"O'Toole presents an across-the-board indictment of government
planning. Whether zoning suburbs, designing rail systems or
determining how much timber to cut in national forests, he says,
federal, state and local planners are trying to simplify dizzyingly
complex problems. Inevitably, they focus on one or two resources,
fall prey to planning fads and succumb to pressure from interest
groups."
-Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Book World
"A hard-hitting, fact-filled, well-written volume. Fascinatingly,
Mr. O'Toole explains why elected officials tend to favor government
planning. Namely, they are happy to turn over hot issues to the
planning bureaucracy rather than make the decisions - and take the
heat - themselves."
-William H. Peterson,
The Washington Times
""An outstanding recent book, The Best-Laid Plans, gives a
richly documented account of government actions and their
consequences, and shows a far from flattering side of politicians,
'experts,' and environmentalists--who have ruined cities and
suburbs in countries around the world."
-Thomas Sowell, Townhall.com
""O'Toole documents example after example of government planning
gone hideously awry. He demolishes the widely held belief that
government planners are somehow smarter or more capable of managing
the future than market forces. Yet despite all evidence to the
contrary, many Americans still expect the planners to miraculously
get it right the next time around. Better to fire the planners and
let free people, free minds and free markets use the genius of
their freedom."
-The Washington DC Examiner
"As O'Toole shows, whether it's failed ""smart growth"" schemes,
oppressive zoning policies, expensive light-rail boondoggles or
mismanagement of public forests, government planners have caused us
trouble and cost us freedoms. Their misguided, top-down, faddish
rules and regulations have brought us higher housing prices,
more-crowded roads and forests that are susceptible to diseases and
catastrophic fires. O'Toole says it's time to liberate society from
planners' control.""
-Bill Steigerwald, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"Government planners will want to ban this book. But O'Toole's
exorcism of planning should be required reading for elected
officials at every level of government."
-Andy Stahl, Forest Service Employees for Environmental
Ethics
"O'Toole has convinced me that-in some cases-markets can work to
protect the environment. Conservationists who always support
planning and are always disappointed at its outcome should read
this book."
-Andy Kerr, Former Director, Oregon Natural Resources Council
"O'Toole today looks a lot like Jane Jacobs did in 1961. They're
both outsiders with a detailed grass-roots view of how
planners-with the best of intentions-are following a fashion into
disaster."
-Planning magazine
"Everyone plans. The problem is that people have gotten the idea
that government has the ability to plan very large entities,
including whole cities and regions. O'Toole documents the problems
that occur when this planning fails to work."
-Peter Gordon, Professor of Urban Planning, University of Southern
California
