Planning Through Consensus Building: A New View of the Comprehensive Planning Ideal

This article takes up Alan Altschuler's challenge regarding the legitimacy of comprehensive planning and argues that it is not only possible to realize, but is also intellectually defensible. Innes argues that consensus building with stakeholders offers a model for planning that responds to each of Altschuler's critiques of comprehensive planning. The article concludes with a discussion of how consensus building may be used for local comprehensive planning.