James R. Emshoff

The role of idealization in long-range planning: An essay on the logical and social-emotional aspects of planning

Abstract This paper describes the ongoing development and evolution of a highly particular and important planning process known as Idealized Planning (IP). IP was originally developed to free planners from self-imposed, psychological constraints in the planning process. Instead of regarding any situation as fixed and hemmed in, no matter how rigid the constraints may appear to be, IP asks the planner to consider relaxing all constraints on an issue or problem by deliberately constructing an ideal image of the situation. The paper shows how IP is vastly more complicated than previously thought and yet how these complexities may be taken advantage of positively.