Reflection about the prospective of the municipal area

Abstract

The time horizon is one of the basic components of any planning effort. Considered as an institutional process of the public administration of our country, as stated in article 26 of the Constitution, the development strategy considers that in practice its instruments operate at different levels, dimensions, scales and time horizons. The planning time frame contemplates the short, medium and long term. Specialists recognize that as the time horizon stretches forward, uncertainty increases and forecast is reduced. It is also accepted that the future can't be predetermined and that it is even possible to consider the possibility of different futures for a concrete reality. In this sense, the role of prospective is to provide the planning specialist with a vision of the desired future, as well as characterization of feasible future scenarios if we take into account the actions that are carried out to control or orient the constitutive elements of reality on which it is intended to influence. We can glimpse with some precision, using mathematical and statistical models, the immediate future, however, the anticipation of the long term is a more complex task; the changing and globalized reality of today's world calls for a comprehensive, holistic vision for its analysis; and in the context of a more open, communicated and participatory society, consensus becomes a means to build projects of general interest. In the prospective, one recognizes the concurrence of these strategies as long as it can be considered a methodology of long-term vision, holistic coverage and design by consensus. This paper raises some ideas that help to reflect on the prospective of the Municipal Public Administration. It is structured according to the prospective analysis, having as a reference, at first, a series of points allusive to the prospective perspective, its relevant categories and the process of building scenarios, trying to, at the same time, define ideas on the subject that interests us, the future of municipal life and its government.