An improvement is a move away from something bad. E.g. poverty, war, crime, injustice. A solution is a movement towards something good. E.g. affluence, peace, kindness, justice. I think the latter approach is ultimately doomed to fail, because it is prone to aim at unattainable ends - ‘ideals’. If you are trying to move towards something good the unintended consequences are likely to get in your way before you get there. You’re going to be a better doctor if you want to cure diseases than if you aim to create health.
EmperorNero:
Thanks for your explanation. While I cannot distinguish the two as much as you (and others) have, I do see your point now. Striving for something is very different than striving against something. What should be pointed out is that any action, whether it is on the surface striving for or against something, is actually both. Striving for food more or less encompasses striving against hunger; striving for knowledge is the same thing as striving against ignorance. If you want to improve, you must have a goal in mind and you must move toward that goal. It is true that you must also have in mind a defect that you want to move away from, but you still must have a goal in mind that serves as the other side to the coin.
It occurs to me that all of this debate might be contingent on exactly who is doing the striving. To hear you (and others) talk badly of striving for ideals, it seems as though you are concerned not necessarily with the notion of striving for something positive, but that someone else (a city planner, a government bureaucrat) might be in charge of setting the ideal. Striving for one’s own ideals should not be looked down upon, but when a government official sets out a broad plan for everyone to follow in order to meet an ideal (which must be personal and thus arbitrary), then we run into some serious problems.
If this is the case, then the issue shouldn’t be with the notion of ideals or solutions, but simply the notion of someone else coercing you to do what they want. We can all agree that that is a problem.