Community Planning for the Elderly: A Study of Goal Displacement

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Abstract
Two years were spent in studying the activities of three essentially federative planning organizations which claimed to deal specifically with problems of the elderly in one community. Interviews were conducted with all officers, staff, and members of the organizations following a lengthy period of field work. Study findings indicate that planning activities were more symbolic than instrumental; more oriented toward validation and legitimation of the members' work than actual accomplishment (a classic “goal displacement”). It is concluded that the planning participants sought to attain expert status and a claim to control local decision-making activities (present or future) in the field of aging as a means of dealing with the basic survival needs of the organizations which employed them.

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