Scott Campbell's Goal Case Study

Scott Campbell first developed the planners’ triangle in 1996 and it is a three way model, which incorporates economic, environmental, and social equity factors. The planner has a vital role in the sustainable development of urban areas and in the long term, the economic growth of the area. Sustainable development is defined as “development that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987); in an ideal world, the planners would endeavour to achieve a perfect balance of all of these three goals – resulting in a perfectly sustainable city (Campbell, 1996). It is in real life however, that professional and fiscal constraints (Campbell, 1996), as well as the multiple
Modern important factors in planning a city tend to see this triangle as more of a “complex polygon” (Campbell, 1996: 298). To achieve true sustainability one must not forget factors such an architectural ones, psychological, and circulatory (meaning transportation) factors (Campbell, 1996). The statement proposed would predict that balancing the three pillars of the economy, environment and social equity would ultimately achieve suitability, however, in the modern world, one must also include the complex polygonal factors mentioned above to please most stakeholders involved. However, the idea of sustainable development itself is interesting. According to Fergus and Rowney (2005), the buzzword that is sustainable development has lost its power and opportunity. Similarly, according to Campbell (1996), sustainable development has been disrobed of its power and been reduced to “its lowest common denominator” (Campbell, 1996: 301). With this overused buzzword, to achieve the centre of the triangle, it may be more practical instead of finding a hybrid outcome between the three factors, and move towards an evolutionary progression of sustainable practises (Campbell, 1996). Smart Growth is the name that is given to a freshly developed doctrine for the planning community that Lorentz and Shaw (2000) described as a doctrine that strives to protect the community and the environment
For Campbell (1996), social-constructionist see nature solely as the beauty of the human aesthetic and/or the value of human labour; for example a tree is worthless unless it is part of a scenic area of transformed into wood. Hence, planners often have to act as a sort of translator assisting each group in reasoning and planning their priorities. Careful consideration must be taken to ensure equal prioritised effort to each stakeholder, to prevent one sole stakeholder from dominating; in the argument put forward by Campbell (1996), this would not lead to sustainable development and would tend to steer planners towards one specific pillar. If however, one is able to incorporate all stakeholders and lead to the successful creation of a high-density sustainable urban area, there is a correlation, according to Burton (2000), whereby this creation of high-density urban regions leads to efficient transport systems and dimensions that encourage walking and cycling. Planners setting clear green space boundaries, prevents large scale urban sprawl, therefore, there is a greater push for the re-use of urban land due to the constraints and this can lead to a socially equitable city (Elkin et al., 1991). There is a built-in tendency of systems to grow in size and become increasingly complex, until a tipping point whereby the carrying capacity cannot keep up and an