The practice of comprehensive planning is changing dramatically in the 21st century to address the pressing need for more sustainable, resilient, and equitable communities. Drawing on the latest research and best practice examples, The Comprehensive Plan: Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Communities for the 21st Century provides an in-depth resource for planning practitioners, elected officials, citizens, and others seeking to develop effective, impactful, comprehensive plans, grounded in authentic community engagement, as a pathway to sustainability. Based on standards developed by the American Planning Association to provide a national benchmark for sustainable comprehensive planning, this book provides detailed guidance on the substance, process, and implementation of comprehensive plans that address the critical challenges facing communities in the 21st century.

This book introduces community planning as practiced in the United States, focusing on the comprehensive plan. Sometimes known by other names—especially master plan or general plan—the type of plan described here is the predominant form of general governmental planning in the U.S. Although many government agencies make plans for their own programs or facilities, the comprehensive plan is the only planning document that considers multiple programs and that accounts for activities on all land located within the planning area, including both public and private property. Written by a former president of the American Planning Association, Community Planning is thorough, specific, and timely. It addresses such important contemporary issues as sustainability, walkable communities, the role of urban design in public safety, changes in housing needs for a changing population, and multi-modal transportation planning. Unlike competing books, it addresses all of these topics in the context of the local comprehensive plan. There is a broad audience for this book: planning students, practicing planners, and individual citizens who want to better understand local planning and land use controls. Boxes at the end of each chapter explain how professional planners and individual citizens, respectively, typically engage the issues addressed in the chapter. For all readers, Community Planning provides a pragmatic view of the comprehensive plan, clearly explained by a respected authority.

If you have had enough of endless growth, and want to do something about it, then Better NOT Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community is the resource you've been searching for. Exploding the myth that growth is good for us, this book clearly and convincingly shows how urban growth can, in fact, leave our communities permanently scarred, and saddled with very high costs. Lively, accessible, and packed with insights, ideas, tools, and resources, Better NOT Bigger is for both the professional planner and the ordinary citizen.

This classic ICMA "green book" is filled with practical guidance on a broad range of issues that planners are likely to encounter--whether they work in inner cities, older suburbs, rural districts, or small towns. In addition to covering the latest planning trends and the impact of technology, diversity, and citizen participation, this text gives complete coverage of basic planning functions such as housing, transportation, community development, and urban design.

Bringing together a team of national experts, this volume offers a detailed look at the links between public land acquisition programs and efforts to yield smart growth outcomes in the USA. Both public land acquisition programs and state and local growth management efforts have been examined in detail, but while there is growing recognition that land acquisition can play an important role in smart growth outcomes, there has so far been little research into the nexus of these areas of public policy. This book investigates various aspects of the land acquisition-smart growth linkage and describes model programs and makes recommendations for the adoption of land acquisition efforts nationally and internationally. It will appeal to practising planners, policy makers, public officials, and citizen groups, as well as academics of urban planning, environmental studies, geography and other disciplines which examine issues of urban sprawl.