MULTICRITERIA APPROACH FOR STRATEGIC TOWN PLANNING

Barcelos was one of the medium sized Portuguese towns selected to be included in a governmental program aiming at restructuring the country urban network. Each town had to prepare a “City Strategic Plan” as a previous condition to get financial support for the implementation of its strategy. This paper describes how a multicriteria methodology, enhanced with problem structuring techniques, supported the construction of a strategy for Barcelos in direct interaction with planners and the local elected politicians in a decision-conferencing framework. This was a socio-technical learning process that successfully implemented, in a strategic town-planning context, what Bernard Roy defined as “decision aiding”.