Based on a long career in planning (my first plan was for the Town of Barnstable, MA on Cape Cod in the early 1980s), I have concluded that effective comprehensive plans have four basic attributes. They are:
- Integrated, covering multiple community systems;
- Inclusive, involving the community in the planning process from beginning to end;
- Implementable, providing the community’s “to-do” list; and
- Scalable, addressing geographic scales within the community and beyond its borders.
Let’s take a closer look at these attributes, one at a time.
Integrated. Twentieth-century comprehensive plans were typically organized into discrete topical elements, such as land use, transportation, and natural resources. In reality, the topics addressed by different elements operate as complex systems whose interactions shape community form and function and produce sustainable (or unsustainable) outcomes. Recognizing these interactions, the 2030 Comprehensive Plan for Albany, NY took a systems approach that focused on interconnections between eight systems (community form, economy, social, transportation, natural resources, housing and neighborhoods, utilities and infrastructure, and institutions) to prioritize actions for implementation.
Increasingly, contemporary comprehensive plans are moving away from topical elements to cross-cutting themes that emerge through the planning process. For example, the places2040 Plan for Lancaster County, PA replaces the elements of the county’s previous comprehensive plan with five “Big Ideas”: Creating Great Places, Connecting People, Place & Opportunity, Taking Care of What We Have, Growing Responsibly, and Thinking Beyond Boundaries. The plan identifies 26 policies and seven “catalytic” tools and strategies to implement these ideas. (Full disclosure: as a consultant with WRT I assisted the Lancaster County Planning Commission on two elements of the previous comprehensive plan – Balance, the Growth Management Plan and Greenscapes, the Green Infrastructure Plan – and am thoroughly impressed with how they have taken that work to the next level in places2040.)
Inclusive. As practice evolved in the 20th century, comprehensive plans typically used a rational planning process in which planners as “experts” assembled and synthesized data, formulated and evaluated alternatives for selection by decision-makers, and developed policies to implement the preferred alternative. Public participation was typically limited to the public hearing at the end of the process. This model began to change with the emergence in the 1980s of community visioning, a bottoms-up process that involves residents and stakeholders in determining the desired future state of the community and actions to achieve it. During the 1990s, WRT developed a process we called values-driven planning and applied it in comprehensive plans for places such as Annapolis, Chapel Hill, and Kansas City. Simply stated, this process used community engagement to understand shared values and key issues, articulated the values in a future vision statement, and connected values and vision to strategies and actions addressing the issues. The FOCUS Kansas City Comprehensive Plan, which received the American Planning Association’s Outstanding Planning Award for a Plan in 1999, is a good example.
Inclusive community engagement through increasingly sophisticated means is a hallmark of contemporary comprehensive plans. APA’s Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places include authentic participation, defined as (“…actively 1nvolve(ing) all segments of the community in analyzing issues, generating visions, developing plans, and monitoring outcomes,” as a required process. Planners bear a special responsibility to engage poor, underserved, and minority populations who have been traditionally excluded from public processes in a meaningful way.
Implementable. Twentieth-century comprehensive plans often consisted of lists of goals, objectives, and policies without specific direction for implementation. This characteristic has changed in current practice. APA’s Comprehensive Plan Standards identify accountable implementation, defined as “…ensur(ing) that responsibilities for carrying out the plan are clearly stated, along with metrics for evaluating progress in achieving desired outcomes,” as a second required process. Denny Puko, a planning consultant formerly with Pennsylvania’s Center for Local Government Services, identifies five keys to an implementable comprehensive plan: 1) focus on the municipality’s real, relevant issues; 2) organize the plan the way officials and citizens think; 3) devise workable recommendations with action plans; 4) the plan is not done until capacity to implement is in place; and 5) build community ownership and commitment.
Scalable. Legally, the comprehensive plan’s geographic coverage is defined by jurisdictional boundaries. Scalable means setting the framework for action at smaller scales within the jurisdiction (scaling down) and for interaction with neighboring communities and beyond (scaling up). While the former is readily understandable and consistent with legal mandates, comprehensive plans often have not effectively engaged issues that transcend jurisdictional borders. The Comprehensive Plan Standards identify Responsible Regionalism, defined as “…ensur(ing) that local proposals account for, connect with, and support the plans of adjacent jurisdictions and the surrounding region,” as one six plan principles. Thinking beyond the region, local jurisdictions are increasingly affected by and must deal with environmental, economic, and social trends at the megaregional, national, and global scales as well.
I first conceptualized the above attributes perhaps five years ago. Considering them today, I would add one more to the list: to be truly effective, a comprehensive plan must be visionary in anticipating change. Given the pace of technological transformation and the magnitude of challenges such as climate change, socioeconomic inequality, and workforce disruption, communities need to be forward looking and stretch their thinking if they are to succeed in the 21st century. With its long-range perspective, the comprehensive plan provides the opportunity for a game plan that both addresses short-term issues and lays the groundwork to respond and adapt to change over the long term. While the exact form that change will take is uncertain, much research is being done on the trends that are driving it. I believe that comprehensive plans provide the opportunity for communities to assess assets and vulnerabilities to change, build capacity to successfully respond, and lay out how that will be done on an ongoing basis. Our future depends on it!
References
City of Albany, NY, 2012. Albany 2030 Comprehensive Plan
City of Kansas City, MO, 1997. FOCUS Kansas City Comprehensive Plan
Godschalk, David R. and David C. Rouse, 2015. Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans (PAS Report 578). Chicago: American Planning Association.
Lancaster County Planning Commission, 2018. Places2040: A Plan for Lancaster County, PA
Puko, Denny, 2016. Rethinking Comprehensive Plans