The UK's “best value” performance assessment regime mandated Local Authorities to demonstrate the added value of their planning. Evaluating planning in these terms raises the basic question: What is planning for? The paper reviews various teleological definitions of planning that address this question and discusses their implications for evaluation and practice. General instrumental teleologies and universal normative ones are useless for practical purposes; real evaluation of planning must be based on a positive contingent teleology that determines: What is this planning for? This conclusion is operationalized from an institutional design perspective to show how planning agencies could demonstrate the value of local planning.
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Ernest R. Alexander (2009) studied this question.
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