In 1974, I began creating Dynaplan, a comprehensive planning system for the counties of Virginia. My graduate students and I had done geographic information systems work in 1964, developed a database for the state, and began to promote the power of computer maps in planning. We used optimum location of powerlines (Giles, et al., 1976, Jones 1976) and airports (Koeln 1980, Gladwin 1978, Francis 1980) as examples. There was a law then, un-enforced, for counties to have such plans. Those that I saw were of a constant format, very expensive, and far more descriptive than prescriptive. Measurable objectives or the means by which citizens would sense the results of planning were missing. There are 100 counties in Virginia and buying 100 expensive things results in a big tax bill. I sought to reduce the costs and improve the quality. I promoted a concept of a singular system, which I called Dynaplan, to suggest the dynamic elements of good planning as I saw it at the time. Comprehensive planning is not a bad idea. Dynaplan was a system created to aid in preparing plans and to provide improvements to their content, interactions, processes, and presentations. It was to help improve the quality of life for residents of Virginia counties. We produced sample documents, but the concept never "caught." It was coming from a "wildlife department," so bias was a reasonable doubt, as was overall planning competence.

Dynaplan was created to solve problems. The problems were: How can the benefits of a statewide information system be brought to the planning commissions, many of which do not have professional planners? How can the disdain for "those plans on the shelf" be overcome? How can the essence of modern planning and methodology be captured? How can the costs of creating plans be reduced, while maintaining reasonable quality? How can the vast information resources about people and their environment be focused on the real, complex, daily problems of the county decision maker? How can planning be better coordinated in the state and opportunities provided for interactions in adjacent states? Dynaplan was a solution, a system I proposed to have undergoing constant programming and hardware changes, periodic data updates, expansions in chapters, changes due to chapter additions, and editorial changes. Dynaplan produced a computer-printed book of chapters. The book tells county-level planners (the elected or appointed planners) things they should know about their county and its future. It was designed to be of primary use to elected or appointed planners. Having been a planning commissioner and eventually board chairman, I had some appreciation for the needs.

The system produced what citizens have come to expect of planners - a plan. The difference between past plans and a Dynaplan is that the latter is non-elegant, is in fact, a "throw-away." A Dynaplan book received this week is likely to be quite different from one received a month earlier. Dynaplan is the system itself, not "the book." "That dusty plan" could be a derogatory term applied only if no further programming was done or no data changes were made. A new copy of the latest text version can be created on demand. The document is much like a large newspaper ... useful, but soon to be discarded. Users are kept posted on major additions and changes.

A single general text has been written for any county. Each text has many blanks, open tables, and spaces. The computer fills in these spaces with county-specific words and statistics. Counties in the western portion of the state may receive a different text than coastal counties. Thus, a text is unique for a county and tuned to the most recent changes in equations, data, statistics, or lists.

A representative list of chapters is shown in Table 22.1. The chapters are county-scale, and not site-specific. Towns and cities may be included. The system is designed to be operational at any time and not dependent upon future chapters.

Based on many past experiences, it is well known that county plans change when a major unforeseen event occurs. An industry locating in a county or an interstate cutting a small rural county causes changes. Operating as a major planning aid, Dynaplan, must (1) represent the past, (2) allow rapid analysis of decisions to be made today ("yesterday" would usually have been preferred), and (3) provide the best possible projections and predictions for the future. Thus, no past planning effort is wasted even though conditions may change.

Dynaplan was conceived and partially developed to produce insight into (1) short-term and long-term consequences, (2) community-wide changes, and (3) factor-specific, as well as integrated data. But these are all reactive functions.

The system was to produce general recommendations. This prescriptive function identifies general categories of needs and the extent of the needs. A list of techniques used in other areas to meet these needs is presented. This list of needs and solutions (alternatives) may suggest positive, realistic, and creative solutions to local problems by local decision makers. Detailed prescriptions are not provided, partly because there are an infinite number of combinations of known solutions, and partly because need may generate a unique or truly creative local response and solution.

Dynaplan was to be a decision-making aid. It would not make decisions. It would not produce a short-term list of scheduled activities and proposed projects that some people call plans. Such a list can only be created within the local situation with the knowledge of political, social, and physical idiosyncrasies that make each county or community unique. A general "solution" system cannot be created for a set of unique communities. However, major aids for improving the creative and operational processes for these communities can be provided. A basic assumption underlying Dynaplan is that this assistance is most effective when centralized.

The system existed in a no-man's-land between extension and research, between agencies and experts, between technology transfer and technology development, between creativity and synthesis, and between planning as plan-writing and information-using. Because "comprehensive" tends to be almost a synonym for planning, the system was not championed by any group. Never openly stated to me, I surmised that such a system may substantially reduce the power any politician has. When there is great ignorance of how a system works, political bias is easily hidden. The system promised exposure. It never gained strong support, and was opposed by those who doubted that anything can be inclusive. Those skeptical that "their" specialty could be adequately presented were the enemies.

Several philosophies underlay the system design:

1. There are several dominant planning philosophies. To be acceptable for use and interpretation by a variety of local planners, the output of the system must have at least some of the elements of these philosophies.
2. Rational decision making is assumed desirable - the more rational, the better.
3. Decisions are made daily, attempting to maximize benefits or minimize risks and costs over time. Projections over time, no matter how crude or how great the misgivings in making them, must be made for almost all variables. Certain factors change according to well-known physical or ecological laws. Others are influenced by factors that are less well-known, but expert observers can at least set limits and make estimates of likely changes.
4. Computers can be programmed to accommodate well-known relations among hundreds of factors over time.
5. My view was that as Dynaplan matured, it would provide the data and context for sophisticated system modeling. While diligent effort is made to model the "real world," efforts also are focused on modeling the best possible human decision-making system.

The orientation is toward real-time decisions, made in the best manner possible, with emphasis on dynamic improvement. If Dynaplan could improve the decisions being made in any way, it should be judged successful by this criterion. Because it employs more factors, more data, more years, in more combinations, studying more alternatives in more quantifiable means, it is expected to provide answers at least as good as those now being provided. (If the answers are not better, then the reasons can be sought and corrections made.) Widespread public dissatisfaction with county-level planning suggested that at least some improvements can be made.

How Dynaplan Works

Dynaplan was to be operated in a university, but its location was never denoted. It could be in a state or regional planning office. It was seen to work in three ways. First, a county planner requests an updated plan. A signal to the computer specifies the county number and the desired options (such as omitting the appendices). A requester may ask for (1) a county, (2) a county and contiguous counties, or (3) all counties or a planning district. Within a day, a copy of the computer-printed book of all available chapters is ready to be picked up or mailed to the county making the request. There was a low estimated cost per request.

Inputs

The key inputs were to be: (1) U.S. Census data, (2) relevant state and federal data sources, (3) county data as available in annual reports, documents, or as summarized by federal and state agencies, (4) cell-level data from a geographic information system, (5) text material developed by agency experts, faculty, and students, (6) coefficients and equations from the open literature, and (7) other data and systems.

Because Dynaplan was to accumulate data and store it, every planning agency would not have to start from ground-zero in information gathering at the beginning of each new plan-revision period, conventionally every ten years. Data are not to be lost but revised, corrected, added, and reanalyzed. Equations and understanding of the processes within the system were to be improved with each new set of data. A new book or plan (or part) could be created with each data change or created periodically as needed.

The overall intent was to use the best available data, consistent with the accuracy, precision, and confidence required for each decision, and consistent with balancing the over-all accuracy and scale of the system. Data gaps were to be identified and various ways sought to encourage research or data collection to meet these needs. In some areas, data are needed but not readily available. Where essential, subjective probability estimation was to be used, typically employing information supplied by experts.

Feedback

The staff was to continually revise, update, and improve the system (then on the university main-frame computers), and to seek new methods and efficiencies. New and improved data and bias corrections were to be requested and solicited from all users. External reviewers were to be invited periodically to audit the system. Input-output checks were to be requested from agencies to assure the best and most recent data were employed. Open-ended criticism was sought. Various technical reports and conference presentations were also expected to subject the system to scrutiny of the planning and scientific community.

Dynaplan had many unsolved research problems, including information system development, public acceptance and social impact, measurable changes in counties resulting from its use, statistical analysis of agency data to make it relevant to the planning process, public participation in assigning values and risk levels to goals, and integration of remote sensing into the system.

Feedforward

Not a widely used word, feedforward is the concept of designing a system so that it will be as "right" as possible in the future. It is suggestive of "leading a target." A system is designed so as not to be altogether effective at the present so that it can be as effective as possible over the near future. Feedforward was to be achieved in Dynaplan by (1) sub-programs that automatically create new equations or coefficients as data are added, (2) planned annual system scenario sessions, and (3) internal documents that summarize system development and use.

An advanced feature of the system was to provide decision assistance to within-county propositions such as major facility siting and analyses and impacts of policy and legislation. The concept of achieving citizen goals in large watersheds based on minimum use of energy is one component.

The system was to provide decision aids to the public; to provide assistance to developers in expediting public approval of proposals and avoiding undesirable public relations consequences of an application denial; and to create an optimization system that uses the computed "best" as the criterion for comparing alternatives.

There were lessons in the birth of a concept of a large planning system. People who can create well may not be able to sell well. Counties want help from the state saying to system developers, "Go to the capital. Why ask our poor county to support development that will benefit 99 other counties?" The capital staff said: "Go and get 'grassroot' support." I tried and both failed.

Gaining new funds to build is essential, but so is support to maintain and tend that which is built. Stable support is important, but more difficult to secure than funds for the next new piece of the system. "Tend the herd and we'll tell you when we want an order of cream," was the message I received. The "herd" died. I could not find financial support for it, build it, and sell it fast enough. National political change destroyed the database when staff support was canceled. Large, complex systems cannot be fully documented. There has to be an apprenticeship and training period and no interruption. I was interrupted.

Counties still need comprehensive plans. Military areas need environmental plans (such as was developed for the Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center, Maryland) and these can be developed within the Guidance concept. The 500 areas of the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System need plans. The U.S. Forest Service plans cost an average of $3 million each. It is unlikely that the Refuge System or all similar areas in the states (for they too need superior plans) will ever gain this much money for planning. Owners of large farms need plans that could be provided by Extension or by consultants. Even if available and well spent, the odds are that the quality of the average plan will be less than that produced by a system such as just described.

I never got the funds to complete Dynaplan. "Trying hard" does not count. Now more than 20 years later with profound changes that have occurred in GIS, GPS, and Internet technology, I now work on developing a similar system called Guidance and a parallel system for private land management called The Trevey . I use the word "guidance" rather than "planning" to suggest decision aids along a route. Modified general systems theory is the basis. It is designed for large area use - corporations, wildlife areas, military areas, counties, regions. Citizens or owners state objectives that are unified in an R* index. The actual status of the system is summarized as R. The guidance provided tells land managers how to get from R to R* for the lowest cost over a 50-year sliding planning period.

The software and hardware have dramatically improved over 20 years. The concept, once feasible, now is a surety. New color maps, new statistical results, new word processors and graphics allow "pages" of a "plan" never before dreamed. Parts of plans can be sent over the internet. New delivery media will enhance the text with graphics of many types. A change in one part of an area produces changes throughout the document for it is a verbal, graphical, and pictorial representation of a land use model. "Model" fails to communicate what Guidance is or does. It is descriptive, uses networking to list only appropriate segments of stored text, uses expert systems concepts, uses several types of optimization, uses geographic information systems, includes statistical routines that analyze (and re-analyze) data as they change. It is an exciting system on which to work for it requires synthesis. It challenges developers to find realistic connections and to program these. This is no plan in which "the only relations within it were the staples that held the pages together!"

It is being created (again). It is being developed in a joint university-private business way (because of the past experience, generalized). It doesn't seem like a bad idea. Big, not bad. With a little cooperation by a lot of people and a lot of coordination by a few, it can be achieved quickly. How well? Better than that report prepared by the average C-minus graduate landscape architect, forester, zoologist, or environmental science person prowling the agency halls. Even if not, at least it is in a form that allows, even begs for, feedback to occur.