At the same time, however, some supporters have
talked about the necessity of planning authorities who can control these aspects, and they have
expressed to the planners and other critics ideas such as the opinion that the person-based view
is appropriate for decision making on the local scale. This can be seen as opposite the nature of
the postmodern school of thought.
Firstly therefore, this models strength lies where the process of diversification of planners
mindsets is mapped out. Secondly based on planners capabilities, and avoiding a unified
method, the model thrives on pursuit of diversification of ideas. Since this model empowers the
planner, from a methodological point of view, with such massive scope to make decisions, it
enslaves the concept of planning with people, making the planning follow the planners will in
deciding on premises and scopes. This means that even though the planners are guided in the
data gathering stage of work by some semistructured methods provided by theories, at other
stages, they are encouraged, by the matter of selectiveness and arbitrariness, to choose the
methods and priorities based on their personal initiatives, which may or may not be seen as
personal discretion. In fact, avoiding any structure of method, results in the use of arbitrary
inclusiveness to complete the decision-making process. Therefore, the type and rate of the
coverage of the methods applied come into serious questions for the school of thought that would
reject any rational bases.
Although some critics emphasize the ability of diversification in this style of decision making,
three issues about which there have been misconceptions or faulty presumptions need to be
mentioned. First of all, the planners (or planning committees) ability to deal with decision making
has been supposed to be dramatically idealistic. Second, in such a complex atmosphere,
avoiding abiding by a unified method will not necessarily result in a better method, let alone a
justified one. Third, discrepancies rooted in separate values, objectives, locations, and times
cannot interpret or explain the arbitrariness of the method used to determine the portions allotted
to each actor, group, or stakeholder in the planning decision process.

6.5.4

Unstructured Judgment

A simple analytical conclusion must be borne in mind: the shortcomings of a particular decisionmaking view cannot justify the operation of the opposite view, as the contradictions of classical
logic would insist. The classical either/or notion belongs to classical logic, which searches for

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certain truth, but in a more realistic view, the integration of the two contradictory views, even
though they are contradictory, can cover some gaps in between that cannot be filled by either of
them separately. However, the integration of the proceeding methods might not always
guarantee a full epistemological justification because there might be other deficiencies that have
not yet been pointed out or covered by either of the contradictory views in the first place. This can
be either because of some inherent shortcomings in those methods, which have not yet been
deemed substantial to be pointed out, or for the fact that combination of the two contradictory
views is by no means providing a full account of what will be needed to fully and completely cover
all the possible gaps. Therefore, the comprehensiveness, in its modernist sense, even in the
methodological aspects, is not the matter of justification, but accounting for (the) ignored notions
is the first step in the justification of the process, even if these notions are among the
contradictions. Thus, there is a new approach of epistemology, in which a classical
comprehensiveness of the variables is not the central point. Here, consideration of the barriers of
the modernist comprehensiveness (i.e., complexity and uncertainty) and the whole concept of
certainty of the values (i.e., true or false) come into the equation. Although this looks like a pivotal
idea for the postmodernist accounts, it is different from two points of view. First, the localization
proposed by postmodernism results in many problems within planning, especially where there
are connections between small and large scales. Second, the dissensus provided by this school
of thought caused serious problems in justification and legal issues in the course of action; these
problems arose from the lack of a justified method in decision making mostly because of the
reliance on human-based dimensions and unstructured judgment.
Therefore, in a dissensus-based environment, planning operations are not free from the charge
of a lack of justification. Within many different tendencies of postmodern planning, attempts to
invent or provide relevant methodologies are easily traceable. In the current literature of planning,
postmodernist thinkers, in spite of their assertions, try to achieve methodologies to clarify the
dissensus, to give the planners some guidelines that are traceable and defendable.

6.5.5

Reductionist Action

During this process, in light of the above comments, and in the lack of instruction, the planner is
faced with situations in which it is necessary to reduce the factors and elements of decisionmaking procedure using his or her own idea. Consequently, the reductionism (as a process used
to facilitate the decision-making process) is not optimized in a way that the diversification of
ideas, proposed by postmodern accounts, is guaranteed. Moreover, this unjustified reductionist
process itself is engaged with personal reductionism; therefore, the arbitrariness of reductionism
multiplies, possibly growing even at an exponential rate.

6.5.6

Imported Fuzziness in the Person-Based View

Because of the recent critiques from rivals, the rational mindset of planning and decision making
has tried to take into account different aspects that were never before on the agenda for such
schools of thought. Among these new considerations, what has affected the process of decision
and planning dramatically is confession or admittance to the defects that resulted from ignoring
the peoples role in the decision-making process. Practitioners of the rational school of thought
have tried to deal with this by accepting the public participatory role, which has been an important
step in getting as close to reality as possible. This implies that the system-based view implicitly
acknowledges the fuzziness acquired by accepting peoples rights and shares in democratic
planning. Marshall refers to this idea but doubts its applicability and provision:
However, the idea of the public interest as something definable and knowable he [(planner)]
casts as a chimera. The dominant contemporary view within the planning academy is therefore
dismissive of the public interest either because it is too vague to be useful or because it is an
elitist and potentially anti-democratic idea (Campbell and Marshall, 2002, p. 173).

On the contrary, the person-based view of planning and decision making welcomed the fuzziness
in planning from the very first step. This engagement can be categorized as three different types.

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First, there is an acceptance of fields such as politics, economy, and sociology in which values
and humanistic factors play a central role and technical subjects are more colorless than in the
other trends. Second, with the rejection of a grand theory, as was explained, the fuzziness of
various processes was increased. Third, the person-based view relied on the planners power
and on public contributions through various forms of participation. Efforts are made to learn from,
educate, and give a voice to the people. Using these three strategies, planners tried to conduct
decision making at the highest level of fuzziness. This was not, however, problem free, as it
seemed to be at the start.

6.6

Conclusion

Thus the system-based view, in line with the nature of planning (concentrating on balance among
many objectives, stakeholders, and actors) must take into account all these aspects at the same
level (with different extents of contribution) and must maintain the presence of different (types of)
stakeholders at different levels of plan making, policy making, and decision making to be justified.
Although, as was mentioned, the recent systemic views contain inherent fuzziness of planning,
there is no fuzzy logic (no fuzzy set or rule-based approach) in their methods commensurate with
the expanded vision. They still benefit from classical logic-based tools because not only are the
reductionist operations and dualist values more coherent with the systems of such tools, but the
traditional methods can also be kept as they are. Therefore, they try to deal with one type of
complex phenomenon with an intrinsically different and simplified logic that is not proportionate to
it and hence cannot be justified.
Although the person-based view is somehow engaged with fuzzy phenomena (rather in its
general sense), in which planning or even fuzziness of values (in the binary fuzzy-set sense) is
also involved, it is inherently incapable of offering a rule-based method to deal with those types of
diversity proposed or required by planning. This means that the diversification of the decisionmaking situations is abandoned, that there is not the proper logic with which to deal with it. As a
matter of fact, what is proposed by postmodern accounts is about to be a descriptive model of
what is available, but at the level of prescription for the action, there is no justified method
because of the nature of the thought itself. Therefore, it is seen, in practice, that any action faces
the questions of Why this? and Why not that?.
Thus, this mode of thought is under critique not because of the acceptance of fuzziness as an
inherent factor of planning but for these reasons: the rejection of the technical view of planning;
the lack of proportionate tools to control the vagueness dominating the whole process, welcomed
by many fuzzy phenomena, and proposed by this view; and finally, the lack of a justified
defuzzifier. As far as this research is concerned, there is no fuzzy logic (including fuzzy sets or a
fuzzy tool or even many-value logic) used by the postmodernists to tackle the fuzzy problems.
This causes the production of a dispersed and vague atmosphere with divergent and numerous
factors and actors with nothing more than a vague tool to defuzzify the operations. The current
attempts in decision-making theory indicate a methodological turbulence in a nonlinear
atmosphere that does not have a justified method in hand.

6.6.1

Common Problems, Problem of Logic Underlying: Consequences of the

Lack of Attention to Fuzziness in Planning

These two discussed forms of decision making, with all counted difficulties and their
differentiations from each other, have some epistemological problems in common.
They are both characterized by unjustified methods of reductionism and arbitrariness of choice.
Both views benefit from a single order of values that prioritizes some values over others. Using
this order, they try to outline solutions that are applicable to all problems and plans at different
scales and of various types and regardless of the level of intervention. However, they are not
flexible (or very flexible) in the reductionist mode and cannot take into account the different

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aspects or factors of decision making at the same time and with different shares or distinct levels
of contribution.
The value-making systems of both views benefit from absolute valuestrue or not true (false)
whereas it is asserted that they deal with different values. They search for truth in planning where
it can be far from justified in various courses.
With reference to the Changing the Mode of Planning section in chapter 4 and the Crispness of
Planning section in chapter 5, the proceeding section is dedicated to analyzing the major
problems coming out of the dualism and reductionism at the practical and theoretical levels,
problems related to the lack of attention to the fuzzy sets and their applications in decision
making. These problems, among many others, can compromise or spoil the whole process of
decision making and its underlying insight through the dominating logic.

6.6.2

Dual Intellectual Contradictions Versus Fuzzy Binary Sets

6.6.2.1 From Focused and Centralized to Dispersed and Decentralized Decision

Making
The first point to start the discussion on the move from a centralized to a decentralized decision
system is the underlying theoretical framework of planning; a shift from rational to actual planning
which, as mentioned by Cullingworth, can potentially create conflict of interest:
Rational planning is a theoretical idea. Actual planning is practical exercise of political choice that
involves beliefs and values. It is a laborious process in which many public and private agencies
are concerned. These comprise a wide range of conflicting interests. (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 5)
th

It is evident that, during the 20 century, two major changes occurred in planning whose effects
on the decision-making process are considerable. The first is power conversion, which is the
transferring of more power from higher to local levels and widening the scope of power exercised
at the local level and, the second is task transformation, providing services for different people.
Pointing out a number of added tasks to their agenda, Goldsmith draws a comparison between
the typical British government in 19th century and its modern equivalent, but also highlights town
planning as a paramount:
The whole scope of nineteenth-century city government in Britain was much narrower than its
present-day counter-part: functions such as housing and education came to local government
late in the century, while the town planning function is entirely a twentieth-century phenomenon.
Many services, such as libraries and parks, owed their origins to the generosity of industrial
entrepreneurs, who, as part of their ideology, saw it as their duty to provide some cultural
comforts for their workers as well as housing them. (Goldsmith, 1980, p. 18)

These changes have led to new relationships between local authorities and decision making and
between decision making and many different aspects of planning. Many aspects of planning are
constantly expanding or becoming increasingly the responsibility of parties at the local level: from
data gathering to analysis, from providing the plans for manipulating the physical environment
(Bailey, 1975, p. 5), to supplying blueprints of social changes and control, and from making the
decisions to providing the possibilities for the people to participate as decision makers as actively
and effectively as they can. This extended list of tasks and expanded tasks needed a huge
number of people, including, obviously, specialized experts to serve this system in a variety of
sections of the works. Evidently the first and foremost leading entities in managing those tasks
are governments. In this regard, Goldsmith suggests that the business of government, both
national and local, has both increased in scope and become much more complex in nature. One
measure of this is the vast increase in the army of people employed by city government
(Goldsmith, 1980, p. 18).

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It is widely accepted that the built environment is not built merely within the local level. Neither is
the planning decision making limited to the local levels. The multilevel nature of policy making
and policy applying compel the establishment of different layers of decision making. However,
Cullingworth asserts that despite good theoretical grounds which support this argument, there is
a practical concern about peoples day-to-day life which is equally important, if not more:
The example of metropolitan government is a case in point. Such a tier of government could rise
above local interests and take decisions for the benefit of the region as a whole. There are some
good theoretical arguments in favor of this, but the practical point is that people live locally, not
regionally. (Cullingworth, 1997, p. 10)

It is quite evident that the decision-making mode cannot be shifted utterly from intellectual (and
theoretical) to practical (and applied) sets of the aspects of planning -that each set is on one end
of an axis- as everything is happening in between in reality. This means that, even on the axis
between centralized and decentralized forms of decision making, showing the set, there are
infinite values of commitment for either one, but these values are not necessarily exclusive to
one: they may belong to both but in different amounts. Therefore, if decisions are taken within
one of the above modes, the technical controversies are inevitable. This means that if there is no
rule-based coalition between the two modes, they need to be kept alive in separate islands. The
supporters of elitist and plural models, then, would persist on their sole and exclusive legitimacy,
while, in fact, neither of them can be singularly legitimized and justified to rule the whole
decision-making sphere.

6.6.2.2

Relying on Technicalist or Public Participatory Aspects

Reliance on merely the technical (rational) side of planning based on what elites of the sphere
theorize and propose (as plans and solutions) puts planning in danger of being taken to the
highest level of abstraction with virtually no use to the course of action in planning practice. Over
the long period in which this sort of method has been developed, the result has been a distancing
from the reality of peoples everyday lives.
On the contrary, perceiving planning through a merely pluralist approach (in the sense of public
participation as the source of making plans and making decisions) limits the planning sphere to
solving current problems through unsophisticated methods (applied only to the type of
deficiencies that can be detected by the general public) without considering many other
intervening aspects of the work. This method defines ways that are disproportionate to planning
(which contains plans with different scales and levels of intervention and types) and the entire
planning.

6.6.2.3 Planning with People or Planning Without People

It was discussed that plan making can be done with public contribution, but it does not seem
reasonable to imagine that the people can have their own plan when they do not have at least
enough time to spend on the issue (if it is not said that the people do not have enough
professional information to make a plan).
How about the second subject related to planning with people? If planning is seen in the context
of a democratic society first, and in such a free society justice is defined within the utilitarian
mindset, rather than a radical, determining and controlling free market, then the matter of
decision making will be justified merely with peoples contributions to the decision-making
process. However, this system can change.

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The above system can be replaced by other definitions of justice (free-market, socialist, or even a
local governing system). However, applying certain kinds of premises, such as a free-market
pattern of ownership, to shape the planning sphere for all type of plans, which are taking place at
different levels, will replace or remove the other intervening factors of decision making, such as
public participation and peoples votes, that has been defined as a priori to the others. And this is
not justified because when the decision-making process is taking place on a plan, the first
decision makers (there are also plan makers and those who offer plans) would have made their
decisions well before the other groups have had their chance to contribute or have their says. In
this case, either the other (secondary) groups should vote for one of the prepared and presented
plans in order to reflect their specific interests, or the whole process should change to a show of
democratic performance.
The idea of absolute, constant, and rigorous premises will shape determinism and absolutism of
values. This type of absolutism (which is strengthened by clarification of values in reductionist
and dualist ways) with prioritization (in horizontal order) of certain values can result, first, in
theory that goes to the highest level of abstraction and, second, in the minimum level of flexibility,
which is in intrinsic contradiction with the nature of planning as a dynamic activity happening in a
vibrant environment due to its ever-changing characteristics.
This should not be carried out to two senses of planning, planning merely with people, which is
not feasible, and planning without people, which is not justified. Therefore, the amalgamation of
these two can be an alternative solution to the problem.

6.6.3

The Unjustified Reductionism for the Fuzzy Environment: Reducing the

Decision-Making Parties

As was shown, the forces that are trying to govern the planning dimensions can be categorized
into six different parties. But the proceeding views tend to reduce those to merely two domains,
those who benefit from outcomes of applied sciences (by using technological developments),
such as ecology, and those who benefit from the social sciences and humanities (based on
empirical sciences), such as economics, geography, sociology, and psychology. The main
stakeholders of these forces are then those engaged with the technical side of the planning (such
as scientists, technicians, and planners who take part in the technical body of planning) and
those engaged with the operational-technical side of planning, the structure of power, and the
issue of management of the resources (such as politicians and planners who are parts of
governmental bodies and power institutions). These two groups will then somehow compete,
apparently to serve those engaged with the planning outcomes (such as private sectors,
entrepreneurs, NGOs, and people who are the users of the planning and its outcomes), each
group by demoralizing the other and sticking to its own principles only. However, the members of
the third group, on so many occasions, campaign to upgrade themselves to become direct
voices, influences, or determinants in the decision-making processes or use lobbying or other
means of influencing the decision processes indirectly to change them for their own benefits.
Therefore, all these groups (i.e., planners, institutions, institutes, organizations, and so on),
based on their different concerns, can try to influence planning by affecting the decision-making
and policy-making processes to achieve (a) their own groups interests or those of other groups
(for example, when the government tries to maintain the free market or when one specific group
votes for the other one because they have analogous interests and might indirectly benefit from
the outcomes of a specific plan for which the elected party would possibly vote) or (b) the
interests and benefits of other groups or people who usually have no voice in decision making or
policy making from a quantitative point of view from which they could be seen as the majority.
This can be done by increasing public knowledge through educating them, encouraging planners
to learn from people (at the local level) and to know more about the spatial users, or even by
directly advocating for them in decision-making processes. (The first and second groups usually
are involved in politico-economic issues from one side and sociocultural ones from the other side.

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The third groups concern is the issue of the technical side of the profession and normally is tied
up with technical aspects of the works and the built environment as a whole.)
Therefore, reducing, restricting, or downsizing the decision-maker and decision-taker entities to
each of the above groups (those who consider either the procedure or the consequences of the
decisions) can cause some problems. This means that those who emphasize the rational
approach to decision making reduce the parties to those who are involved with planning from the
technicalist point of view. They directly or indirectly omit the political nature of the decision
making and the necessity of public participation and of interest groups roles in the processes.
On the contrary, the planners and thinkers who point out the political nature of decision making
on one hand and open the planners way to unjustified discretion by prescribing an undefined
relation between public participation and political bodies on the other hand, damage some
aspects of decision making while ignoring the technical accounts. There are some practicality
concerns if the decision process is going to be put up to collaboration in its literal sense. This, as
Healey argues, changes in nature, even though it is still understood to be a collaborative process:
If collaborative processes become a normal way of doing governance work, then citizens and
stakeholders generally will demand and expect to be involved in any governance initiative which
significantly affects them, especially where it changes the environments of day-to-day living.
There is much evidence that such an expectation has been steadily growing in Europe and North
America in recent decades (Dryzek, 2000; Schlosberg, 1999). This does not mean that citizens
seek to be involved in all government decision-making. Instead, they seek evidence of the quality
of the attention being paid to them. (Healey, 2006, p. 335)
In which aspects they should play a role is therefore a crucial question (see the issue of
selectiveness), and it can be deduced that reducing the role of parties in a multiparty environment in
general and without consideration of the conditions of planning cases cannot be justified at all.Then
the justification of the decisions taken using either way can come frequently and seriously into
question.

6.6.4

Turbulence and Difficulties of Envelopment: Unreliable AND

The system-based view of decision making is extremely linear, single ordered, and centralized,
whereas the person-centered style of decision making is excessively decentralized and turbulent.
The field in which all variables, relations, and theories can be covered in order to organize the
planning mindset is the enveloping field.

There is no doubt that as time passes, a theory can and will be reconsidered from different points
of view, unless it is not compatible and dynamic enough to evolve and adapt to the changing
dimensions of the context to which it relates. It will be revised, changed, or metamorphosed in
some ways, and it will borrow other aspects of work in other ways in order to answer the
questions that come up after its initial development and to fill the deficiencies and gaps even with
a defensive move. It is because a theory is not perfect and, at least, due to changes that come
with time that it needs to be dynamic enough to be modified effectively. Generally speaking, any
formulation, in either the framework of a theory or a mindset, moves towards a more exhaustive
concept. The planning theory, when it specifically comes to application, is no exception. Taylor
draws attention to its links to a wider context which in return necessitates responding to the
requirements of that context:
Theory about implementation could therefore be seen as highly specific, practical theory; it was
about practical reasoning. However, both bodies of planning theory accepted that town planning
was not an autonomous activity operating in a vacuum, separate from the rest of society. (Taylor,
1998, p. 126)

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Therefore, the descriptive or explanatory theories with either an empirical basis or a rational
principle with a tendency towards a certain notion or arising from a specific area (such as a
specialty or subspecialty) tend to deal with planning through a specific type of presupposition.
That is why they try to explain the entire discipline of planning through their own window rather
than having an equally balanced method. Referring to Pickvance, Taylor also emphasizes that:
Hence Pickvance's (1977, p. 69, in Paris, 1982) thesis that the determining factor in urban
development is the operation of market forces subject to very little constraint outside public
sector planning, and especially private sector developers operating within a competitive property
market, which was central to an understanding of the problem of implementation in planning
(Taylor, 1998, p. 126).

Therefore, these theories try to manifest a theory that is rather general, in the sense that it can be
applicable to all planning problems at different levels to tackle the planning problems, even if they
carry a multilayer approach.
Then the most controversial discussion of theories in planning and decision making comes up:
the issue of the envelopment of contradictory and fuzzy notions. Any binary-based decisionmaking view faces technical facts or undeniable values that cannot be ignored. But,
methodologically, the mindsets have already been set so certainly and precisely that opposition
cannot be taken into account where the theories and methods face with fallacies, paradoxes, and
unexplainable contradictions put forward by fuzzy phenomena. The binary logic to explain the
planning and decision-making theory position is not effective enough and leaves no room for
coexistence with the opposite ideas, meaning that, epistemologically, true and false notions
cannot live side by side.

6.6.5

Comprehensiveness, Inclusiveness and Selectiveness, Arbitrariness

Comprehensiveness in its modern sense, as it was pursued in the design-based view of

planning, is one of the most controversial issues in planning. It has been criticized and known to
have been compromising many other qualities starting right from the decision process of planning
down to the finest possible detailed decisions in design. This was pointed out by Taylor:
By all means, we may reject as undesirable and unrealistic the pursuit of comprehensiveness in
town planning, whether in relation to the actual practice of replanning cities comprehensively or in
relation to the process of making planning decisions. . . . the pursuit of rationality is distinct from
the question of whether we are required to be comprehensive. (Taylor, 1998, p. 165)

Once the mode of the architect-planner persisted in designing a city in as much detail as
possible, in Le Corbusian way (in its architectural and authoritarianist sense), this issue came
under serious question. Since then, with the defining of uncertainty as a deterministic
indeterminism (see chapter 4), comprehensiveness has been picked as a nonrealistic mode of
thought, despite all its rational bases.
The question of how achievable comprehensiveness is in planning has been the center of
discussion in this arena. Among planning theories, there is a collective agreement about the fact
that comprehensiveness is not completely achievable. However, in the whole planning
profession, there is a common tendency to move towards it.
Parallel to this issue, there exists another question that has directly led to the matter of the
legitimacy of planning actions: If there is no way to achieve comprehensiveness (which, at least
now, is imagined to be the case), how can the decision-making process be justified? This is why
some may assert that the matter of selectiveness (as opposed to the concept of
comprehensiveness) can bring the planning process into arbitrariness that can by no means be
justified. This latter issue, which repeatedly arises in postmodern planning, is widely accepted,
acknowledged, and approved to be utterly entangled with arbitrariness in regard to planners
decisions.

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Although in the person-based method, the planner tries to communicate with actors in the space
in order to know their ideas, the decision maker eventually makes the decision with barest
minimum, if any, consideration of the communication which was carried out. This shows that
even the pursuit of a specific method (such as communicative planning or advocacy) does not
necessary imply that the issue of arbitrariness has or could have been tackled. This is because,
even though the planners seem to have been trying to tackle the problems as byproducts of
systemic planning or as if they have been the inherent problems of the systemic approach, they
have had to sacrifice some aspects of the work, which means that there is a degree of
selectiveness, and with this, comes arbitrariness. But this association between the systemic view
and arbitrariness also exhibits that the conceptual framework of activating the methods (and
theories) has been limited to a specific area in which the process of selecting the subject, area,
and scale of concentration are still vague. In one sense, the person-based view claims to have
come to tackle the problem of the systemic approach. However, internally, by representing itself
as a means of dealing with local (small-scale) planning, this person-based view first implies that it
complies with a systemic view of planning. Second, because it disjoints the problems on the local
and national scales, arbitrariness in selecting the problems occurs. This person-based view also
needs to disconnect the local level from its original context at the national level in a reductionist
manner. This rupture from context and where and how it might happen is the other problem with
this approach. Understating such a controversial issue as comprehensiveness thus brings up the
matter of inclusiveness. The ratio of inclusiveness (in defining and/or finding problems and in
observing the interlinks between a specific urban problem and its relevant issues) needs to be
justified to avoid arbitrariness of scope. Therefore, arbitrariness of (a) parameters and factors, (b)
tools and methods, and (c) scopes and ascendancy are three major types of arbitrariness that
need to be handled.

6.6.6

Fuzziness of Rationality: Information and Pure Rationality Versus

Explanatory and Empirical Rationality

It is a mere misconception to suppose that rationality has no different types and that conclusions
can be drawn about every rational phenomenon using its rational premises.
Based on the history of planning, two major types of rationality in planning are recognized, pure
rationality and an empirical one, which are definable, based on the fuzziness of definition. For
example, when the population increases, more food is needed to feed people. This statement is
most likely to be true. It is not completely true because, with a small amount of population growth,
the new, increased population can be fed with the same amount of food with which the population
could have survived in the first place. Some may assert that this could happen, for instance, by
changing the pattern of food consumption or employing a new type of distribution. But this
reasoning does not always work, as, with a big increase in the size of the original population, it
would not be possible to feed everyone with the same amount of food. Without an increase in the
amount of food, some would be affected by the lack of food resources. Then the question is the
location of the boundary at which the population growth passes the critical limit. This implies a
pure rationality of reasoning.
In comparison, when it is asserted that in the summer, the cost of properties will increase, this
statement implies that the assertion is empirically almost true (based on empirical statistical
observation). There is no rational foundation for this assertion, with one exception, statistics.
Usually, this type of statistical fact, with some exceptions, needs to be interpreted and explained.
At this stage, based on some other facts and through rationality, some explanations will be given
for the causes behind this relationship between season and cost. Thus, this is a situation in which
rational commentaries attempt to explain the entire outcomes of empirical observation. And for
the exceptions, there is a risk calculation provided by information analysts, suppliers, and
providers who supply the information for customers. This calculation, with a percentage again
based on statistical outcomes, exhibits the percentages in which the empirical outcomes do not
satisfy the condition. These types of information analysis and explanations show the degree of
unreliableness of the rationality based on what has happened up until the present time. This is

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only a model based on existing experiences (knowledge of explanation about the past). But there
is no guarantee that this will happen again in the future. Therefore, in a case that focuses on the
smallest number of factors (in this example, a period of time and the cost of residential
properties), with the area of research taken out of its context, the question is what other kinds of
aspects are involved in determining the price of properties overall and in the summer and how
much they are. Where temporal, locational, and humanistic factors are the influential values of
rationality, the fuzziness of rationality will appear.
This type of empirical knowledge of (or pragmatic approach to) the intervening fields in decision
making and planning is imitated in what is pursued in sciences but with huge distinctions. First,
the scientific empirical observation can be controlled in a restricted atmosphere. Second, this
type of inquiry is carried out on specific traits, usually on a single trait and by using the allocated
tools or instruments (instrumentalism on single objective problems). Third, the humanistic values
usually do not play a role in reliable examination; otherwise, the observer must expect more
unreliable results. Then the inductions are more limited and more involved in the presence of the
fuzziness of human factors, by which the objectives and definitions will be changed and
diversified. Basically, the parameter of satisfaction is a very complicated phenomenon. It
becomes more complex and engaged with the matter of uncertainty, the more individuals there
are involved in the definition of satisfaction within a situation in which different people and groups
look to be satisfied (providing two opposite or semi opposite satisfaction factors at the same
time and in one environment is the matter of uncertainty).

190

Introduction

Planning, Planning Sphere

and Planning Theory

Concentration, Theoretical
Framework, and Methodology

Analytical Study of Research

Context: Decision-Making
Aspect in Urban Planning

Classical and Infinite-Value

Logic: Implications for
Decision Making

Analysis

Conclusion
7.1. Introduction
7.2. The Aims and Objectives of the Current
Research
7.3. Conclusion
7.4. Contributions and Implications
7.5. Limitations of the Current Research
7.6. Future Research

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7 Conclusion
7.1

Introduction

If dealing with people was the most important aspect of planners work, it seems that the inquiry
into diversity-oriented decision making has passed. The diversity of different interest groups
(public and private or sectional) has been accepted, and different accounts to achieve an integral
way to compromise with the groups have been presented. Now is the time of theorizing the
method that can serve diversity-oriented interest groups of planningprivate citizens, institutions,
agencies, and associationsregardless of their tendencies and ideologies.
The only prudent way to carry out planning as a sensible activity integrating diversity is to foster
diversity-oriented planning investigations that welcome different forms of knowledge, either
empirical or rational. This means that theorizing the method considering diversity of the peoples
minds and public interests no longer necessarily defines diversity for planning, which is said to be
dedicated to differences. But the diversity of ideas, thoughts, and attitudesnot in a unitary and
cohesive atmosphereis needed to characterize the diversity of notions in coalition as per
Campbell and Marshall (2002, p. 182) suggestion where they stress that planning cannot evade
what Harvey (2000) refers to as the dialectic of the either/or. This reconciliation will be
adjustable, dynamic, and nonlinear.
But today and in light of fuzzy sets, we know the above comment can be relatively true. In some
structures, it is true; in some others, it is partially; and in the rest, it is not. Even in those cases in
which it is relatively true, it does not defy the dialect of both/and.
Whether or not the dominant decision-making styles and their theoreticians and proponents
accept that planning is involved with fuzzy phenomena or is a fuzzy phenomenon as a whole,
they still employ classical logic to tackle the problems, and they unanimously admit that
encompassing all the required knowledge and processes required for carrying out such a task is
almost impossible. As Goldsmith (1980) states, Indeed, a complete understanding of the social,
economic and political processes of city life is beyond the capacity of any man (p. 27).
With all the difficulties working against the achievement of exclusiveness and
comprehensiveness and also the pessimistic opinions about this, the important notion of linking
the different models is still being pursued. Whatever the model, the idea that there is a need for a
general theory (model) of linked models is still very much favored, even though there are still
many existing doubts. Among many others perhaps Goldsmith (1980, p. 27) is the one who more
overtly asserts that it is more likely that linking the models together would provide a better,
complementary explanation, reflecting some of the wider issues.
But it seems that a justified model of planning is the one in which different atom models can be
located and situated. What this situating would be like and what the possible qualities of this
general model are would be subject to further inquiry. This idea is against what postmodern
planning (in its broadest sense, rooted in postmodernism as a school of thought) brings to the
knowledge pool that is very vague and hence unjustified. Therefore, the unifying model again is
at the center of attention of many to avoid any unjustified planning and decision-making theory
that would result in inequality. The inequality was claimed by postmodernism in the loss of
justified modernist tools (even for small-scale intervention) that caused many serious critiques
not of the whole idea of this school but of its processes through which many expect an at least
better (and more accountable) set of outcomes. There is no need to look back at the harsh
critique of early modernist planning or even late modernist rationality in planning the built
environment. Yet much criticism about this realm exhibits the general unhappiness of the
thinkers. However, it is obvious that the planning institutions requirements would be fed with
either one of these methods or most likely with an unknown ratio of amalgamation of both. But

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from another point of view, the new wave of commitments to rational planning (within its new
envelope) have been running in postmodern accounts, and postmodern proponents who
emphasized the lack of consensus in planning were rigorously criticizing the rationality of 1960s
planning, which renders a clashthe clash in which none of the sides would have their own allin-one justified reasoning. Those sides do not think of reconciliation; however, they both know
that the opponent has something to present. This is because of the lack of an inner appropriate
logic (within each school of thought) that is coherent with planning. It is also because of the lack
of logic to weld these two schools or distribute their duties in an acceptable way. The concept of
making a justified balance between planning aspects, with respect to peoples wants,
requirements, and futures, planning decision-making (at both theoretical and applied level)
should be handled through the many-valued model (or infinite-valued model of fuzzy logic) of
planning and relativeness in decision making and planning.
But first and foremost, regardless of the perspective from which the subject matter is being
looked at and regardless of other priorities, the traditional definitions of planning and its
processes and constituents (i.e., decision, plan, implementation, evaluation, decision) should
change.
It should be borne in mind that due to the nature of the current research, and as highlighted
before on several occasions, precise borderlines cannot be drawn between different sections of
this research, as they are in established or ordinary types of research. The conclusion of the
current research has already begun in the Analysis chapter, and what is discussed in this final
chapter is in addition to what has been stated there.

7.2

The Aims and Objectives of the Current Research

The aim of the current research was to introduce fuzzy logic to the decision-making theory in
planning and planning in general. This was pursued and addressed through four different
objectives, as follows.

To examine classical logic as the main underlying thinking framework in planning and the
loopholes attributed to it that make this logic subject to criticism, and to illuminate what
the aspects of decision making in planning are and how unjustifiable the decision theory
can be when committed to nonfuzzy accounts and unstructured defuzzification methods.

An epistemological review of the logic embedded in and attributed to planning (and with particular
reference to the decision process) was carried out to point out the normative approaches to the
theory and practice of decision making in planning.

To analyze and map out the problems that the decision process is facing as a result of
this method of thinking.

An in-depth study of planning with special focus on the decision theories was conducted to
investigate the dimensions and specifications of the decision process and the deficiencies it is
facing as a result of the application of the established methods.

To investigate what is already in use as an alternative to bivalued thinking, logic, and

systems in other fields of science and technology when dealing with multivalued
situations.

Established and tested alternatives to bivalued thinking, logic, and systems in other disciplines
were closely examined to enable this study to build upon what is already in use in those
disciplines.

193

To outline an alternative logic and way of thinking in decision making to handle

complexity to integrate the known factors and role players in a structured way.

Building upon the previous objective, the research yet needed to point out what the most
probable problems could be, should such alternative approaches be applied in planning. In
achieving this next objective, the research also took into account the complexity where the
number of decision factors or stakeholders grows dramatically.
The research showed that as a result of the complexity and uncertainty involved in the decision
process in particular and in planning in general, the mindset of the discipline and the underlying
philosophy of the theory and practice of planning should change to adapt to the dimension of the
uncertainty and complexity of the planning decision process.
The research also presented a new way of thinking, fuzzy logic and thinking, and showed that, if
this logic and thinking as well as fuzzy sets are applied appropriately, their use can promise a
significant move forward in the history of planning theory and practice. Their application can also
result in formulating an alternative way of thinking that is proportionate to what is happening in
the discipline and can establish a new milestone in planning history that can offer a longer and
safer response to the underlying thoughts of planning for a comparatively longer period.

7.3

Conclusion

The current research drew upon the fact that there is a big gap between what planning is actually
offering and what it can achieve using its full potential as Klosterman (2003, p. 96) rightly
suggests that an objective evaluation of sixty years of planning experience must recognize the
tremendous gap between planning's potential and its performance.
With a special concentration on the process of decision making in and for planning, the research
aimed to address the knowingly uncovered areas or negligently ignored sections within planning
decision theory and, consequently, the process of planning decision making. Those realms, of
course, were not merely limited to the other disciplines involved but also included all contributing
entities, ranging from intervening parties to the crucial factors and influential processes. As a
result, the current research came up with the following conclusions ranging from planning as the
discipline in which decision making is taking place down to the detailed subprocesses involved. In
this procedure, insight about the whole system has always been borne in mind.
1. Planning is a multidisciplinary, multiobjective, multivalued, and multijudgment discipline.
Any approach that undermines those facts about planning will partially or completely fail
to serve the purpose of planning decision making in mediating between the parties,
stakeholders, and role players in the process.
2. The existing mindsets of planning theory and behind planning practice and any planning
activity taking place are using duality and reductionism as a result of their underlying
classical (formal) logic. Although different mainstreams have been formed in the history
of planning, each belonging to either modernist or postmodernist accounts of planning,
they have all used the same classical bases to build their epistemological ontology and
thereby prescribe their solutions to the practice of planning.
3. Where such logic is underlying a multidisciplinary, multiobjective, multivalue,
multijudgment discipline, the decision making within that discipline cannot be justified.
This is, as shown during the course of the current research, because the complexity and
uncertainty involved prevent the process from coming to a justifiable conclusion. This
does not mean that it is not justified only on the basis of the ethical problems. Quite to
the contrary, neither is it justified from the procedural point of view nor by its

194

consequences. This is not the problem of a lack of participation by citizens or interest

groups but of how to allocate their appropriate shares in the process.
4. An alternative way of thinking that includes all three of the previous planning
mainstreams, planning for cities, planning for people, and planning by people, needs to
be utilized. These different approaches do not need to be subsequent to each other, with
one ending and the next starting. On the contrary, they should all coexist and intervene in
the process of decision making according to their respective agendas, each to a degree.
This alternative way accumulates all that has been advocated by other major movements
to reach the best possible combination as per the given decision case.
5. For decision making (or planning) theory) justified, it should, before everything else,
including concerns about its comprehensiveness, have a proportionate logic in planning
theory, theory of planning, and logic for decision-making theory that match the
dimensions of the real world.
6. Not only does recognition that fuzzy logic should be the prevailing applied logic of the
profession help provide an integrated, structured, and justified approach to planning
decision making, but fuzzy logic itself can orchestrate the various approaches to and
aspects of planning as well as unify and integrate them to work together yet to have their
own shares in the theory and process of planning.
The problem is to find a method of participation proportionate to stakeholders roles,
righteousness or falseness of vantage points and decisions, the mistakes the stakeholders have
made or are likely to make, and also to the degree of their membership in the process as well as
the final consequences of the decisions. A result will be the distribution of fallibility to all of the
parties involved. This research shows that a certain truth does not exist to represent a specific
legitimized aspect of decision making. How the parties can contribute to the final decision as per
their level of membership in the decision process, regardless of the success or failure of the final
decision, is what this research set out to address.
All theories that are seeking for an ultimate truth to confer legitimization upon a particular group
or to a certain and exclusive method will fail to offer a justifiable approach to decision making
because such theories cannot get involved in a multiobjective operation that guarantees each
intervening party a share proportionate to its contribution in the process.
Therefore, it can be concluded that even though planning and decision making in planning once
experienced the end-state planning, the postmodern planning as well as the technicalist view of
decision making, this time, they should enter a different type of process. Instead of supposing a
certain reality, the process should succumb to the fuzziness of truth to be able to provide a more
realistic model of the planning sphere and thereby practice a more realistic form of decisionmaking. This by no means suggests that either of the already established approaches should be
completely abandoned.
A dynamic multilayer approach with the simultaneously multivalued variables and relations is
what planning needs to overcome problems. This dynamic rule-based approach would be able to
analyze the problems coming from different levels and then nominate the approach that is
compatible to the scale of the problem. After studying the level of intervention for the plan, this
approach can compare it with the predetermined (and dynamic) matrix, achieved through
consensus (rather than the current person-based view), and defuzzify the information for the
model that can be proposed for the situation. Through this model, the possible actors, their share
and expectations, and the method of their coalition with the others (considering parameters such
as the cost efficiency of participation in the level of the plan) will be recognized and introduced to
the planner and the related planning institution.

195

7. The research showed that this new particular (rule-based) tool needs a peculiar
underlying thinking method, which, in turn, requires an alternative supporting logic. Fuzzy
was introduced as an alternative logical system that can offer the proportionate
dimensions of a multivalued, multiobjective, and multijudgment thinking method, and it
was demonstrated to be the appropriate substitute for the existing school of thought in
the planning discipline.
The rule-based approach can also control, define, and restrain two types of relationships: first,
the relationship between the planner and the developer (private sector), which makes them
closer to each other in finding their common interest involved in each others success, and
second, the relationship between the planner (that planner who meets the people and the
developer) and the politician. In the former relationship,
in sociological terms, developers and planners will come to develop a shared subculture. They
will be likely to develop shared attitudes and values, shared perceptions of what is economically
possible and socially desirable, and most significantly, shared beliefs as to what kind of development is in the public interest (Reade, 1987, p. 92, as cited in Taylor, 1998, p. 128).

A set of rule-based principles that leads planning decisions to deal with the problems prevents
the planners interest from coming too close to that of the developers and also prevents the
planner from accepting the temporal interest of the politician, which can be achieved through
negotiation and communication.
Then, in this process, whenever a modification or alternation is needed, it should pass through a
specific yet transparent and reversible procedure to become legitimized. Therefore, the personbased (taste- and background-based) decision making will be changed to a rule-based process.
Through this method, however, planners, in Foresters sense, must be prepared to get their
hands dirty by negotiating deals with capitalist developers in order to secure some planning
gains. This dirtiness will be pursued through some determined presupposition from a higher level
of approach rather than instantaneous decision making and decision taking about what is needed
to legitimize the whole process. This method, will not only facilitate the prevention of hidden
discriminations that occur when one interest group ignores another interest group, but it will also
protect the planner from being defeated by the developer and politician. This can provide a
balance in the planners (in the person-centered part of the process) and planning institutions (in
the system-based view) behavior in protecting the publics, politicians, technicians, and private
sectors interests against each other.
This can also protect the whole system from the extravagance of applying fundamental ideas and
ideology in planning (in its political economic sense). The rule-based approach can also prevent
the system-based approach from instantaneous decision making on the large or small scale that
may be pursued to answer upcoming concerns. It will also help determine the parameters to
meet the regional requirements which possibly are against the dominating state of the global (or
national) market. This dynamicity enables the local planning to deal with local problems in a
framework of global policies commensurate with the actual needs, defects, and deficiencies.
This can be seen as the first fuzzy modeling of planning based on fuzzy logic. This means that
planning as an infinite-value activity can be explained through a fuzzy model. Obviously, the
current model is one among many possibilities that can be used. Yet it is worth mentioning that
this suggested model, generated for the case of decision-making theory, and hence the decisionmaking process, can be extended to the supplementary processes of planning including but not
limited to data gathering, problem definition, analysis, and policy and plan making. The different
aspects and processes and, apparently, the whole system will be more coherent, and the
outcomes will therefore be achieved in a more accountable way. This method also responds to
the accessibility of a plan proportionate to its type and scale.

196

Apply to
Theory of Planning
Theory on Planning

Fuzzy Thinking

Apply to
Logic of Theories in
Planning

Fuzzy Logic

Apply to
Fuzzy Sets of
Decision-Making

Decision-Making
in Planning

Planning is a multivalued
multiobjective multijudgment
activity, which needs Fuzzy
Thinking.

Planning
theories
and
planning principles need to
apply a justified logic like
Fuzzy Logic.

The
turbulent
decision
making
processes
in
planning require a justified
and structured tool like
Fuzzy Inference System
(FIS) based on Fuzzy Sets
Theory

Figure 7.1. How to apply nonbinary logic to planning: fuzzy thinking, fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets in (urban)
planning and decision making.

7.4

Contributions and Implications

The current research makes a distinct contribution to the knowledge pool and, subsequently, if
applied, holds significant implications for both the theory and practice levels of planning decision
making.

7.4.1

Implications at the Theory Level

Although the current research does not intend to declare a new theory of or in planning, it can
easily proclaim an alternative logic, in its authentic meaning, in the planning discipline. Apart from
what this study can stimulate in the theory of planning in general, it has more straight-to-the-point
implications for the decision process in planning.
The most important implication for the decision-making process is that the current research can
strike a balance between the state of theory and what is being carried out in the practice of
decision making in the real world. An outstanding outcome of this will be to make a sensible and
workable correlation between the theory and practice of decision making that can potentially lead
to a wider conformation between the two across the entire discipline of planning.
The second most important implication will be that what underlies the theory of decision making
(i.e., negotiation, communication, and debate) can find their places as intrinsic characteristics of
planning (decision theory and process). In other words, altering and fluctuating measures that
may vary from time to time, from place to place, and from person to person can be replaced by
an evidence-based (but not necessarily a qualitative or quantitative) method in which the
influential factors, involving conditions, and influential parties can be taken into account based on
the degree of their level of intervention in each decision case and process.

197

The last outcome at the theory level will be that the accepted traditions of reductionism and
dualism will be recognized as no longer necessary. This means that with no need to pick and mix
selectively what is at hand, what is manageable, or what is favored by the decision-making
bodies (or those who rule them), all of the real contributors in a decision-making process can be
given their shares in the process, respective to their role, influence, and level of contribution.
Furthermore, the decisions and their justification process will be defendable, repeatable, and
acceptable for both those who have made them, and those for whom they have been made, and
assessable by the internal or external auditory bodies. In other words the validity and reliability of
those questions can be guaranteed.

7.4.2

Implications for Practice

At the practice level, the current research can promise a quantum leap forward. If what has been
addressed here is to be applied in practice even gradually, its first and foremost implication is that
there would be no need to worry about the disproportionateness of the tool with the problem. In
other words, the control and decision-making tools will not be overwhelmed by the intervening
parties, stakeholders, and beneficiaries or by the involving factors and their interconnections. As
the tool is capable of dynamically adapting to the level of complexity involved and responding
respectively to whatever the level of uncertainty, regardless of its dynamicity, alteration, and
consistent metamorphosis, there would be no need for the traditional selectiveness that was
practiced through the principles of reductionism of formal logic.
The second implication of the application of what is proposed by the current research is that the
practice of decision making in planning can with no anxiety comply with what is sought after by a
generic theory in general and by a planning theory in particular. In other words, this research will
facilitate the ways in which practice can be coded by theory.
The last but by no means least implication is that the practice of planning decision making will
find a firmer ground and more defendable basis upon which it can be redone, assessed,
evaluated, modified, and improved on a real-time basis as time passes and the contextual
conditions differentiate or transform.

7.5

Limitations of the Current Research

The first but perhaps not the most significant problem with the method of the current research
was its scope. Which aspects of planning this research should target, open up, analyze, and
draw conclusions about, and how, where, and to which extent, in order to offer its findings to the
broadest area and most colorful range of components in the planning discipline were all
questions that needed to be settled. Determining the scope was a very time consuming yet
interestingly attractive process formed though a wide range of activities during the journey of the
current research. It included an enormous amount of reading in philosophy, logic, planning, and
decision theory; a huge range of field study in more than 50 cities around the globe; and a
tremendous degree of academic consultation in the form of interviews, conferences, individual
informal talks, and semi-structured telephone interviews with a wide range of academics in
Europe and the United States. This informed the focus of the research and ultimately helped
ensure that the initial concerns regarding the design and application of this research along with
what was highlighted or pointed out throughout the aforementioned processes are all taken on
board.
The current research might look like a mere introduction to an alternative logic in the logic of
planning, as an activity with a lot of literature, in combination with a very well-developed logic:
fuzzy. This is truebut only to some degree. It is truer if an unrealistic revolution is expected or
aimed at in the whole discipline. But it is less true when an evolutionary change is ideally in mind
in one of the most important areas of planning, decision making. Not only is the change most
likely and most sought after in this area of planning, but if effected in this area, the change

198

promises to permeate to other areas and initiate a fundamental reinterpretation of the whole
discipline, slowly but surely and sustainably. From this, it is imaginable how delicate yet broad a
route this research has taken. Moreover, it is obvious that the current researchs literature is
based on existing literature of planning theory, which is solely based on classical logics thinking
framework. Hence, the conclusion is abstract and to some degree general. On the one hand, this
could have posed some difficulties for the entirety of the research. Yet on the other hand, it
makes the research unique in decision making and planning as a whole. The research also
attempted to address the links between the theory and practice of decision making in planning
not only for the sake of the importance of the two but also to break the traditional mold of this
abstraction and generality embedded in almost each and every theory in planning. How influential
this new approach will be is a matter that will be revealed as time passes, but it must not be
forgotten that this will deeply depend on both acceptance of the current mode of planning and
further research on this issue.
The other restriction facing the current research was the fact that it was attempting to be
epistemologically analytical yet to a high degree retain its autonomy and be all-inclusive while
going into a detailed critique of the status quo. As a result, it does not use examples in the form
of physical case studies. This might not look like a real problem, as many research projects also
do not use such examples. But it becomes much more important yet exclusive to the current
research with respect to its methodology, its aim and objectives, and where it addresses the
problem of decision making. In other words, it has permeated the topic, but in a way, the topic
itself is the complexity of decision making, and affected the journey of the current research.
Further research can cast light on this complexity and make clearer where this research can lead
and how it can affect the whole discipline through creating change in the decision process.
The last but not the least limitation facing this research is the issue of generalization. This is a
limitation because this research should not be looked at as an established bivalued research
resting on the foundations of classical logic. By contrast, from the very first stages, this research
has had the subject of generalization on its agenda. Every single step has been taken with the
idea of going into the most delicate detail while examining how, where, and to what degree these
analytical studies can inform the subject of the research both generally for planning and
particularly for decision making.

7.6

Future Research

To further the current research, a broad range of activities can be carried out. One of the first
steps that can be taken next is to demonstrate the application of fuzzy logic, based on what was
addressed through this research. Fuzzy sets theory can be used to show the practical
implications of the logic and thinking on planning both at the theory and practice level. Because
this action would involve a high degree of participation at the practice level, the coordination
entailed is predicted to be enormous. Therefore, it is envisioned that demonstrating, testing out,
and monitoring the implications of the current research will best be divided by its implications for
theory and expected outcomes for practice, as addressed earlier in this chapter. The researcher
already has plans of action for both and will be pursuing them in the near future. However, it is
very important, as emphasized before during the research, that the full segregation of theory and
practice should be carefully avoided. This can easily be done as per the specifications and
dimensions of the current research and how it sees the problem, how its methodology has been
defined, and above all, what it advocates. A back-and-forth intermediation between what is/can
be achieved in the practicality of decision making and how this will reflect on the theory of
decision making should always be pursued. This may well lead to reform in decision theory in
general, promising an alternative way of thinking in decision theory, this time initiated from inside
the planning discipline.
In addition, what proves desirable for the near future is to investigate how this logic and thinking,
which has been initiated from inside the planning decision process, can succeed in informing

199

other components and sections within the planning discipline. This can and should be done by a
comparative analytical study of the decision process in other planning areas and subdisciplines.
Through this, all the similarities and differences, potentials and restrictions can be pointed out
and highlighted to best facilitate the initiation of a fuzzy rule-based approach in other parts of the
discipline. This project, despite these suggestions for further research, is not imagined to have an
instant outcome or to come immediately into effect. First, a number of similar long-term research
projects that investigate how this alternate logic can be established and practiced in those other
areas is necessary.

200

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