Failure to plan is planning to fail

Ulrich Graute • 18 February 2021

A plan is a baseline giving orientation and the vision and strategy are among the most consequential elements of planning. Of course, in life nothing goes according to plan. However, without such a baseline where do we start and how do we improve? Therefore, Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase “Failure to plan is planning to fail”. This blog post in two parts does not repeat the broad literature on urban and territorial planning respectively on national development planning. Written during the Corona pandemic and in anticipation of other crises to follow the two parts feature two of common but most consequential deficits (lack of vision and lack of strategy) and how to overcome them.

Post 1: The importance of vision

According to John Graham a vision is a mental picture of the result you want to achieve. It should be a picture so clear and strong that it will help make that result real. A vision is not a vague wish or dream or hope. It’s a picture of the real results of real efforts. It comes from the future and informs and energizes the present. A vision inspires action, is a practical guide for creating plans, setting goals and objectives, making decisions, and coordinating and evaluating the work on any project, large or small. A vision helps to keep organizations and groups focused and together; especially with complex projects and stressful tomes. An example for an outstanding vision is the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations.

John Graham: Life on the edge. #5 – The importance of vision. https://www.johngraham.org/coach/5-the-importance-of-vision - accessed n 18 February 2021.

The Vision of the United Nations:

Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

Source: UN Charter https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/ - accessed on 18 February 2021

What happens if you skip the vision? I remember a project were mayors and representatives from academia envisioned a joint network. They took it easy and didn’t bother specifying their expectations. Well, after approval of the project it went into a year of crisis because it turned out that they had different ideas about the purpose of the network: Cities thought more about the ‘net’ and that they would like to meet once or twice a year for exchange. Representatives of academia thought more about ‘work’ and that they hoped for an intensive and on-going exchange of data and information as basis of research work. The missing of a joined vision for their network almost killed the project right from the beginning. So, be it a small or large project it’s always better to take the time to develop a vision and use it as the common basis for developing a policy, programme or project.

The need for a vision as narrative of our future

The charter of the UN is still valid and inspiring. However, the world is currently facing a series of crises which the founders of the UN didn’t have in mind in 1945. Today, governance models and approaches of the UN and other international, national and local level are struggling to adapt to emerging challenges. At the same time the resources of our common earth are exploited. It will be necessary to establish a new development model that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Yes, yes, that’s the old message of the 1987 Brundtland report ´Our Common Future’. It is still true but, unfortunately, we still not living up to it.

The 2030 Agenda of the UN as adopted by the member states in September 2015 is ambitious in its title ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. However, it has no clear vision in addition to that of the UN Charter. Instead, the 2030 Agenda presents itself as “a plan of action for people planet and prosperity”. Here is a problem: If you aim for nothing less than a ‘transformation of our world’ you need a vision as a narrative of that transformed world. Without that one gets what we currently face: UN, member states and many other stakeholders feel committed to implement the 2030 Agenda but at the same time they struggle to link the action plan adopted in 2015 with the dynamic situation in 2021. And this is because there is no common mental picture of our future which could guide us.

Well, we are living in a technology driven world where computer algorithms know more and more about us and have a growing impact on what we want. In addition, the UN is very keen on formulating targets, indicators for Agenda implementation and puts a strong focus on data collection monitoring. Therefore, one may wonder if computer wouldn’t be better than humans in writing the narrative of our future? No, in distinction to what could be delivered by a set of Algorithm Overlords of the Artificial Intelligence of our computers “we will need a new and compelling narrative of our future, based on an ethical vision of what human beings are and how they should live together. Such a vision, founded as it must be in our moral intuition, is one that only a human can offer or comprehend.”[1]

[1] David Mattin (2020): Designs for Life. In: Matthias Schrader, Volker Martens (Eds.): The Great Redesign. Frameworks for the Future. Hamburg, pp 38-46.

The silence of the lockdown a chance to reflect on the narrative for our future

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Dante Alighieri, Devine Comedy (Inferno, Canto 1)

While the world is in lockdown it seems to be calm and quiet. Looking deeper, the ice under the lockdown is thin and below it's neither calm nor quiet. Instead, the world is in turmoil. The pandemic is developing mutants; the economic and social costs are growing every day. In the meantime, the climate crisis and numerous other natural and man-made disasters are waiting to get our full attention. And the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is off track. To summarize the current deplorable situation of the earth let me just refer to one person who should know. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, says everything in his Nelson Mandela Lecture of 18 July 2020 “Tackling the Inequality Pandemic: A New Social Contract for a New Era” [1]. Everything? Well, the Secretary General doesn't speak about own shortcomings of the UN.[2] However, apart from this partial blindness Guterres' speech is an excellent lecture calling for a great redesign in form of a New Social Contract.

[1] https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2020-07-18/secretary-generals-nelson-mandela-lecture-%E2%80%9Ctackling-the-inequality-pandemic-new-social-contract-for-new-era%E2%80%9D-delivered - accessed on 10 February 2021

[2] Aargauer Zeitung on 10 February 2021: http://ow.ly/9MzN50DwSqe

„More Trouble“: Two scientists look at the Corona development curve („flatten the curve“). What they don't see is the even higher and bigger curve of climate change

Source: Statistically Insignificant www.instagram.com/statisticallycartoon/

After the pandemic “back to normal", a "new normal" or a "never new normal"

Many just hope to return to the "normality" as it was known before Corona. Others look at the deplorable situation as described e.g. by Mr Guterres and call for a "build back better" and a “new normal”. Again, others take a step further and imagine a "new never normal". For instance, Matthias Schrader doesn't see behind the pandemic a new status quo. Instead he sees a continued development process. In his preface to the book The Great Redesign[1] he writes:

"I wish you courage in redesigning the "new never normal", and an eye for the big picture. Because real change requires staying power. Entrepreneurial short-sightedness does not help us. Normally the initial idea is not followed immediately by success but rather by a longer period of patient trial and error and constant improvement to carry through and establish innovation. Stay tuned. It could be great."

Of course, even the normality before the pandemic was marked by innovations and a more or less gradual transformation. To be challenged is good but at the same time the scenario of a “new never normal” is scary. Humans need normality for a balanced life. I doubt that humanity could adapt to a permanent “never new normal” if that would come close to a prolonged chaos. Therefore, a new normal deems preferable but there is no narrative for it yet. And here is the link to the subject of the post: Without a vision or narrative of our future we cannot develop a plan.

Call for a vision as narrative of our future

Dear reader, please use some of your time (in or out of lockdown) to think about what could be a compelling narrative of our future on which we all could agree regardless of political beliefs, religion, race, sex or ethnicity. Please, look also at existing visions. They are not necessarily bad but do they provide a full or only a partial narrative of our future. What’s missing? What should be added?

Everybody could write down or contribute to the vision as a mental model of our future. You might be a monk in a closure, a political leader, a staff member silenced by the conditions of a country or institution or you may be free to follow your own interests only. What matters is your creativity and imagination to produce a compelling narrative of our future as a vision to which everybody can commit. And imagine, with your narrative of our future you might win the Peace or Literature Nobel Prize one day.

Of course, for that vision it will require a strategy to implement it (see part 2 of the blog post).

[1] Matthias Schrader (2020): Redesigning the "New Never Normal". In: Matthias Schrader and Volker Martens (Eds.): The Great Redesign. Frameworks for the Future. Hamburg, pp 9-11.

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If you have any questions, comments or a request for advisory services please contact Ulrich Graute via ulrich.graute@ugraute.de

All posts on the subject Failure to plan is planning to fail will be available on the blog “With burning patience”: https://www.ugraute.de/blog-1

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Policies and Governance for Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Regions

The UN making itself redundant – the case of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat)

by Ulrich Graute • 20 May 2025

The UN is in a deep financial and political crises. UN chiefs in the UN Secretariat have been instructed to cut jobs on the regular budget by 20 percent. That will have major impacts also on UN-Habitat as it is a programme in the Secretariat. What would you do in this situation? UN-Habitat will present its Draft Strategic Plan for the period 2026-2029 for approval by the UN Habitat Assembly on 29 and 30 May 2025. (see attached document). Knowing that the UN is not in charge to build new cites and houses in member states, what would you put into the plan? In front of the financial and political crises it probably would make sense to describe a real strategy beginning with a problem description, analysis of own potentials to achieve goals and end with a result-based plan on how to achieve specified goals by 2029. As part of this you probably would draw conclusions from foresight trend studies on urban and territorial planning and consider new technology developments like artificial intelligence. UN-Habitat should reflect on potential impacts of eg AI on city development, urban economy and social cohesions in a transforming cities. The attached UN-document is in traditional UN style. It begins by referring to UN resolutions and mandates related to the Programme as. Then it discusses global challenges and -don’t be surprised- picks housing out of the many challenges and calls it a focus for the work until 2029. That seems to be a smart choice because already in 1976 governments recognised the need for sustainable human settlements and the consequences of rapid urbanisation and mandated the new UN Programme to focus on this subject. Unfortunately, the new strategic plan for 2026-2029 is still just process-oriented and not a result-based policy document. For friends of the toolbox, paragraphs 23-26 provide a tour de table of the subjects UN-Habitat will address. After that the document tries to describe how all this will be addressed with the strategic focus on housing. Followed by a lengthy discussion of means of implementation the document describes what is the difference between impacts, outputs and results, but here it stops: the text falls short in providing any checkable result indicators. No regional specification of the plan is provided as if the world would be everywhere the same. Strategic goals even in the field of housing remain blurry and show no strategy to achieve them. UN-Habitat doesn’t argue what value the programme will deliver for money. They could do this for different scenarios, depending on the level of funding by member states. But they don’t even try. In conclusion, The Programme basically promises more of the same but calls it focused and strategic. And Artificial Intelligence? According to the Strategic Plan AI will be a non-issue for cities and other human settlements in 2025-2029. It’s not even mentioned.

There is no alternative to keep building a world community 80 years after World War II

by Ulrich Graute • 8 May 2025

The UN will be put on life support for a while to keep from drowning and gain time for reform. It is likely that In face of the financial and general support crises of the United Nations member states will put the UN on a life support system to keep core functions running. That may gain time but the real UN reform requires nothing less than building a new boat while being on an open and stormy sea. There is much talk about UN reform. Out of panic, there are plans to shrink the UN, cut salaries and shuffle staff around to duty stations which are assumed to be cost-saving. And this in a time of multiple crises, with every day emerging issues and conflicts. Have you every tried to build a new boat on open sea while you sit in an old boat in danger of sinking? That’s the kind of situation the UN and its members are in. The elephant in the room is the future of the world as a community At a conference in Toronto, I learned that the natives in North America are used to plan seven generations ahead. Imagine our politicians would do that! Automatically, they would be forced to think beyond their own lifetime. All of a sudden, the future of the community would be more important and this community would have multiple identities: the identity of the smallest entities (family), neighbourhood, city, region, country and the even the identity of a world community because we humans share all resources in the world and depend on it. Unfortunately, people are also afraid of it because building this community takes time and it is not without risks and possible setbacks. Instead, there is a growing trend to scramble as many resources and power as possible under one leader to bring the own group in the best starting position for a possibly upcoming final fight for survival. Could we survive that? Probably not and certainly, the world would be in a worse condition after that. Some super-rich may survive in a space station on Mars for a while before they realise that they manoeuvred themselves into a dead-end. Germany demonstrated to the world what happens if the world retreats from global community building. My uncles and grandfathers fought in two World Wars that killed a total of about 50 million people in an effort to make Germany great again. Thanks to the Allied Forces this ended 80 years ago on 8 May 1945. Japan went on fighting for a while and gave up after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The slaughtering was so massive that it convinced the countries of the world to establish the United Nations. Today we take this world community (with all the flaws it has) for granted as a stabilisation anchor of the world. But it is an illusion. Without putting skin into the game and investing in its reform, the slaughtering may return. Thus, there is no alternative to jointly building the world community for future generations. SO, LET'S KEEP BUILDING A PEACEFUL AND JUST WORLD COMMUNITY THAT LEAVES NOBODY BEHIND.

Urban Sprawl as part of the solution for the affordable housing crisis in the USA?!

by Ulrich Graute • 14 April 2025

None of the following supports the idea that urban sprawl is required or even helpful to build sustainable cities. However, it is argued that it may be part of the solution for the crisis of affordable housing in many countries of the world. With this post, I would like to encourage a debate, eg, at the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress #WPC61 on 1-4 December 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1976 and alarmed by rapid and uncontrolled urban growth, particularly in the developing world, the UN General Assembly called for the First United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) addressing the challenges and future of human settlements. Housing remained at the focus of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme UN-Habitat ever since, and this was reconfirmed at Habitat III in Quito 2016. The New Urban Agenda recognizes and promotes a "right to the city," meaning the right of all inhabitants to have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that cities offer. It emphasizes a vision where urban spaces are designed and used collectively for the benefit of all, including those in informal settlements. Yes a vision, but overall, the Agenda is not very strategic and invites more to raising picking instead of integrated problem solving. Meanwhile, cities keep struggling to cope with fast urbanization, migration and growing demand for larger apartments. Urban sprawl is criticized since the 1950s and 60s because of its large demand for land. No densely populated urban areas have higher costs for the water, energy and transportation grid. In addition, developers often focus on profitable housing development while they don’t care for urban infrastructure, public spaces, schools etc. The New Urban Agenda promotes urban density as a key strategy for sustainable and efficient urban development but that doesn’t help those who a looking for housing now. Conor Dougherty is the author of the book Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream published on 10 April 2025 in the New York Times the article “Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.” He doesn’t make any effort to paint urban sprawl in rosy colors. Instead, he describes how eg in Princeton, Texas, the nation’s third-fastest-growing city, infrastructure has struggled to keep up with growth. He analyzes how difficult and slow-moving densification efforts in cities are and states, “Even if all the regulatory restraints were removed tomorrow, developers couldn’t find enough land to satisfy America’s housing needs inside established areas. Consequently, much of the nation’s housing growth has moved to states in the South and Southwest, where a surplus of open land and willingness to sprawl has turned the Sun Belt into a kind of national sponge that sops up housing demand from higher-cost cities. The largest metro areas there have about 20 percent of the nation’s population, but over the past five years they have built 42 percent of the nation’s new single-family homes, according to a recent report by Cullum Clark, an economist at the George W. Bush Institute, a research center in Dallas.” For instance, Celina, Texas (picture), has 54,000 residents, compared with 8,000 just a decade ago, and the population is projected to hit 110,000 by 2030. The lack of urbane infrastructure, employment, greenery, and community is striking, but people keep coming because of affordability. While planners and others prefer denser and walkable neighbourhoods like 15-minute-cities, the money to build related infrastructure in addition to houses is often missing or would reduce affordability. A dilemma. There are good reasons to criticize the trend described for the US by Conor Dougherty, but it provides a chance to attain affordable housing for people who cannot find it elsewhere. And the history of these satellite towns has demonstrated that the missing infrastructure, employment and community can be added lateron. It seems, urban sprawl is not the solution, but it might be part of the solution, isn’t it? Let's discuss this here or later on other occasions, like eg the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress 'Cities & Regions in Action: Planning Pathways to Resilience and Quality of Life 1-4 December 2025, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia #WPC61. Reference: Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it. By Conor Dougherty. The New York Times, April 10, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/magazine/suburban-sprawl-texas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

We need the United Nations to be part of the solution, not of the problem

by Ulrich Graute • 8 March 2025

Picture: UN photo

Anatomy of an AI System

by Ulrich Graute • 25 February 2025

Click to see the map in the full scale or download map in pdf format here https://anatomyof.ai/img/ai-anatomy-map.pdf.

About the challenge of providing advice on governance and development in times of disruption and transition

by Ulrich Graute • 22 February 2025

About the challenge of providing advice on governance and development in times of disruption and transition (English with German captatio ns) Deutsch: Ulrich spricht darüber, wie es ist, in Zeiten von Umbruch, Wandel und vielfachen Krisen als erfahrener Berater zu arbeiten. Obwohl die Situation nicht einfach ist, kann man daraus auch Chancen für effizientere Institutionen und Unternehmen sehen. Erfahrung und Flexibilität sind dabei wichtig, um neue Wege zu finden. English: Ulrich talks about working as an experienced consultant in times of upheaval, change, and multiple crises. Although the situation is not easy, we can also see opportunities for more efficient institutions and companies. Experience and flexibility are important to find new pathways.

Urban politics, planning and economy in the Global South in times of fast developing AI

by Ulrich Graute • 12 February 2025

"The development of highly capable AI is likely to be the biggest event in human history. The world must act decisively to ensure it is not the last event in human history. This conference, and the cooperative spirit of the AI Summit series, give me hope; but we must turn hope into action, soon, if there is to be a future we would want our children to live in." Professor Stuart Russell, IASEAI President and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley Please join me on 13 February 2025 at ARCS 9.0 for my keynote on 'Urban politics, planning, and economy in the Global South in times of fast developing AI' The two weeks before my conference presentation were full of dynamics in the field of AI, its politics, and development. First came the launch of the 500 billion US$ Stargate Project in the USA, followed by the launch of the Chinese open-source large language model (LLM) DeepSeek. On 6 February the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI held its inaugural conference in Paris, France. Prominent AI scientists including Stuart Russel and the 2024 Physics Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton called for international cooperation to ensure safe and ethical artificial intelligence. On 10 and 11 February 2025, France co-chaired by India hosted the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris. The speeches by Heads of State and Government including the President of France, the Prime Minister of India, the President of the EU Commission, and the US Vice President gave the impression of how different countries of the world try to position themselves in a race for AI leadership. Urban politics, planning, and economy, not only in the Global South, need longer-term frameworks. How should digital transformation and urban planning be approached in cities facing multiple crises and the new wave of AI technological innovation? The latter is according to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others unprecedented in scale and speed but it is expected to affect all spheres of life. ARCS 9.0 schedule and Zoom link for Inaugural, plenaries and Valedictory. Date - 13th Feb to 15th Feb 2025 Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/95336599575?pwd=NExxgf8gBoubEfKRhhtbalM1ZYjQph.1 Meeting ID: 953 3659 9575

The 500 bn US$ Stargate Project - Places seem to matter more, Urban Planning and AI governance less or not at all

by Ulrich Graute • 22 January 2025

Source of the picture OpenAI: https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/

Learning to work hands-on for peace from former US-President Jimmy Carter

by Ulrich Graute • 1 January 2025

It was a tremendous privilege in my life to meet Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter for the first time in 1984 (picture) and then again in the summer of 1985 during my internship at Koinonia Farm near Americus, Georgia (USA). Jimmy Carter, who served as the 39th president of the U.S. from 1977 to 1981, died on December 29, 2024, at his home in Plains, Ga. Jimmy Carter was a lifelong farmer who worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s. I didn't agree with him on all issues (the early 1980s were the time of a new US missile deployment in Germany ordered by Jimmy Carter and a large peace movement against it) but he took the time to discuss it with me and others at Koinonia Farm. That alone was amazing. Even more mind-blowing was that he continued hands-on work on peacebuilding and house renovation for the poor around the world with Habitat for Humanity International well into his 90s. If in my career providing hands-on support became more important than climbing my own career path, this was also due to the example Jimmy Carter gave in the decades after his Presidency. I learned a lot from him about working for peace with humbleness, love, and perseverance. Read more in the New York Times about why Jimmy Carter was known as much for his charity and diplomatic work later in life as he was for his single presidential term, which ended in 1981. https://lnkd.in/d9qxSmTM *. *. *. *. * Note: This post was first published on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/graute_learning-to-work-hands-on-for-peace-from-activity-7279396908270309376-BBjV?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

The United Nations risks drowning in its mandates, conferences and external expectations. Could Artificial Intelligence help the UN?

by Ulrich Graute • 2 December 2024

In 2024, for the first time since 2000, the Parties to the United Nations Rio Conventions on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification faced a very busy 3 months, moving from large Conferences of Parties (COP) in Cali (Colombia) for biodiversity in October to Baku (Azerbaijan) for climate in November to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) for desertification in December. On top of this Triple-COP, there was the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the UN Summit of the Future in September in New York (USA) while UN-Habitat held its World Urban Forum in Cairo (Egypt), and let’s not forget the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5) which ended last weekend in Busan, South Korea. No real breakthroughs were reported but I noticed many promises to double future efforts. There is a lot that can be critically reviewed about the events, eg what’s the purpose of moving approximately 100.000+ delegates, UN staffers, and other participants worldwide if the necessary political will to agree and resources available are insufficient and the outcomes are limited accordingly? But such a critique would be a bit unfair since I don’t know how many new ideas and initiatives were born during those official meetings, side events, and informal chats that might bloom up in upcoming years despite of the multicrises we’re living in. What needs to be criticized is that the UN System is not progressing on its task to implement its many mandates more “synergistically” by targeting policies, programs, and initiatives to jointly address the goals of the Rio Conventions, SDGs, etc. Instead, the conferences referred to each other but worked mainly within their silos. This is not appropriate in a world full of interrelations and interdepensies. Well, no individual or group can follow up on every aspect, and swarm intelligence of conferences with thousands of participants each seems to be no functioning alternative. But what else could be done? To give an example: How about building an AI-based Large Language Model (LLM) trained with the UN Charter, all UN declarations, national and subnational resolutions, regulations, and programmes? AI Agents for the different conventions and agendas should then be asked to coordinate and propose “synergistic” proposals across policy levels. Of course, the use of artificial intelligence should be wisely supervised by a team of AI experts and professionals from all affected fields. I wouldn’t expect AI applications to solve all problems but to better inform decision-makers and UN agencies on integrated scenarios. This could help to increase efficiency, avoid duplicating efforts, and increase the overall problem-solving capacity of the UN. I would be happy to support such work with my governance and development experience across all policy levels. Picture source: https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/cop-nature-climate-adaptation-mitigation