Tenerife: Quo Vadis? cnt

The fact that Tenerife is by its nature a magical island, with most of the magic being generated directly or indirectly by Mount Teide is not open to debate. It is simply an indisputable fact, literally written in stone. Therefore in principle we have a fabulous product to market and that is the wonderful, indeed the unique, island of Tenerife. However, in order to optimise its potential, Tenerife must be marketed as an entity, as a whole, not just any specific part of it.
While the natural environment is special, the man-made environment in Tenerife is somewhat less so. It is not quite so impressive. Perhaps if we look at this man-made environment against the yardstick of internationally accepted town-planning norms we may begin to see why generally it doesn’t do justice to and match up to our unique natural inheritance.

Arguably nobody has improved on the definition of Town Planning enunciated by the late Professor Lewis Keeble, in his ‘Principles and Practice of Town and Country Planning’, almost forty years ago.
The art and science of ordering the use of land and the character and siting of buildings and communication routes so as to secure the maximum practicable degree of economy, convenience and beauty.
From this definition some fundamental principles of successful Town Planning emerge:
The promotion of accessibility; accessibility of homes to work, shops, schools and entertainment, of industry to sources of labour, power and raw materials and so on. It would hardly be going too far to call Planning a study in accessibility.
The employment of resources as economically as possible, so as to achieve the greatest possible measure of improvement with necessarily limited means.
The separation of incompatible land uses from each other and the association of compatible or mutually helpful uses and finally.
The carrying out of all development in as visually pleasant a manner as is practicable.
Planning, in a general sense, may be defined as the predetermination of a course of action. Perhaps, in a democratic society, we should be talking about Planning by demand. The problem here though is that conscious consumer wants are limited by experience and knowledge. By and large you can only want that which you know…what planners really need to know therefore, is what people would want if they understood on the one hand the full range of possibilities and on the other all the practical limitations.
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