The Education of an Iconoclast
3rd May 2019
The AntiPlanner gives us some history.
Most of my work consisted of reviewing computer models, the data that went into those models, and the results that came out of those models. For most people, these models were “black boxes” that mysteriously turned raw data into a plan. But because I could get inside the models, I could see what the Forest Service was doing, where it was lying to the model, where it was lying to the public, and where it was lying to itself.
This experience made me an antiplanner, a skeptic of all long-range or comprehensive government planning. Whether planning a forest, a city, a regional transportation network, or world climate, all planning is based on models, which are simplifications of reality. Not all models are in computers, but the computerization of modeling forced government agencies to publicly reveal their biases. It became clear to me that the main winners in government planning were the planning agencies themselves, which gained power, budgetary authority, and prestige from taking control of public and private resources.