The Planners’ Triangle in Application to Large-Scale Government-led Sustainable Development Projects: The Case of the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project

This research documents and analyzes aspects of the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, a large scale, government-led sustainable development project in South Korea. The purpose is to better understand the challenges in planning such projects, including divergent values, interests and perspectives of stakeholder groups. The logical framework around which we seek organize the relationships and conflicts between stakeholders in the project is Campbell’s “Planners’ Triangle,” a simple yet powerful conceptual model widely acknowledged in the planning and sustainable development literatures. The data and documentation were obtained from a review of publicly available literature together with semi-structured interviews. In addition to conflicts and challenges surrounding the customary three dimensions of the Planners’ Triangle, we found that stakeholder distrust in government is yet another significant dimension in government-led sustainable development projects. We propose a modified framework with which to better understand conflicts and controversies in government-led sustainable development projects.