Microcomputers in urban and regional planning: Lessons from the past, directions for the future

Abstract

This paper draws on the lessons of previous attempts to use computer technology in planning to evaluate the increasingly widespread use of microcomputers in planning practice and education. Microcomputer-based analytic models are fortuitously simple, easy-to-understand, and utilize available techniques and information to address concrete policy issues. Unfortunately, technological advances threaten to again raise expectations to unrealistic heights and overwhelm planners in a sea of machine readable data and poorly understood analytic models. As a result, planning agencies must recognize the inadequacies of current information and techniques and develop adversaria planning models that present and defend alternative policies for achieving desired futures.