Comprehensive Planning
Comprehensive planning was a core area of David Rouse’s practice during his 25-year career at WRT. During the 1990s he was instrumental in developing the firm’s values-driven planning approach, which identifies community values and issues through the planning process as the basis for developing plan goals, policies, and actions. Examples include the FOCUS Kansas City Comprehensive Plan, awarded the Outstanding Planning Award for a Plan by the American Planning Association in 1999, and award-winning plans for Albany, NY, Annapolis and Cumberland, MD, Greensboro, NC, and Portsmouth, VA. David served as the lead consultant for the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan, which sets a vision and blueprint for the future of a rapidly growing Texan city created with the input of thousands of citizens.
David played a key role in developing APA’s Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places, which provide a national benchmark and resource for local jurisdictions seeking to integrate sustainable practices into their comprehensive plans. He served as a volunteer member of the Sustaining Places Task Force and Working Group that developed the draft standards. As APA Research Director he worked with 10 pilot communities to finalize the standards, co-authored the PAS Report Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans with the late David Godschalk, and supervised launch of a program that used the standards to recognize exemplary comprehensive plans.
David is lead author of The Comprehensive Plan: Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Communities for the 21st Century, a new book published by Routledge Press.
Parks and Open Space System Planning
Parks and open spaces are vital community assets that provide important environmental, economic, and social benefits such as improved health and wellbeing. As Conservation Agent for Barnstable, MA, David Rouse prepared an open space plan that led to the protection of hundreds of acres of critical water supply land and other environmentally sensitive resources in the largest and fastest growing town on Cape Cod. At WRT David Rouse served as a consultant on parks and space system plans for jurisdictions such as Atlanta, Oklahoma City, and Prince George’s County, MD. Atlanta’s Project Greenspace establishes a vision and strategy to develop a world-class system of parks, natural areas, civic spaces, and connecting greenways, streetscapes, and trails. Oklahoma City’s Parks Master Plan defines how the city will meet the needs of residents for high-quality parks, recreation, and public spaces that contribute to improved quality of life, economic vitality, and community health. Prince George’s County’s Formula 2040 Parks, Recreation, and Open Master Plan sets the agenda for future development, maintenance, and use of the county’s parks and open spaces to fulfill three key goals: Connectivity, Health and Wellness, and Economic Development.
Green Infrastructure
Drawing on his background in landscape architecture and planning, David Rouse views green infrastructure as a system across scales – from site to neighborhood, city, region, and beyond – that integrates the natural and built environments and provides multiple benefits for people and ecosystems. He articulated this approach in the PAS Report Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach, co-authored with former WRT colleague Ignacio Bunster-Ossa. Examples from his WRT practice include Greenscapes, the Green Infrastructure Plan for Lancaster County, PA, and Atlanta’s Project Greenspace. As APA Research Director, David addressed green infrastructure at scales from site to city to megaregion through projects with the National Recreation and Park Association (Great Urban Parks Campaign), Greater Baltimore Wilderness Coalition, and the South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative.
Planning for Emerging Technologies
Emerging technologies such as e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles are having or will have disruptive effects on society and planning practice. As APA Research Director, David Rouse prioritized development of resources to guide communities in planning for the coming deployment of autonomous vehicles, which have been called the most transformative transportation technology since mass production of the private automobile. David has done extensive research on the topic of smart cities and is co-author of the PAS Report Smart Cities: Integrating Technology, Community, and Nature. He and Ben Hitchings of Green Heron Planning, LLC have developed an integrated methodology to help communities prepare for technological, economic, social, and environmental drivers of change called ProAct Now.