Planning itself is an active, creative process that seeks to define the goals of a community and recommend ways to reach these goals. Planning is also a process that must continuously reassess how well we are reaching these goals, and whether the goals are the right ones to begin with. Today's minor decisions, such as approving a new subdivision of two dozen homes or a new curb cut in a rural road, usually set the development pattern, and the types and levels of public services required, for the next one hundred years or more. The streets, sewer and water systems, and buildings that are built in 1997 will most likely still be there in 2097. With this at stake, planners are expected to possess not only broad and far-reaching vision of how everything works together but also jeweler's eye for detail in how everything should work.
Planning takes place at a number of scales at the same time.
This is because small individual decisions can add up to have larger consequences. Planning can range from how an individual structure is situated on a lot, to how streets and clean water need to be provided to serve the structure, to how the site should fit in with neighborhood road and water supply systems, to how regional highways and reservoirs need to be sized, located and connected to serve existing and future neighborhoods. When any of these systems are out of sync, problems arise. It costs too much to overbuild and too much to be undersized. New Jersey's State Planning Commission was created by an Act of the Legislature to help local, regional and State agency planning get into sync, to help them better define and work out differences between their goals, to allow each perspective to be understood and appreciated, and to reach a level of agreement that establishes a course of action through a statewide plan.