The plan vs project dilemma is a starting discussion point in classic urban and regional studies in which key planning ideas originate from plans, projects, or both. Urban and regional studies are characterised by paradigms that pose or reconcile the plan vs dilemma, a durable dualism which is at the kernel of planning knowledge and action. The paradigm shift from plan to project provides an impetus to reconsider the dualistic relation between plan and project in a progress review of planning literature from the classics to a flurry of recent empirical studies of major projects and ‘strategic’ spatial plans. The paper concludes with urban and regional studies that point towards expansive concepts that carefully regard the wider sectoral, spatial, institutional and environmental contexts of projects in an integrated development framework that parallels strategic spatial and comprehensive plans.
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