BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

- the elderly are often retired people who represent a wasted resource
of intellect and skill which could be used in education;
- the community also contains a number of families from different
nationalities and cultures who also represent a useable resource.
55. It became clear very soon that the traditional divisions between
public service departments, with their own budget lines, priorities, and
regulations would make it very difficult to respond to these issues, since
they were all issues of interrelationship in a very local context. There
was only one way of dealing with them, and that was comprehensively, i.e.
as a network, rather than in traditional and separate categories.
56. The process therefore proceeded as a definition of networks, interrelationships
and priorities. Gradually a comprehensive program emerged.
More and more people joined the process. Progress was slow. Many obstacles
had to be overcome, ranging from conflicts of priority within the
community to legal questions with regard to procedures governing the various
public programs and budgets involved. Three-dimensional design, in the
form of diagrams, drawings and models, were used as a means of defining
how recommended programs might look in terms of space and physical interrelationship.
As parts of the program took shape (elementary education,
adult education, food services, recreation, etc.) task forces, composed of
citizens, officials, and staffs, were formed to study these programs intensively
and to report back to the Council. After eighteen months of .work,
a building design was approved. The primary school had grown into the
Human Resources Center. Its education component alone provides for
1 800 children and 5 500 adults.
The "Critical Path" Alternative
57. Theoretically, the Joint Planning Council is a debating chamber.
Issues and interrelationships are discussed and defined. Its main advantage
is that co-ordination is debated and enacted publicly. All participants
know why certain programs are possible and why others are not, and
what the ramifications are of alternative courses of action. But it is
a time-consuming method. One of Its main drawbacks is its lack of dynamic
structure. New faces turn up at almost every meeting, and other people,
important to the process, might drop out for one reason or another.
58. An alternative is the "Critical Path". A critical path is, of
course, the diagram of a planning process as it moves forward from one
stage to the next.
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