# Epistemological Differences in Tactical and Strategic Spatial Planning Aynaz Lotfata Abstract -Purpose: In spatial processes, the terms strategy and tactic have frequently appeared without any clear distinguishing, whereas strategies and tactics have epistemologically characterized differently. Strategic knowledge have tries to defining visions of urban space through answering "What" and "Why" questions and its knowledge is the abstract knowledge, while tactical knowledge is the experiential knowledge via answering "How" question. Strategy and tactics are both terms from a military context where strategy has referred to long-term war planning in contrast to tactic as short-term flexible battle planning. Strategy has worked from the position of power that is in a place to force its opponents to accept its conditions. The strategic conventional ideologies empty of tactical policies have destroyed built spaces memories to organize urban society according to elite's tendencies. The Equivalent of strategy in urban planning is Master plan. Tactics have not operated such dictated forces. Tactics are bottom-up spatial practices. Developing bottom-up dynamics have caused to flexibilities of the prevailed ideologies of the upper policies. Hayden calls short-small actions (Tactics) "power of places" to challenge homogenous urban planning. Homogenous urban planning has planned urban spaces in a frozen platform of time. Another important purpose of this study has been organized to expand "public policy time". Findings: Thereby, strategic spatial planning without tactics has justly characterized as an abstract phenomenon. Time and space co-existence policies have gotten its legitimacy via witnessing spatial tactics. The tactics developed by ordinary people are at root attempts to negotiate power relationships, discourses and representations of identity. To develop the empowered spatial planning, the synergic relations amid localities tactics and strategies have to implement for tackling with the stochastic world. And the arguments have orderly developed on permanent and temporary identities of spatial strategic and tactics Results: The paper has aimed to solve the problem of misunderstandings in tactics and strategies definitions and applications in urban planning. Additionally through explanations of strategies and tactics differences in spatial planning, the project has tries to argue that strategy of locality cannot be duplicated like spatial tactics imitating all over the world. Localities got used to dismantling other localities strategies and tactics to enhance their situation in the competition platform. However, a strategy is hard to duplicating such tactics. To sum up, strategies and practices (Tactics) have shaped the everyday life of inhabitants and urban planning should make balance in utilizing both. Additionally locality Author : Ph.D. Researcher at City and Regional Planning Dep. of Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. E-mail : a.lotfata@gmail.com should not imitate spatial tactics and strategies of other localities. Otherwise, it has reified spatial tactics and strategies. Every locality has own priorities to consider in urban planning. Originality: In planning literature, implementing spatial strategies have not been the recent phenomena. The differences have reverted to the deficiency of synergic relations amid tactics and strategy. The conventional regulated spatial planning has generally formulated without spatial tactics to reach spatial goals while to tackle the real world future, the reciprocal connections of tactics and strategy have gotten priorities. In other words, planning has to move on toward an experimental science of planning. With considering the novel re-configuring urban planning, the paper has tries to shed light based on simulating urban planning via "Artificial Intelligence" achievements. This will support arguments on systematic planning definitions to control the uncertain world. In moving form toy-world domains that characterized early conventional planning, we are looking at a wide range of issues, including reasoning in uncertain worlds, interacting with processes and events beyond the agent's direct control and controlling systems in real non-linear time. The disciplinary background of the paper is philosophical-epistemological. The enquiry is conceptual. Keywords : strategy, tactic, synergy, imitating, empowered. # I. Introduction-Dynamic and Uncertain Domains; Planning with Stochastic Actions ne of the main concerns of socio-spatial policy makers all over the world is to improve their ability to anticipate and control the future. Designing human futurity, whether long or short-term is not a simple matter. The sophistication involved in dealing with ongoing fundamental changes in modern societies challenges the ability to control human futurity and to sustain continuity. Here our concerns in the following exploration are time perception and time management in public policy. Time related public policy literature is generally farmed in terms of long term and short term policy. This study suggests juxtaposing "tactical policy time" and "strategic policy time". Tactical policy time is defined as "taking a specific time-related plan or action aimed at achieving a defined policy result". Tactical policy time has applied in the case of short time tables. Strategic policy time has defined as "taking a specific time-related plan or action with the aim of coping better with uncertainty in the future". These arguments have invited attentions on time-related 1 ( D D D D D D D D ) Year 013 2 D planning or action aiming to achieve a defined policy result or cope better with uncertainty in the future". The mapping of time management in public policy generally indicates two main trends: 1-a pragmatic trend-shortterm policy has based on the response-oriented policy (Tactic) and 2-a normative trend-long-term policy inspired by "the voice of the future" to avoid uncertainty" (Strategy). In other words, "Why do we plan?" Planning is to respond necessities of real world. To control real world, there are two focus points: coping with uncertainties and real time planning. The planning knowledge is incomplete whereas that is the process. The process definition of planning has gotten back ton on-predicted events in the world by which control and pre-determination of domains have not been done completely. There is the world of uncertainties. The planning has to discovery new approaches of intervention in the world such reactive planning, tactical planning and conditional planning. The arguments have supported that the planning process has not only defined due to theoretical discussions but also that has included the practical exercises. Relying justly on reactive, tactical and conditional planning with the practical essence has not improved the controlling uncertainties. The planning process requires mutual connections of theory and practice. In reality, tactical, reactive and conditional planning has justly supported the incremental practical planning. However, to control the world with stochastic actions where linear and universal plans have not functioned any more, incremental and conventional spatial practices combinations have insistently emphasized. Therefore, planning in realistic domains has forced us to confront two main issues: uncertainty and urgency. Uncertainty arises since the planner is neither omnipotent, omniscient one nor alone in the world to control stochastic actions. The paper aims to consider spatial planning as the automatic planning by which planning has prepared to any stochastic actions of the world in which has witnessed the social, economic, environmental and politic upheavals. Thereby the conventional traditional planning should re-modify to achieve goals of planning with high probability. That does not mean, refuting result rationality of conventional planning in which its rationality measures how efficiently the plan achieves its specified objectives. Planner should re-construct planning with making balance between result rationality of conventional planning and process rationality of tactical planning. Therefore, the lost and disregarded part of planning in dynamic and uncertain world has characterized via tactical planning. Planning has been a process changing its long term focus point toward short term planning. To control uncertain and dynamic world, planners should be familiar with reactive planning. Nilsson has proposed the concepts of actions networks for reactive planning/tactical planning. Actions networks differ from universal plans in that they allow the formation of action hierarchies (Hanks, 1990). This supports argument that we view planning as the process and planning has been converted from long term prospects into short term tasks. That does not mean that process has thrown out the strategic planning and justly focused on tactical planning. This process must consider both the strategic and tactical aspects of planning. Tactical or incremental planning has emphasized on tasks/ actions which achieve short term goals. Purely strategic planning cannot immediately react to a changing world while tactical planning can answer changes quickly. The traditional planning logic is Boolean logic where the values of variable are the truth values, truth and false, usually denoted 1 and 0. However planning is the process and it has formulated in between 1 and 0. The deductive knowledge of Boolean planning has distrusted on urban society with stochastic actions. The figure 1 has simulated spatial planning with intervention of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the sphere of urban planning to emphasize on importance of tactics in controlling the stochastic world. There is a Robotic motion planning that explicitly considers actions (Tactics) to control probable uncertainties, avoid collisions and successfully reaching a goal. To reduce system failures, Markov decision process formulates dynamic planning to optimize Robotic motion in the selected path to achieve its goals. The remainder of paper is organized as follows; section 2 explanation on non-linear world and the world of cause and effect to declare necessity of dynamic planning, section 3 discussion on planning re-cognition names "empowered planning", "synergic phenomena" and "strategic and tactic imitation", section 4 discusses result and future work. # II. Planning as Temporal Reasoning; Necessity of Dynamic Planning We have invited attentions on modeling dynamic planning rather static traditional planning due to realities of the non-linear real world. Traditional conventional planning has been a model of planning with certain goals whereas in a-changing world, witnessing planning with certain goals has not been the possible phenomenon. The linear world and the perception of cause and effect is simply a trick of the mind to create the illusion of predictability and control. Thereby, tactical spatial planning which has characterized as a short range planning emphasizing on the current operations of various parts of the spatial complex and non-linear system has not been ignorable anymore. Short range has defined as a period of time extending about one year or less in the future. Figure 2 has discussed on the time non-linearity amid events in spatial system. Inhabitants often claim that it is easy to see how the events unfolded with hindsight in linear time. However, it is often possible to understand events reasons with foresight. Additionally events can happen simultaneously instead of the linear pre-determined perspectives and the spatial layouts have been witnessed hidden and complex non-linear causes and effects. In the real-world framework, there is not any linear reality. The complex spatial system has embedded with pluralities of actions by which the urban system has directed to complexities of causes and effects. The spatial temporal actions have taken place on self-emergencies and planned bottom-up activities. Figure 3 has explained realities of real world where actions have made influences upon each-others and created complex non-linear systems. The next section of the paper has discussed on re-formulating planning named "empowered planning" through integrate tactical spatial practices in conventional classical planning to configure planning system. # III. Plan Recognition; Empowered Planning Strategic planning has emphasized on the analyzing future and tactical planning has functioned on controlling everyday life. Despite their differences, tactical and strategic planning is internally related. System without strategy only based on tactics leads to shooting in dark. Sun Tzu innovation on "The Art of War" has taught the strategy such the timeless lesson as humans' nature. Strategy and tactics have depended on each other. Goldratt has defined "Strategy" as, simply, the answer to the question: "What for?" (The answer is the objective of a proposed change). "Tactic" is defined as, simply, the answer to the question "How to?" (The answer is the details of the proposed change). From these definitions, it is clear that every Strategy (What for?) should have an associated Tactic (How to?) and therefore Strategy and Tactic must always exist in "pairs" and must exist at every level of the organization (Figure 5). tactics which has connections with the upper plans such regional levels orderly -Source: by Author Tactical planning should focus on what to do in short term to contribute the spatial organization achieving the long term objectives determined by strategic planning. The short term tactical policies are more common in the political competitive sphere where citizens involvement in public sphere management. In the area of planning, there has been considerable debate about whether top-down or bottom-up planning is best spatial practice. However the empowered planning model has combined and made balance between long term and short term planning. Foucault's (1991) notion of 'govern mentality' has also composed of active tactics and strategies by governments and agents. Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. The conventional instrumental planning has modeled relied on the rational calculation is also the strategic challenge apart from tactical policies. However, great upheavals in uncertain world have led to the lack of trust on rational calculation empty of spatial tactics to control the stochastic actions. To support the argument, Friedman (1987) said that municipal level of the spatial development cannot justly answer local spatial dynamics via upper policies strategies, but it has to consider the local bottom-up knowledge and plan spatial tactics to reach strategic goals of the locality. In planning literature, it is time to integrate tactical spatial practices in conventional strategic planning. In this sense, the planning organization has simulated the novel "process policy" on spatial planning which Habermas (1995) has put forward that on "communicative action theory". Generally, "strategy" is really at the highest level of spatial systems by which the directions of all activities are dictated and "tactics" are lower down in spatial systems and define the activities that are needed to implement the Strategy, then where does "Strategy" end in which do "Tactics" begin. The figure 6 has represented differences on strategic and tactic perspectives in detail by which the paper next argument has clarified via declaring difficulties on imitating spatial strategies rather sociospatial tactics. Imitation strategy is the strategy that mimics the strategy of other territories. Territories have performed this kind of the imitation strategy to attract global capitals. This strategy is an illegal and unethical activity on condition that territories inner dynamics have refuted (Figure 7). The more interesting argument is duplicating spatial tactics without paying attention on territories authenticities and dynamic bottom-up knowledge. In reality, tactics vary with circumstances and, especially, technology. Alan says, "If I were to teach you how to be a soldier during the American Revolution, you would learn how to form and maneuver in lines, perform the 27 steps in loading and firing a musket, and how to ride and tend to a horse. Naturally, yesterday's tactics won't win today's wars -but yesterday's strategies still win today's wars? and will win them tomorrow and into the future. Therefore, strategy and tactics require a different focus." After debating on necessity of strategic and tactical planning authenticity to dismantle empowered spatial planning, it will be more interesting to concentrate on in what manner spatial tactics have integrated in urban planning through "synergic planning". # Conclusion The discussed arguments have attracted attentions on empowered planning not to avoid uncertainties, but to control uncertainties. This supports arguments that inclusion epistemologies of two trends of planning; tactical and strategic policies have led to easily deal with stochastic world. And planner and geographers have attracted on "real time planning" where the long term planning and short term planning have combined and utilized in balance. This research has tries to introduce a new mode of intervention in planning since the empowered planning is the subordinate system theories framework. System theories focus on complexity and system inter-dependencies. The followers of the system theory in the field of sociology also give light to what is happening in socio-spatial context in cities. Among them, Nikolas Luhmann argues the significance of the continuity of social processes and inter-activities among parts in such processes. 1![Figure 1 : From an initial configuration (solid square) to a goal (open circle) -Source: (Alterovitz, 2007)](image-2.png "Figure 1 :") ![Differences in Tactical and Strategic Spatial Planning Global Journal of Computer Science and Technology Volume XIII Issue I Version I](image-3.png "Epistemological") 2![Figure 2 : Dashed line: linear time, filled points: events in spatial layout-Source: by Author](image-4.png "Figure 2 :") 3![Figure 3 : Cause and effects dynamics of bottom-up spatial activities-Source: by AuthorThe bottom-up planned actions are spatial tactics/reactions by which time and space co-existence have implemented. And tempo-spatial co-existence policies can immediately re-act urban society's upheavals. In figure4, the incremental tempo-spatial changes have been manifested. The emphasizing on relationship between space and time has been formulated in the most diverse planning theories and has fascinated mankind from the beginning until the conventional planning strategy by which real-time tends to zero.](image-5.png "Figure 3 :") 4![Figure 4 : Co-existence of time and space in tactical planning; 1-The efficiency: is the operational level of planning via asking" how can we best deploy and control resources?" 2-The effectiveness: is the tactical level of planning via asking" how can we best organize ourselves to reach success?" 3 -The competitiveness: is t he strategic level of planning via asking" what are our aims and what are marketable to do global competitiveness?" -Source: by Author](image-6.png "Figure 4 :") 5![Figure 5 : Every level of organization such Municipal level has composed of strategic vision and relational spatial](image-7.png "Figure 5 :") 6![Figure 6 : Strategic and tactics differences-source: by Author a) Strategic and tactical imitations](image-8.png "Figure 6 :") 7![Figure7: The bottom-up ethical process-Source:(Nielsen, 1994) ](image-9.png "Figure 7 :") ![b) Synergic PlanningSynergy comes from the Greek word synergia, meaning joint work and cooperative action. Synergy is when the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergy has been created when things work in concert together to create an outcome that is in some way of more value than the total of what the individual inputs is. The synergic phenomena have supported "What to change, but more importantly, what not to change and especially How to implement the changes and Why." Empower planning has ethically planned socio-physicalspatial changes owing to making synergy amid different spatial localities of urban systems such synergy in between two localities strategies and tactics towards planning overlapping to reach mega goals of a territory (Figure8).](image-10.png "") 8![Figure 8 : Synergy in between two localities strategies, tactics and operations -Source: by Author](image-11.png "Figure 8 :") © 2013 Global Journals Inc. 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