Where’s Art in Planning?
It’s rare that art is considered relevant — and that’s unfortunate says PCJ columnist Ric Stephens.
Comprehensive Planning
One of the key responsibilities of every planning commission is developing the local comprehensive plan. These articles & postings provide a treasure trove of suggestions, ideas, and resources.
Continue to older articles & posts — or return to newer ones — where you see the green buttons at the bottom of the page.
Stand By Your Plan
Ten tips from the Segedys to help you better prepare and implement your community’s long-range plan.
Are We There Yet?
Taking on the tasks identified in your community’s plan may be a little like riding in the back seat of a car for a road trip where you don’t know the landmarks. That’s where benchmarks and indicators show their value.
How Do We Get There?
What’s the recipe for successful implementation of your community’s plan? That’s the focus of this installment of the Segedys’ series on preparing the comprehensive plan.
Community Self-Assessment
How can you ensure that your comprehensive plan makes sense, and guides decision-making to choices that create a healthy, balanced community? One way is by doing a community self-assessment, a process that helps identify issues and build consensus.
Where Do We Want to Go?
Communities benefit when their plans establish clear-cut goals and target areas for future growth. City and town plans are also increasingly stressing the value of local entrepreneurship in maintaining community character and strengthening the economy.
An Introduction to Charrettes
The goal of a charrette is to bring decision makers and community members together in one place to create a plan that represents a detailed, feasible agreement — a consensus which can otherwise take months to achieve.
This Plan’s For You
In developing a comprehensive plan, one of the most important questions to ask is: who are we? This calls not just for demographic analysis, but an understanding of how your community defines its identity.
Your Community’s Little Instruction Book
New Planning Commissioners Journal columnists Jim Segedy and Lisa Hollingsworth-Segedy kick off a series of articles on the basics of putting together a useful comprehensive plan.
C is for Comprehensive Plan
A community’s comprehensive plan is not just a file cabinet full of plans for future streets; parks and recreation; housing; and so on. More importantly, it is an integrated statement of the aspirations of the community designed to achieve a broad array of community objectives.
K is for Knowledge
What might be termed the “classic” planning process, as developed in the early decades of the 20th century, followed three sequential steps: (1) data gathering; (2) plan making; and (3) plan implementation. This “classic” planning approach, however, was critically flawed in two ways.
R is for Regional Planning
Planning historian Laurence C. Gerckens, FAICP, takes a look at the history of regional planning in America — from Governor James Oglethorpe’s 1733 plan for Savannah, Georgia to the issues of Circular A-95 in 1969.
Planning Without A Comprehensive Plan
Planner Jeffrey R. Levine offers his insights on the pros and cons of planning without a comprehensive plan.
