Pablo Jensen employs magnetism to plan

the location for new shops.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2006/oct/03/physicist-proves-its-location-location-location

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0608297

Regards,

Joachim

In my experience, strategic decisions are about which of several (to possibly many) spatial units are the highest priority for, say, protection or remediation. Emphasis is on the which. Next, given a set of priortized spatial units, one may then ask, for any specific unit, what are the best management options. The emphasis here is on the what. This a classical multi-criteria decision analysis problem in which I want to choose among one of several discrete actions, and this is an example of tactical planning. Finally, having selected a specific action to implement on a specific spatial unit, there is the question of precisely how. Emphasis on the how, which is about operational planning (and so also design, I suppose).

You might want to have a look at the Spatial Decision Support Knowledge Portal ( http://www.spatial.redlands.edu/sds/ )

Well...in my little experience with SEA (at least in theory), a strategic decision in spatial planning is related with the inclusion of aspirations and aims of population (mainly affected), legal and mandatory frameworks (defined since higher tiers until local tier) and main issues (sustainability issues faced by that place and population) over the decision that will define what will be done during that time and spatial horizon established (set out by the spatial planning).

Another way to think about strategic decision making (and that even shows the strategicness of that decision) is questioning if the discussion (or the draft plan or the SEA report) about that decision includes some key points:

First - Why that decision (or that development intention) must be done?

Second - Is it possible to decrease that demand in order to decrease or mitigate the need of that development?

Third - When this development must be done?

And finaly - Where this development must be done?

Be sure that if that decision or moment of decision (window of opportunity) does not alow the discussion with main authorities and the public this decision have none strategicness.

Of course you are right - it is very difficult to identify "strategic" from other decisions. And often in retrospect some decisions turn out to be "strategic" even if they were perceived as "small".

However, in European jurisdictions there are often clear definitions for some particular "planning objects" that are regarded as "strategic" (large infrastructure projects, municipal strategic plans, long-term large scale land-use changes etc), and therefore fall under the SEA-directive.

My particular knowledge is related to Sweden and here I can see that all legislation is in place, all authorities are there and they have rules and regulations to use. And still very little happens. I think that a reason for this is that the SEA-process can be seen as an ideal approach that we cannot expect to be used in reality (and Riki Therivel _ in her book - and others has written much about this). Reasons are to be found in the way, and under the conditions, public policy is made - a plan is often an answer to a perceived problem and includes the choice of a solution. The idea with SEA is that the solutions is still not chosen. In principle early and open ended SEAs is a very good idea - and hopefully that type of SEAs will become more frequent. We should also consider that SEA (still) is a complication to the normal way of doing planning. Maybe this can shift but it requires that planners, politicians, consultants and the civil society take the time to understand the SEA-procedure and find ways to operate it.

For impact assessment of spatial plan one must know the strategic plan, if at all made and if made, was it followed in implementation ? Spatial planning must follow strategic plan. If this is not so no SEA will help.