Free Republic

This paper discusses the origins of the “Visioning Process”. This is not only a common land-use planning tool used in specific areas of our country, but it has become institutionalized by many local governments and non-governmental organization (NGO) activists across the United States, as well as around the world. It is specifically designed to build consensus from a diverse group of stakeholders. A brief explanation of the Visioning Process:  Elected officials and their staff see Visioning as an opportunity to get a better fix on what their citizens want from government.  Civic minded volunteers are recruited to this...

The Delphi Technique and consensus building are both founded in the same principle - the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, with synthesis becoming the new thesis. The goal is a continual evolution to "oneness of mind" (consensus means solidarity of belief) -the collective mind, the wholistic society, the wholistic earth, etc. In thesis and antithesis, opinions or views are presented on a subject to establish views and opposing views. In synthesis, opposites are brought together to form the new thesis. All participants in the process are then to accept ownership of the new thesis and support it, changing...

When I was a boy, my parents used to enjoy a comedian named Ronnie Graham. One of his jokes was, "The other day a cat came up to me and said, 'How do I get to Carnegie Hall?' and I said 'Practice, man, practice.' This other cat came up to me and said, 'Meow.' He was a real cat." We talk a lot in our movement about spiritual practices. I am a Religious Science Practitioner; the root word of Practitioner is practice. But why do we practice? Ernest Holmes said that a central concept of our movement is "Perfect God,...

The visioning process includes: “values” research, how to run "facilitated" workshops and to how to use “consensus building” to create scenarios for area “change”. When public officials and NGO's (non-government organizations) use the term "visioning" it really means Agenda 21 principles are being implemented. Television makeover programs that transform men and women from sloppy to slick are popular. Makeup artists, hair dressers and clothing specialists remake their passive subjects and the new look is shown off to gasping friends and family. Transformational changes are not limited to people these days. American neighborhoods, swarming with central planners and government funds are...

In the name of "protecting" and "enhancing" our neighborhoods, community planners and local busybodies are fanning out all over the country to change our towns and neighborhoods They call it "visioning". An existing town that has excited the interest of community planners is the small town of Corralitos, located in an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County, California. The Corralitos Valley Community Plan follows the same guidelines and values as groups like the Congress for New Urbanism and the Smart Growth Network whose stated goals are to reshape our values from an individual rights-oriented society to a "community" or collective...

Summary: Community plans are specifically designed to reflect aesthetically the collective values they seek to impose -- at the expense of individual expression and privacy. Full text: Community planning (including growth management, comprehensive planning and smart growth) is suddenly all the rage. Just a few years ago, the words "charrette", "visioning council", and "consensus planning", were virtually unknown to most Americans. These words have been introduced to our neighborhoods by a coterie of community planners, who've fanned out across the country to confuse Americans into accepting a different political philosophy and a different way of living. Most politicians have adopted...