“It’s not a global rulebook,” he cautioned. “They’re guidelines, which is to say ways that planning can be most effective.” Importantly for planners, the guidance reflects contemporary ideas about participation and bottom-up approaches as opposed to older, top-down methods. “The guidelines are very clear that planning, when done right, is participatory, engages stakeholder constituencies and considers a wide variety of objectives in order to make appropriate decisions,” Stiftel said. “All too often, planning is a tool for the top leadership of the country to impose their ideas on the nation rather than a way in which the nation itself defines where it wants to go and sets courses of action.”