The 21st Century Comprehensive Plan
David Rouse, AICP, Todd Michael Chandler, and Jon Arason, AICP
Abstract
The practice of comprehensive planning is undergoing significant changes as the 20th century draws to a close. In contrast to the top-down, data or policy based plans of the past, contemporary plans are driven by the issues and values identified by citizen participants in the planning process. Although many factors and events will undoubtedly influence planning in the future, several trends are already evident as we approach the new millennium. The emerging 21st century comprehensive plan can be described as values driven, collaborative, thematic based, linking process and outcome, regional in focus, and beyond paper.
Evolution of the Comprehensive Plan in the 20th Century
The comprehensive or general plan - defined as a plan for the long-term development of a local government jurisdiction such as a city or county - emerged as a core area of planning practice during the 20th century. Various commentators have traced the roots of the comprehensive plan back to mid-19th century Europe (plans by George Eugene Haussmann for Paris and Ildefons Cerda for Barcelona) or to the City Beautiful movement in the United States (e.g., Daniel Burnham's 1909 plan for Chicago). These early plans advocated the imposition of highly formal designs, such as Haussmann's system of boulevards and parks, on the existing fabric of the city.
The 20th century comprehensive plan began to take shape with the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Alfred Bettman. At the 1911 National Conference on City Planning, Olmsted described the city plan as addressing "a single complex subject, namely the intelligence, control and guidance of the entire physical growth and alteration of cities," including all public and private uses of the land, recreation, and transportation facilities. Speaking before the same body in 1928, Bettman described a city plan as "a master design for the physical development of the city." Bettman defined more precisely than Olmsted the essential physical elements that should be included in the plan, including public improvements and the distribution of various types of private uses, including residential, commercial, and industrial. Both Olmsted and Bettman were members of the committee that prepared the Standard City Planning Enabling Act, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The 1928 Standard Act was eventually adopted by almost all the states and exerted a major influence on the development of the comprehensive plan. However, as described by T. J. Kent, Jr. in The Urban General Plan (1964), this act created confusion about the difference between the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance and failed to clearly define the essential physical elements of the plan, leading to what Kent termed "a twenty-year period of confusion as to the basic purposes and nature of the general plan."
The comprehensive plan came of age in the 1950's, spurred by population growth and the momentum for urban development following World War II, coupled with the adoption of Section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954. Section 701 required local governments applying for urban renewal assistance to adopt long-range general plans, prescribed the contents of the plans, and made money available for their development. During this period, T. J. Kent and F. Stuart Chapin, Jr. emerged as important theorists. In The Urban General Plan, Kent advanced this definition of the comprehensive or general plan:
"The general plan is the official statement of a municipal legislative body which sets forth its major policies concerning desirable future physical development; the published general-plan document must include a single, unified general physical design for the community, and it must attempt to clarify the relationships between physical-development policies and social and economic goals."
Kent believed that the plan should be long-range, comprehensive in its geographic scope, and general and inspirational in nature, with an emphasis on policy rather than specific actions. The client of the plan should be City Council as the elected representatives of the municipal population; the public and interest groups such as private developers and civic organizations are described as being on the "receiving end" of polices adopted by Council. Kent described the components of the general plan in terms similar to the guidelines of the 701 program, including sections on land use, community facilities, civic design, circulation, and utilities.
Although it focused on land use as one component of the general plan, Chapin's Urban Land Use Planning, first published in 1957, is nonetheless a significant landmark in the evolution of 20th century comprehensive planning. Based upon an assessment of land use suitability as the guide for calculating land use supply and matching it with demand, Chapin's theory of land use planning is diametrically opposed to the historical antecedents of the comprehensive plan in city design. Subsequent editions of this book, published in 1965, 1979, and 1995, elaborated upon this quantitative, data-driven approach to urban planning. The planning process set forth in Urban Land Use Planning is the rational model, consisting of a series of sequential steps: data analysis and trends projection; the formulation of alternatives for the future; the evaluation of the projected costs and benefits of the alternatives; and the selection of a preferred alternative for development into a land use plan.
From the City Beautiful movement through to Kent and Chapin, comprehensive plans shared one common characteristic: planning was essentially an elitist activity, with plans prepared by experts for civic leaders to adopt and implement, either as a physical design for redevelopment of the city or as a policy guide for future decision-making. This top-down approach came under siege as the turbulent events of the 1960's and 1970's (the civil rights movement, Vietnam, urban riots, etc.) unfolded and the nature of American society changed. The focus of planning shifted to new arenas such as grassroots advocacy, environmental protection, and growth management. The very idea of the comprehensive plan was seen as by many as irrelevant.
Despite these challenges, the comprehensive plan has resurfaced as a potent planning tool in the 1990's. Several factors have contributed to this reemergence. Over the past several decades a number of states adopted statutes requiring local jurisdictions to prepare comprehensive plans. These state planning mandates have been subject to criticism that, like the Section 701 program, they result in formulaic "compliance plans" with little incentive for local creativity. Perhaps the most extreme example, Florida's Local Government Comprehensive Planning Act, prescribes plan contents in detail, leaving little latitude for variation or interpretation. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that state planning mandates have provided considerable momentum for local comprehensive planning. More recent statutes, such as Maryland's Economic Growth, Resource Protection, and Planning Act of 1992, allow more flexibility in the content and policy direction of local plans within general guidelines set by the State.
Another powerful force for comprehensive planning is the accelerated pace of change in contemporary society. Diverse trends such as the advent of the post-industrial, global economy; the devolution of responsibilities from the federal to the state and local levels; and technological advances exponentially increasing citizens' access to information have created both uncertainty about the future and the sense of possibility of positive change. This in turn has prompted a fresh look at the comprehensive plan as a proactive tool for communities to engage and shape the issues that affect them.
Beginning with advocacy planning in the 1960's and its emphasis on grassroots citizen participation, comprehensive planning has been reinvigorated by several trends in contemporary practice. Strategic planning, a methodology developed for use by private corporations, is increasingly used by the public sector to evaluate internal and external factors affecting the future of a municipality and to identify specific strategies for dealing with change. Vision planning became popular in the 1980's as a way for a community to articulate a desired future based upon shared values defined through a collaborative planning process. In reaction to the "placelessness" and segregation of land uses characteristic of the urban sprawl that is consuming the American countryside, neo-traditionalism and its allied movements have brought physical design, largely abandoned in the land use and policy plans of earlier decades, back to center stage.
The innovative comprehensive plans of the 1990's draw upon the diverse strands in planning practice as they have evolved through the 20th century. A good example is provided by values-driven plans, such as the Cornerstone 2020 Plan for Louisville and Jefferson County, KY and the FOCUS ("Forging Our Comprehensive Urban Strategy") plan for Kansas City, MO. In contrast to "top-down" approaches that rely heavily upon data analysis and policy formulation by experts, or vision planning which in its purest form can emphasize collaborative processes at the expense of plan outcomes, values-driven planning is a hybrid methodology that incorporates elements of both approaches. Key characteristics of values-driven planning include a structured program of citizen involvement designed to identify community values and build consensus; data inventory and analysis focused on citizen-defined issues; the articulation of an overarching concept for the future based upon citizens' values; and translation of the concept into specific strategies and actions for implementation.
The 21st Century Comprehensive Plan
As the preceding commentary clearly details, the comprehensive plan has evolved and changed throughout the twentieth century. Thus, it is only natural to speculate about the ways comprehensive plans will likely change in the next millennium. Although many trends and events will undoubtedly influence planning in the future, several factors are already to helping change the face of planning as we get ready to transition to the 21st century. As described below, the following attributes of comprehensive plans have become apparent in recent years:
- Values driven
- Collaborative
- Thematic based
- Linking process and outcome
- Regional in focus
- Beyond paper
Values Driven.
For the better part of this century, comprehensive plans were the byproduct of a top-down approach with little or no formal linkage to the constituency to be served by the plan. Over the last fifteen or so years, and as the reference to the Cornerstone 2020 plan for Louisville and Jefferson County and the FOCUS plan for Kansas City illustrates, this orientation has changed. Today, local plans are more likely to be driven by the issues and values expressed by citizens rather than by government fiat. Planning has become a partnership wherein the total community gives tangible expression to the aspirations and values they collectively share. In comprehensive plans, this is typically expressed in a vision statement or other organizing conceptual structure that captures the aspirations of the citizens for the future and provides the foundation for the plan's resulting goals, policies, and implementation strategies.
Collaborative.
Closely related to the values-driven concept is the growing realization that meaningful citizen involvement must be part of the plan development process. More and more, comprehensive plans involve elaborate and carefully crafted public involvement programs, utilizing a variety of techniques such as citizens advisory committees, stakeholder interviews, community forums, and focus groups. These programs place a premium on the ability of professional planners to design effective citizen involvement processes that respond to local community characteristics and needs. Throughout the process, planners play a key role in providing relevant information and context, facilitating decision-making and consensus building, and giving expression to the work of citizens.
As an example, Louisville and Jefferson County's Cornerstone 2020 plan featured a collaborative design involving multiple jurisdictions and multiple government agencies, as well as private organizations, businesses, and citizens. Cornerstone 2020 began with a community-based visioning effort involving more than 600 residents from across the community. After several meetings and iterations, a vision and values statement was crafted and endorsed. This statement served as the foundation for the entire Cornerstone 2020 planning initiative, which involved more than 30 technical plans and projects developed over several years. Four citizen advisory committees were established and assigned specific plan development duties commensurate with the vision and values statement.
Thematic Based.
Pick up most any plan and you will discover a series of chapters devoted to seemingly discrete topics or elements such as housing, land use, and community facilities. This structure is reinforced in some states by statutes that mandate the contents of comprehensive plans. While easy to follow, this structure makes it difficult address the interrelationships between topics such as land use and transportation. To overcome this limitation, plans are now being organized according to broader themes that facilitate a more integrated approach to policy development and implementation. The newly adopted Suffolk, VA plan is representative of this approach.
The City of Suffolk is located in southeastern Virginia. Suffolk, while physically large at 350 square miles, is a sparsely populated community of approximately 55,000 persons. Adjacent communities include the Cities of Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and Norfolk with nearly one million total residents. As might be imagined, Suffolk, which has been an agricultural community for more than 350 years, is facing a host of growth related pressures.
The city's planning commission, in deciding how best to prepare for the future, decided to revise the city's comprehensive plan. In so doing, a deliberate decision was made to develop the plan according to themes rather than chapters. The themes selected included balanced growth, responsible regionalism, environmental protection, preservation of rural character, core city revitalization, and enhanced economic vitality. As a result of establishing themes, the planning commission felt more confident in its ability to integrate planning policy with planning and community goals. The end product, which was unanimously adopted by the city council, masterfully links the different themes that distinguish Suffolk as a community.
Linking Process And Outcome.
A typical criticism of traditional plans is that they end up on the shelf, having little effect on the real world. Values-driven and collaborative planning processes are designed, in large part, to give citizens a stake in developing the plan and to create momentum for plan implementation. Successful 21st century plans will connect citizen values (as expressed in the vision and goals) with a clearly defined action agenda. The comprehensive plan adopted by Blacksburg, VA in 1996 features this characteristic.
Blacksburg is a community of 38,000 residents located on a plateau in the Alleghany Mountains of Southwest Virginia approximately 40 miles west of Roanoke. Blacksburg is home to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), which is the largest university in the State of Virginia. A primary goal of the 1996 Blacksburg plan was refinement of a specific schedule for the plan implementation. As a result, the planning commission incorporated within the plan a schedule of action steps tied to specific plan objectives. In addition, the plan identified the party(s) responsible for performing the necessary tasks. A master implementation schedule was developed and incorporated into the plan noting when the various plan elements would be implemented. To date, Blacksburg is ahead of schedule with respect to implementing its local land use plan.
Regional In Focus.
For much of this century, community land use plans were developed with little consideration shown for surrounding localities. Recent technological, economic, and governmental trends have made it clear that localities are interdependent, and that many issues go beyond municipal boundaries. To address this reality, communities such as Suffolk and Annapolis, MD are choosing to incorporate a regional focus within their local plans. This approach allows the community to address problems and opportunities that are regional in scope. As part of implementation of the "Landscapes - Managing Change in Chester County" (PA) Comprehensive Plan, the county provides planning assistance grants for projects involving two or more local communities. As citizen concerns over regional issues such as urban sprawl intensify, multi-jurisdictional planning initiatives are likely to become more prominent in the 21st century.
Beyond Paper.
As the 21st century approaches, the information age is enabling the creation of plans that transcend the traditional limitations of written documents. GIS, the Internet, CD-ROM, and computer visualization are examples of technological advances that have changed or are changing the manner in which plans are prepared and presented. Citizen involvement programs are using local access technology and the Internet to reach wider audiences. Plans are becoming increasingly available on the Internet or on CD-ROM. In the future, interactive formats will likely become commonplace.