The name is absent

population remains low in Estonian communities (Raagmaa 2001), local control is weak
over the activity of local politicians and administration. People tend to support old leaders,
these who managed well during the “good old times”.

Opportunities to apply network paradigm in Estonian planning practices are
therefore far not brilliant. Pseudo-planning practices of the Soviet era tend to continue and
are resulting ineffective use of community infrastructure. If the Soviet planning authorities
forced to follow at least some requirements, then post-Soviet era has created neo-liberal
chaos (or multitude of norms and principles) in CI planning practices.

4. Cooperation versus conflict and CI planning in Suure -Jaani locality

This case study was carried out on the base of consultations during the 2001. Three tiny
communities (Suure-Jaani town, Olustvere and Suure-Jaani rural municipalities, see their
location in figure 1), decided to merge around the historical centre Suure-Jaani and started
joint community planning process.

In advance, we may say at the very beginning, that the merging did not take place
so far. There main reasons can be outlined:

1) merging was financially not feasible,

2) political and personal conflicts,

3) fatal disagreement about the status of one community infrastructure element
- sports hall - construction.

Suure-Jaani area has territory about 460 sq km and is located in Central Estonia,
northern part of the Viljandi County, 25 km from regional capital Viljandi. The total
population is 5500 in three communities (table 1). Main employment is in agriculture and

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