City Planning and Government EA

I was just listening to a presentation about city planning and immediately thought about its likenesses to Enterprise Architecture.  Any group of people could collect in a location and begin building homes and roads and shops and eventually a city might develop, but the long term health and well-being of the city will be dependent on how well a master plan is executed.  Government organizations are formed when a group of people unitedly decide to apply common resources to establishing a framework for providing services for the common good.  That government organization will reign over the people, but the long term health and well-being of the government will depend on how well a master plan is executed.  That master plan might be called the Enterprise Architecture.   The phrase "health and well-being" is important.  There are many definitions in the world for what constitutes a healthy government and society.  My view is that a healthy government is one that enables people to live and develop in a safe society--the government should, like a good family, encourage people to overcome challenges on their own, help one another succeed in their good endeavors and help them become independent, contributing members of society.  I have noted, in a previous post on this blog, that a government organization, unlike a private sector organization, doesn't strictly depend on out-competing competitors for resources.  The government organization (or rather, the resources applied toward an organization's functions) will grow and survive dependent on how deeply entrenched it gets into daily operations of the government and society.  However, it can, like a cancerous mass, grow and survive indefinitely to the detriment of a society or to its benefit and long term health and well-being.  When the government mandates an Enterprise Architecture approach to its maintenance and growth, it must be recognized that its (the organization's) survival depends only on its leadership's ability to convince the right resource providers why they need the resources.  This is in contrast to a city plan, a city will grow and survive based on how well it supports an environment in which people will choose to settle and do business.