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The elements of smart growth visioning and planning take place within an overall strategy. While that strategy may be largely predetermined by local politics, it can be shaped to some extent. Being conscious of the overall strategy can also guide later choices about specific elements of the visioning and planning process.

If the town or county has a professional planner, the planner is likely to play an important role in shaping the overall strategy as well as the details of the process to follow. In addition, however, others may or should play an important role. The following is directed, not just to planners, but to the people with whom they will work.

Below, we describe six model strategies within which smart growth visioning and planning often take place:

We have distilled these models from various sources and examples. They vary in terms of the time they take, their use of technical expertise and outside assistance, and their degree of citizen involvement. These models rarely exist as pure types; instead, an actual visioning and planning process is likely to tilt toward one model but incorporate aspects of several others.

In describing these models, we have included our own brief assessments of their likely advantages and disadvantages. These assessments are meant to be indicative rather than conclusive. The actual strengths and weaknesses of a particular approach will depend greatly on how it is carried out.

There is no one model that is right for all communities. Instead, your strategy should be tailored to the assets, needs, and political make-up of your community. In designing and carrying out a strategy, however, all communities need champions. And all communities can benefit by consciously using criteria to evaluate different strategic options.

The Strong Leader Model

Plans are made informally by a strong leader who makes decisions with little formal external input. Often, the leader is an elected official such as the mayor or county executive; this model thus relies heavily on arguments for representative (not participatory) democracy. Typically, the immediate costs of making plans and reaching decisions are low; only limited staff time and expertise may be needed; and decisions are made quickly. However, the information used may be scant, skewed, or inaccurate; community members’ views may not be well understood; and, especially if there is a lack of community "buy in," decisions may not be durable.

The Top-Down Model

State legislators and agencies select public improvement projects and decide where they will be located; local governments work out the details or, alternatively, initiate and carry out public improvement projects themselves. This approach uses limited, project-specific planning processes which typically involve well-established, influential groups and individuals such as the chamber of commerce, real estate developers, and prominent citizens, perhaps convened as task forces. Public meetings may be held to debate issues concerning the projects.

Typically, the process costs of this approach are fairly low and decisions may be made fairly quickly. However, those who participate in the decisions must (or should) have extensive knowledge; their time commitment is often high; the information used may be biased; diverse perspectives within the community may be insufficiently factored into the decisions made; and decisions may lack a unified vision.

The Outside Enabler Model

An outside agency—e.g., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—provides seed grants, assists in setting up the process, and acts as a link to additional resources. Partnerships may then be developed between the public and private sectors and between local, state, and federal agencies. Similarly, one or more state agencies may work cooperatively to assist a group of diverse community leaders. The model can be used at several different scales, from a single small community to a multi-state region.

This is an increasingly popular model. Its costs vary, as do the extent to which diverse perspectives are represented. It broadens participants’ understanding by exposing them to a wide array of resources and constraints, but it often entails extensive staff time as well as high time commitments by the participants. The process and its results may be geared to the mission of the outside enabling agency, unless participants decide of their own accord to define the goals of the process.

The Local Partnership Model

Community and business leaders (typically, leaders of prominent public and private interest groups) form an alliance for a special purpose. They do so to reduce duplication of effort and increase their efficiency and influence. Common goals are identified and refined, taking into account available resources and their different perspectives.

This model can be used within a single town, county, or region as well as at larger scales. It can lead to several different specific actions—for example: (1) Business and community leaders and other interested citizens may come together in a large public meeting where subgroups are established based on areas of interests; the subgroups identify spokespeople who then meet as an executive council. (2) Elected officials may represent the partnership, recruit funding, etc. (3) Public meetings may be held on a regular basis to inform the larger public of progress and also to identify volunteers for projects or search out new leaders. (4) Polling may be used to test public interests and try out ideas. (5) The cost of the process may be covered by fees charged to member groups.

This approach gets it strength from numbers as well as from the knowledge and resources of individual participants. To be effective, it must have strong and aggressive leaders, and it must reach out to diverse perspectives. It requires significant time commitments from its participants, especially its core leaders, and it can entail a lengthy process. It holds the potential of being representative of the community and building durable, broad-based decisions, but also the potential for decisions that appear to be representative but in fact serve the interests of a few dominant factions.

The Civic Infrastructure Model

This model emphasizes opportunities and training to accomplish particular tasks and to build community capacity to tackle new issues in the future. The model has several variants.

One cluster of variants stresses leadership training. For example: (1) Identify a project; then train the best-suited person to head up the project. (2) Use leadership training to prepare selected individuals for assuming leadership roles on both current and future issues. (3) Train everyone who’s interested to be a leader. Alternatively, the "civic infrastructure" model may emphasize the skills that are needed to be active citizens (e.g., skills to obtain and analyze information, network, and influence decision makers). In this variant, citizenship rather than leadership is stressed. It is assumed that leaders will naturally step forward, but a broad base of engaged citizens must be cultivated.

While the costs of the civic infrastructure model will depend on how the model is carried out, they are often high, especially if outsider trainers are paid to conduct workshops and other training courses. The time and expertise demands on local staff are also likely to be high, as are the time commitments of those who participate. This model is most likely to be cost-effective if it is seen as an investment in the future, not as achieving quick results or rapid decisions. It holds the promise of leading to more representative, inclusive decision processes, but only if the base as well as the top of the pyramid is strengthened.

The "Come One, Come All" Model

In this model, anyone who shows up becomes part of the process, which typically strives to be inclusive and non-hierarchical. Often, facilitators are used to help manage the process, and volunteers may be used to assist with arrangements.

In San Francisco’s Community Planning Process, for example, a series of three-hour meetings were held in which goals, objectives, and actions were discussed. Professional facilitators were used in every meeting, with volunteers from local businesses and U.S. EPA staff to help with meeting arrangements. Meeting results were recorded on flip charts. A draft plan was prepared based on a synthesis of the meeting results. Public hearings were held on the draft plan, and public comments were incorporated.

This model requires high time commitments of those who are facilitating and making arrangements for the process but relatively low time commitments for meeting participants. Costs will vary, depending especially on the cost of the facilitators and others who assemble information, synthesize views, and prepare draft plans. The extent to which the results represent different views within the community will depend on the ability of those making meeting arrangements to get people to attend. A possible limitation of this approach is the difficulty of bringing and keeping all participants "up to speed," especially if several sequential meetings are held.

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Chapter 3 (Part 1)

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