Local Planning Capacity Research Articles

Examining factors influencing plan integration for community resilience in six US coastal cities using Hierarchical Linear Modeling

Flooding poses a grave threat to property and the safety of human communities. Urban planning efforts and guidance can have an important influence on the vulnerability of development in hazardous areas. This study is the first to use Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to investigate the influence of local planning capacity and other contextual factors on the integration of hazard mitigation policies and building of resilience across community 'networks of plans' in six US coastal cities. Findings indicate significant variation across cities regarding plan integration to enhance resilience. Communities with larger proportions of renters and lower socioeconomic status are shown to be less likely to incorporate hazard mitigation policies in local plans, controlling for community planning capacity. We also find evidence that communities with prior hazard experience are more likely to have resilience-focused plans, even in physically vulnerable neighborhoods which, in the absence of recent hazards, are actually less likely to receive positive policy attention. The study concludes by discussing the results and offering recommendations to inform more effective approaches as practitioners reevaluate their plans and work to foster more coordinated mitigation efforts across local networks of plans.

Sustainable Stormwater Management: Examining the Role of Local Planning Capacity in Mitigating Peak Surface Runoff

The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, is rich in natural resources. Its watershed has been impacted by excessive and degraded stormwater runoff from rapid urbanization. We used an empirical approach to investigate how local planning capacity in the Chesapeake Bay watershed affected stream flow. A multiple regression analysis was employed to examine to what extent that the planning factors and other contextual variables were associated with peak runoff. Counterintuitively, we found that sub-basins included in the sample jurisdictions with a relatively high plan quality score tend to generate higher volumes of peak runoff. Results further indicate that specific geographical, basin characteristic, and biophysical factors affected mean annual peak runoff significantly. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of local planning capacity and sustainable stormwater management concepts in mitigating excessive runoff.

Mega-events and urban planning: Doha as a case study

Hosting mega-events can not only catalyse urban development, but also lead to an improvement of local planning systems and building planning capacity. Events can create knowledge transfer from one city to another, and be used as tools for experimenting new prototypes and urban templates but on a smaller scale. Within this context, this research aims at identifying strategies for leveraging mega-events to improve local planning capacity. Relevant best practices in the use of events as planning enhancers are derived from the literature, and then applied to a case study, the city of Doha. In fact, the capital of Qatar has all the characteristics for benefiting from events. Firstly, it is a city that has already and will host in the imminent future many international events. Secondly, Doha is managing with difficulties its rapid urban development, and needs to improve its planning system. Results show there is a potential for benefiting from events in two ways: they can assist knowledge transfer from international consultancy to local agencies, and vice versa. In addition, events can act as the glue for overcoming the fragmentation of Doha’s planning system, by facilitating the implementation of 2030 Qatar National Vision, the country’s comprehensive blueprint.

Assessing local planning capacity to promote environmentally sustainable residential development

Smart growth and sustainability planning have, in recent years, become central issues in planning discourse. Scholars have argued that planning capacity at the local government level is critical for smart growth planning, and that planners have a fundamental role to play in advancing local and regional sustainability. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which local planning capacity enables communities to promote more sustainable, smart growth residential development. Based on a 2013 survey of 38 county and 53 municipal governments in the state of Wisconsin, USA, this study finds that the majority of the sample communities have permitted residential developments characterized as transit-oriented, New Urbanist, mixed use, infill developments, or conservation subdivisions as alternatives to low-density, automobile-dependent conventional developments. The study also finds that jurisdictions with higher planning capacities are more likely to overcome significant barriers to more sustainable residential development.

Planning and competing interests: testing the mediating influence of planning capacity on smart growth policy adoption

Land use policy can generate substantial conflict between pro-growth and slow-growth interests. Based on the collaborative planning model, one of the many roles of the professional planner is to mediate conflict and generate support among fragmented interests in policy aimed at mitigating the effects from sprawl. The analysis uses original data collected from cities and towns in the state of Massachusetts. This study empirically tests the effect a divergence between local interest groups in the support for planning efforts has on the adoption of smart growth policy. Methodologically, interaction terms are used to test the hypothesis that local planning capacity, in the form of professional planning staff and formal planning mechanisms, mediates this divergence. The results provide insight into how communities can overcome the challenges of interest group divergence in planning for ‘smarter’ growth and more sustainable environmental land use practices.

Local development planning and the tourism sector: prospects for reducing volatility in tourism impacts in Kenya

Tourism has seen exponential growth over the past 60 years. In Africa there has been rapid growth, but considerably more variability. The impacts of this volatility are experienced most directly by local communities who typically have little input into decision-making about tourism and related investments. This article considers the case of Kenya, where in recent years tourism has become the leading source of foreign exchange. The article considers whether a more explicit focus on tourism planning by local development authorities with a focus on investments geared to support local tourism infrastructure would enable greater participation and generate longer-term benefits by reinforcing local planning capacity for tourism and other critical sectors. The article also addresses the feasibility of the administrative reforms which this strategy would entail.

Elites in Local Development in the Philippines

ABSTRACTFor many Philippine provinces, decentralization and more autonomous local development planning did not lead to the desired outcomes. This article examines the experiences of the two provinces of Cebu and Leyte. While Cebu became a centre of trade and industry, Leyte is still struggling with its local economy oriented to natural resources. A main reason for the divergent development paths of the two islands can be found in the emergence of different elite structures, which resulted in different path‐dependent patterns of economic specialization. Despite this different historical experience, both provinces today suffer from similar institutional infirmities in their planning system for promoting local development. Local planning capacity constraints, such as regional and local co‐ordination and co‐operation patterns, local finances, human capital and knowledge are analysed. The Cebuano elites used the room for manoeuvre provided by decentralization reforms more successfully than elites in Leyte. This created pockets of efficiency in Cebu leading to more development‐friendly investment policies. In order to increase local and regional planning capacity, short‐term interventions and policy reforms at the local, regional and national level are discussed.

Cross-Cultural Learning from the Tsunami: Professional Planners from Australia and Sri Lanka

The processes of cross-cultural interaction between professional planners, and the shared learning experiences resulting from this, are shaped not only by the history of planning practice, but also by a set of perceived norms regarding the role, power and capacity of planners. Recently in Sri Lanka, the role of Australian planning practitioners in directly assisting in post-tsunami projects, as well as in sharing knowledge and developing local planning capacity, has been utilised and extended to on-ground projects and national, provincial and local plan preparation. This paper utilises the learning experience of that programmes, the observations of a planning academic at a Sri Lankan University and the results of two of the authors working with a team of planners in the formative stages of the development of a strategic planning exercise for a town in south east Sri Lanka. It explores the contribution of Australian planners, the two-way flow of professional learning and knowledge, the opportunities provided by such situations and the barriers to assuming transferable models of project-based learning. It provides important observations on challenges to cross-cultural teaching in an Australian university setting and the emerging needs for planning curriculum in Australia to embrace the reality that increasing numbers of students will work in international planning and development settings.

The use of Participatory Rural Appraisal and Planning to enhance local planning capacity in the buffer zone of Carrasco National Park, Bolivia

The use of Participatory Rural Appraisal and Planning to enhance local planning capacity in the buffer zone of Carrasco National Park, Bolivia

Public Infrastructure, Private Built Investment, and Local Planning Capacity

Public works managers and planners are key players in the game of built investment in metropolitan regions. Public investments governed by transportation, water, wastewater, parks, and other public administrators join the private investment streams managed by private sector business organizations to create the urban and regional built environment. Therefore, the capacity of local public works officials to engage in planning street, water, and other public infrastructure will likely affect the coordination of investments by public agencies and private firms. These analyses examine a 44-county region in Central Indiana to determine how closely public investments in infrastructure systems co-vary with private built investments among counties with measurably different capacities for local planning. Counties that use more planning tools, such as capital improvement plans, full-time planners, and subdivision regulations, show a closer coordination between public infrastructure and private built investments. The policy implications suggest that public works managers should pay close attention to the available planning tools to assure a productive articulation of public infrastructure and private investments.

Regional Planning Assistance: Its Distribution to Local Governments and Relationship to Local Grant Getting

Abstract Using published data on 145 member localities of a regional planning commission, this article examines the distribution of regional planning assistance relative to existing local planning capacity. It finds that one type of regional assistance is, in a sense, inequitably distributed—i.e., it goes to localities with more planning capacity—and one type is equitably distributed. This article also examines the effectiveness of regional planning assistance in generating a specific output—federal grants. Evidence indicates that it is effective in generating grants independent of local planning capacity and another local factor. The conclusions stress the possible benefits of a compensatory distribution of regional planning assistance.