Integrated Development Planning: an opportunity for planners to enable transformation?

Abstract

Integrated development planning has become synonymous with post-Apartheid development planning. As a style of strategic planning that departs from the master planning models of the past, the preparation of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) represents a more flexible model for responding to the many challenges that face local authorities. Furthermore, integrated development planning represents an opportunity to forge a stronger relationship between planning and implementation, something, some would argue, that planners have generally been seen to be weak at achieving in the past. Thus, a number of expectations are identifiable with the preparation of IDPs, not least the need to transform local government. This article interrogates the extent to which integrated development planning has enabled transformation in the post-1994 planning and development arena. It specifically looks at the role of the planner in this regard: has integrated development planning as a methodology, as a product (the IDP) and as an approach to planning, enabled the planning profession to contribute to transformation? This question is considered using research that focussed mainly on KwaZulu-Natal, and seeks to clarify some of the dimensions of the relationship between planning, transformation and integrated development planning.