- Ineffectiveness of Comprehensive Blueprint Planning as a planning tool   46 kb by    Morain, Nanika S. M | hotness_20@yahoo.com,NRMB_10@hotmail.com    Short Outline Emergent anomalies in planning and development activities in Grenada within the last four decades have proven that comprehensive blueprint planning is no longer an effective tool in developing land use and spatial plans for the island. Abstract Planning in a Globalize Environment Prepared BY: Nanika S.M. Morain (Grenada) Grenada! A small island developing state with a land mass of 133 square miles was introduced to planning principles since 1914 by the British, which, grew stronger in the 1940¡¦s; principles that involved the development of comprehensive blueprint plans to secure the rights of land uses and establish control over the processes of development to improve the living standards/conditions of the population. However, emergent anomalies in planning and development activities in Grenada within the last four decades have proven that comprehensive blueprint planning is no longer an effective tool in developing land use and spatial plans for the island. Some of the concerns and/or challenges are: - „h The concepts of sustainable development as highlighted in Agenda 21 are not incorporated into the plan, as such, there are growing manifestation and concerns of environmental degradation (primarily along the coast and mangrove ecosystems), as well as, deficiency in planning for/by the communities; „h Implementation has proven to be difficult due to the paucity of political will; for instance the plans developed in 1977, 1990 and 1991 were not executed, therefore, planning is practiced on a disjointed instrumentalism basis, where the Physical Planning Unit is engaged mainly in reacting to physical and environmental problems; „h The developed plans, on no account were flexible, hence they could not respond effectively to the changing needs of the country in cases where there is skewed settlement development resulting from new patterns of polarization (St. George¡¦s), uneven social growth, demographic imbalances (communities of Lance, Grand Anse Valley, etc.), unemployment, and dependency on a small portion of the population, infrastructural stress and environmental degradation (especially in the towns of Gouyave, Grenville, St. George¡¦s and other coastal communities); „h A lack of new corroborative agendas pertaining to innovative ways of thinking about the relationship between state and market, and state and citizen in the field of land use and environmental change. In light of the aforementioned development planning challenges being faced in Grenada, the attainment of successful land use/development planning will require the nuance appreciation of the evolving planning/developmental issues. As Cullingworth, 1997 sated: Planning is imperative: only the form it takes is optional. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2003: Planning in a more globalized World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper