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Making Plans that Matter: Citizen Involvement and

Government Action
Raymond J. Burby
Published online: 26 Nov 2007.

To cite this article: Raymond J. Burby (2003) Making Plans that Matter: Citizen Involvement and Government Action , Journal
of the American Planning Association, 69:1, 33-49, DOI: 10.1080/01944360308976292
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Making Plans that

Matter
Citizen Involvement and
Government Action
Raymond J. Burby

Plans that are, as the clich goes,

dead on arrival and languish on
local government shelves long have
contributed to skepticism about the
value of comprehensive plans. In this
article, I show that if plans are to matter and have an impact on local government actions, planners must involve a wider array of stakeholders in
plan making than is usually the case.
Evidence from 60 plan-making processes in the states of Florida and
Washington indicates that with
greater stakeholder involvement, comprehensive plans are stronger, and
proposals made in plans are more
likely to be implemented. Planners can
stimulate broader involvement by
stakeholders by directly inviting more
groups to take part in the planning
process and by providing opportunities for dialogue in which planners
both inform citizens about planning
issues and listen to citizen concerns.
Burby, FAICP, is a professor of city and regional planning at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Journal of the American Planning Association,
Vol. 69, No. 1, Winter 2003. American
Planning Association, Chicago, IL.

ver the past decade, planning scholars have paid considerable attention to the characteristics of good plans and to planning practices
for communicating with citizens and building consensus for planning proposals.1 Less attention has been given to plans that matter, which
I define as plans that bring about governmental action on the issues they
address. In this article, I demonstrate that these concerns are intimately
linked. Strong plans stem from planning processes that involve a broad array
of stakeholders, and strong plans accompanied by broad stakeholder involvement are needed if plans are to have a significant effect on the actions
of local governments.
Plans that do little else besides gather dust on government shelves have
been an issue for some time. In the 1960s and 1970s, scholars from a variety
of fields commented on the irrelevance of plan making (e.g., Altshuler, 1965;
Clawson, 1971; Wheaton, 1969). While Altshuler was not a friend of planners, Clawson (an economist) and Wheaton (a planning educator) were
strong advocates. Nevertheless, Wheaton (1969) wrote, There are enough
cases in which the planners have been wrong and their solutions irrelevant to
create the necessity for review of their judgments and the public acceptance
of those judgments (p. 241). According to Clawson (1971), Bad as the plans
have been, their implementation has been worse (p. 69). Evaluations such as
these led the federal government to abandon its multimillion dollar planning assistance program in 1981, and they continue to be a concern as state
planning mandates have come under attack in states as diverse as Florida,
Maine, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Arguably one cause of ineffective plans, in addition to general government inertia (Pressman & Wildavsky, 1984) and the wrong-headed solutions
that concerned Wheaton, is the fact that some of the issues planners worry
about and the solutions they advocate lack publics who appreciate the problem and will work to see it solved. The term publics refers to the existence of
identifiable groups who are interested in particular policy issues or actively

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 33

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RAYMOND J. BURBY

involved in efforts to deal with them (Cobb & Elder,

1972). Most of the discussion of stakeholder involvement in planning assumes that publics exist who will get
involved in efforts to address various issues (e.g., Deyle,
1995). The challenge is to use information, persuasion,
and other means to bring about mutual understanding,
minimize or resolve potential disputes, and achieve consensus on a course of action.2 Political scientist Peter
May (1991) notes, however, that a number of issues of
interest to planners lack publics, which makes progress
on them problematic.
When issues lack publics, the formulation of planning proposals tends to be dominated by technical experts, such as planners and other local government personnel. This raises fundamental issues for democratic
governance, which has attracted considerable attention
from planning theorists (see Note 1). But it also creates
fundamental dilemmas for plan making and for bringing about governmental action on policies proposed in
plans. Scholars such as Innes (1990, 1998), Lindblom
and Cohen (1979), and Schon (1983) note that citizens
possess ordinary knowledge that can help ensure that
policies proposed in plans reflect local conditions and
values. When issues do not attract the interest of potential stakeholders, planners do not benefit from this local
knowledge, and the policies they propose may seem irrelevant to those they are supposed to benefit. Furthermore, planners are unlikely to learn about potential opposition to their proposals. In the case of issues that
attract broad public interest, such as transportation improvements or neighborhood revitalization, debates
among competing publics provide information that can
be used to find a course of action that can achieve public
support. In the case of issues and policies that do not attract this attention, debate over the merits of policy proposals never occurs, which can create uncertainty among
elected officials about public preferences and the necessity for governmental action. It can also lead planners to
unwittingly put forward proposals that mobilize latent
publics, who realize their interests are involved only
when plans are being considered for adoption and who
then work to see that the offending planning proposals
are dropped or never implemented.
Most planners would have little trouble naming
planning issues that either lack publics or run the risk
of mobilizing latent publics who work to see that planners preferred policies are quashed. The most obvious
are locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) and not-in-mybackyard/why-in-my-backyard (NIMBY/WIMBY) projects, where the lack of local support stifles needed land
use change and in some cases leads to state mandates to
force it (Bollens, 1993). Others include protection of biological diversity and individual species, mitigation of

34 APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1

natural hazards, and in various jurisdictions likely a host

of others, such as higher density, affordable housing, infrastructure maintenance, mixed-use development, and
so forth.
In this article, I examine the proposition that planners can produce better plans and increase the potential
for government action on issues that initially lack
publics if they succeed in involving a broad spectrum of
stakeholders in the plan-making process. The reasons
are not complex. As explained below, citizen involvement
can generate information, understanding, and agreement on problems and ways of solving them. It can give
stakeholders a sense of ownership of planning proposals
and ease the formation of coalitions who will work hard
for their realization. As Bardach (1977) first observed,
the politics of adoption should carry over to implementation. Groups who lobby elected officials to adopt plans
that embody proposals they favor will then continue to
work to see that the proposals are carried out.
While there is nothing new in the argument that
plan making benefits from public involvement, numerous authors have commented that there is remarkably
little systematic empirical evidence in its support (e.g.,
see Abney & Lauth, 1986; Bierle, 1998; Bierle & Konisky,
2000; Day, 1997; Forester, 1993; Healy & Hillier, 1996;
Kweit & Kweit, 1981). This article is significant because
it provides evidence that previously was not available. In
addition, it shows that contrary to the prescriptive literature calling for public involvement, plan-making processes often are characterized by participation that is limited to relatively few stakeholders, and that planners
make choices about public involvement that lead directly to this result. By revealing how decisions about
public involvement affect stakeholder participation, it
offers planners insights on what they can do to persuade
a broader array of stakeholders to join them in making
comprehensive plans.
The article is organized as follows. In the next section, I develop the conceptual basis for the articles principal thesis that stakeholder involvement produces better plans and higher rates of implementation, but that
planners themselves can stifle participation by the
choices they make about public involvement. I then describe the data assembled to test these expectations and
the analytic techniques employed. The findings are reported in three steps. First, I show that the breadth of
stakeholder participation in plan making is frequently
limited to a few groupsprincipally government officials, business interests, and neighborhood representatives. Second, I show how stakeholder involvement and
the strength of plans are related and how in combination they affect the degree to which plans are implemented. Third, I show how a variety of decisions plan-

MAKING PLANS THAT MATTER

ners make about citizen involvement affect participation. Based on these findings, I conclude the article with
a discussion of what planners can do to be more effective in producing plans that matter.

Conceptualization
Three questions frame the conceptual reasoning
that underlies this research:

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1. Does broader stakeholder involvement lead to

stronger plans?
2. Do broader stakeholder involvement and
stronger plans lead to higher rates of implementation of proposals made in plans?
3. Do choices planners make about public involvement affect the degree to which stakeholders
actually participate in plan making?
There are a number of reasons beyond the instrumental goals of better plans and higher rates of plan implementation for involving citizens in plan making.
Most of these revolve around the importance of participation to the achievement of democratic principles, as
discussed by Arnstein (1969), Berry et al. (1993), Burke
(1979), Day (1997), Etzioni-Halevy (1983), Fainstein and
Fainstein (1985), Pelletier et al. (1999), and Sewell and
Coppock (1977). These principles include basic concepts
of fairness; the rights of individuals to be informed and
consulted and to express their views on governmental
decisions; the need to better represent the interests of
disadvantaged and powerless groups in governmental
decision making; and the contributions of participation
to citizenship. They are embodied in the AICP Code of
Ethics and are generally accepted as important by most
planners. While acknowledging this, the focus in this article is on what Burke (1969, 1979) terms citizen participation strategiesthe use of participation to accomplish
instrumental planning objectives.

Stakeholder Involvement and the Strength of

Comprehensive Plans
A number of scholars (e.g., Barber, 1981; Bierle,
1998; Creighton, 1992; Dovers, 1998; Glass, 1979; Hall,
1993; Howell et al., 1987; Innes, 1995; May, 1992; Monikhof & Edelenbos, 2001; So et al., 1986) argue that progress in dealing with important issues depends on social
and policy learning. Learning can involve lessons about
problems facing communities and stakeholders, clarification and adaptation of goals to local circumstances,
fresh insights on and suggestions for policy instruments,
and ideas for implementation designs that reflect local

values and thus enhance political feasibility (see Bierle,

1998; Creighton, 1992; Dovers, 1998; May, 1992).
Innes (1998) and Innes et al. (1994) argue that the
inclusion of stakeholders can ensure that local knowledge is incorporated in plans, and thus it should contribute to learning and better plans as ideas flow back
and forth between planners and affected interests. The
formulation of proposals for hazard mitigation illustrates how citizen involvement can enhance the strength
of plans. With narrow public involvement, hazard mitigation is likely to be ignored entirely, or policy formulation will focus on a limited set of options designed to
enhance development prospects in areas exposed to hazards. These might include flood control structures and
adequate building regulations to minimize susceptibility of development to damage. When neighborhood
groups are involved, the policy agenda may expand to
the correction of problems such as nuisance flooding.
With participation by affordable housing interests, relocation of repeatedly damaged property and provision of
adequate moderately priced units in hazard-free locations might be suggested. When environmental and resource-protection groups take part, limits on development in hazardous areas might be proposed to protect
environmental and resource values. Thus, broad public
involvement creates the potential for planners to expand
their understanding of problems and to develop a
stronger set of policies for dealing with them. This sharing of information and understandings can have immediate impacts on the strength of plans being developed,
but it can also have delayed effects, since as Innes (1990,
1998) and Hanna (2000) observed, in the process of generating, diffusing, and agreeing on information, new
ways of thinking about issues can gradually become embedded in planners and stakeholders consciousness.

Stakeholder Involvement and Governmental

Action on Planning Proposals
Citizen involvement has long been used as a tool or
strategy by agencies seeking to develop constituencies
for their budgets and programs (e.g., see Selznick, 1949;
Wildavsky, 1979). May (1991) observes that it also can
be used to mobilize publics for potential policies that
traditionally have not gained public attention. In the
case of plan making, Kaiser et al. (1995) note that participation processes allow planners to educate stakeholders about poorly understood problems and policy
issues, which builds understanding and incentives for
collaboration. They also believe that it can generate political support for planning ideas, a point made by a
variety of others who have written about citizen involvement in planning and policy implementation (e.g., Burke,
1968; Glass, 1979; Goggin et al., 1990; Levin & Ferman,

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 35

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RAYMOND J. BURBY

1986; Monnikhof & Edelenbos, 2001; So et al., 1986;

Vogel & Swanson, 1988). This occurs in part because
when they have had a part in shaping policy proposals,
stakeholders are more likely to develop a sense of ownership and control. In addition, they are more likely to be
aggressive in keeping elected officials honest, diligent,
and alert (Ethridge, 1982, p. 490) to the public interests
expressed in a plan and to counteract the influence of
traditional regulated interests (also see Caldwell et al.,
1976). Ethridge (1982) found that public involvement is
particularly important in generating political support
for policies that lack well-developed constituencies (policies without publics). Innes et al. (1994) and Innes (1996)
found in a series of case studies that stakeholder involvement helped to create political capital that allowed
new alliances to form, which aided in getting legislation
passed and implemented (also see Creighton, 1992;
Innes & Booher, 1999).
The contribution of stakeholder involvement to the
development of consensus on and political support for
the policy proposals made in plans is a frequent theme of
recent planning theory based on concepts of communicative rationality and action (see Innes, 1995, who
terms this plannings emerging paradigm). Communicative action uses language (intersubjective reasoning
and discussion) to create understanding and agreement
(see Habermas, 1976, 1984, and those who have translated and extended his ideas for planners, such as Forester, 1989, 1991; Goldstein, 1984; Innes, 1995; and
Sager, 1994). Forester (1993) discusses planning as the
organizing of citizens attention toward the possibility of
public action and of anticipating implementation. According to Healy (1994), the stronger the attempt at consensus formation, the more likely plans will affect subsequent governmental decisions. Creighton (1992) notes
that stakeholder involvement can build solid, longterm agreement and commitment between otherwise divergent parties (p. 14), which reduces controversy and
creates support for plan implementation (So et al., 1986,
make similar points).

Inducing Stakeholders to Participate in Plan

Making
While public involvement is something that every
planner is likely to view as beneficial in theory, a number of observers suggest that the actual decisions planners make about participation can in fact stifle it. For
one, it appears that planners may often ignore the need
for widespread participation or comply minimally with
state and federal participation requirements. Klein
(1993) observes that what passes for citizen participation is simply going through the motions, a point also
made by So et al. (1986). Roesner (1978) claims that

36 APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1

many public officials view citizens as a professional hazard. DeSario and Langton (1987) and Kathleen and Martin (1991) assert that the most common participation
procedures, such as public hearings, are both wasteful
and worthless (also see Lowry et al., 1997). Furthermore,
even when a modicum of participation takes place, planners and elected officials may not really listen or attend
to what stakeholders are saying, as found by Monnikhof
and Edelenbos (2001) in a case study of public participation in the Netherlands and Tauxe (1995) in a case
study in the U.S. Possibly as a result of neglect by planners and elected officials, Perkins (1997) reports that, In
general, citizen participation in local government has decreased over time (p. 6), reflecting a growing sense of apathy and alienation from government (see Buckwalter et
al., 1993; Day, 1997; Chrislip & Larson, 1994). This may
be due in part to the fact that, as Berry et al. (1993) and
King et al. (1998) claim, many local efforts to involve
stakeholders are symbolic rather than substantive.
There are a variety of possible reasons for this seeming inattention to participation. Administrative culture
in the U.S., dating from the days of Hamilton and Madison, emphasizes centralization of power and bureaucratic rationality in government decision making. From
this perspective, elected representatives and their appointed managers are responsible for defining the public interest and using technical analysis to find the best
ways of achieving it in public policies and programs. In
fact, many administrators have practical reservations
about citizen involvement programs, believing they increase costs, create delay, open the door to emotional
considerations and self-interest, and can create controversy rather than consensus (Kettering Foundation,
1989). In addition, in some cases, planners may lack the
political resources to overcome entrenched bureaucratic
values that limit participation (e.g., see Grant 1994).
The choices planners make in conducting public involvement processes may also inadvertently stifle participation. The prescriptive literature cited earlier and a
number of manuals (e.g., Creighton, 1992; Godschalk et
al., 1994; Moore, 1995) suggest ways planners can increase public involvement. These can be boiled down to
five key choices and related advice.
1. Choice of objectives: Provide information to as
well as listen to citizens; empower citizens by providing opportunities to influence planning decisions.
2. Choice of timing: Involve the public early and
continuously.
3. Choice of whom to target: Seek participation
from a broad range of stakeholders.

MAKING PLANS THAT MATTER

4. Choice of techniques: Use a number of techniques to give and receive information from citizens and, in particular, provide opportunities for
dialogue.

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5. Choice of information: Provide more information in a clearly understood form, free of distortion
and technical jargon.
Planners who do not follow these prescriptions could find
that relatively few stakeholder groups choose to participate in plan-making efforts.
In summary, there is good reason to believe that
stakeholder involvement in plan-making processes can
provide planners with a tool that can contribute to both
stronger plans and planning proposals that are more
likely to be implemented. Nevertheless, there also is reason to believe that in many cases, planners pay relatively
little attention to or make the wrong choices about participation, so that these benefits are not realized and
plans have less impact than they otherwise might.

Data and Methods

Data to examine the effects of citizen involvement
on the strength of plans and plan implementation were
gathered for a sample of 60 local governments in the
states of Florida and Washington that had recently prepared comprehensive plans (see Appendix, Figure A-1 for
a complete list). The random sample of places studied,
selected to take advantage of data on plan making and
planning policies developed in an earlier study (Burby et
al., 1997), consists of cities and counties with populations of 2,500 or more in 1990 and potential for significant exposure to natural hazards3 in order to improve
comparability among the jurisdictions studied. The
mean population of these jurisdictions was 77,216 in
1999, and the mean growth rate from 19901999 was
16%. In both Florida and Washington, state growth
management laws mandated local government preparation of comprehensive plans. The Florida plans studied
were prepared in response to a state requirement that
plans originally adopted in the late 1980s and early
1990s be updated through evaluation and appraisal
reports and subsequent plan amendments. The Washington plans studied emerged from the first round of
plan making under the states 1990/1991 growth management laws. In both Florida and Washington, as in
most states, state laws require citizen involvement in the
plan-making process, but apart from required public
hearings, the precise methods used are left to the discretion of the local government.
Data collection procedures included content analy-

sis of the 60 plans prepared in response to state requirements, personal interviews with planning staff members
to measure characteristics of stakeholder participation
and the fate of planning proposals, and coding of information from a variety of secondary sources. Tests of the
reliability of measures were conducted and revealed no
notable problems. These included recoding a sample of
plans to evaluate consistency across coders in measuring the content of plans and calculating Chronbachs
alpha to test the reliability of indexes employed to measure various concepts.
Because of the interest of this study in planning issues that traditionally have lacked publics, the measures
of the strength and implementation of plans are based
on proposals contained in the plans for actions to reduce
potential losses from natural hazards.4 This also made
possible the use of data from earlier research conducted
in the sample communities, which also focused on hazard mitigation. The strength of plans is measured as the
number of 16 possible hazard-mitigation proposals that
were made in the plans.5 The mean is 3.7 proposals,
which is low and reflects the low priority hazard mitigation generally receives from planners and the public.
Implementation is measured as the ratio of proposed
hazard mitigation actions that were subsequently implemented to proposed actions that were not implemented. Here the mean is 1.8, which indicates that for
every 1.0 proposed action that was rejected, on average
1.8 were implemented. Thus, plans in these jurisdictions
were not dead on arrival, and in a typical jurisdiction
some degree of action on planning proposals took place.
But implementation success varied considerably. Just
over 10% of the jurisdictions had none of their proposed
actions adopted, and a quarter had more proposed actions that were not acted upon than were implemented.
The explanatory variables include the degree of
stakeholder involvement in plan making and a number
of variables selected to control for alternative explanations of why the strength of plans and plan implementation vary from one local government to another. I employ two variables to measure stakeholder involvement.
The first is the number of 15 different types of potential
stakeholders who were represented in the plan-making
process (see Appendix, Figure A-2 for a complete list).
On average, 6 of 15 took part. The second is whether or
not a stakeholder group called for attention to hazard
mitigation in the plan (this occurred in only 14 of the 60
jurisdictions). The control variables include the state
(Florida or Washington), measures of planners commitment and capacity to deal with hazards in plan making, measures of the seriousness of hazards as a policy
problem, population size, and rate of population growth
between 1990 and 1999.

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 37

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RAYMOND J. BURBY

Previous research on policy agendas (see Kingdon,

1995; Mintrom, 1997) and attention to hazards in local
government (see Olshansky & Kartez, 1998) indicates
that whether a policy idea such as hazard mitigation receives attention in local government depends on the existence of an advocate. In addition, it seems logical that
the capacity to attend to particular policy problems also
could be important. I use two variables to measure advocacy for hazard mitigation within local government:
(1) whether or not local planners were a source of initiative for attention to hazards in the plan; and (2) the number of hazard-mitigation measures that had been
adopted by the local government as of 1991, before the
plan-making processes studied got underway.
Three variables represent the degree to which natural hazards are a problem: (1) pressure to develop areas
such as floodplains that are exposed to hazards; (2)
chronic losses from hazards; and (3) the occurrence of a
natural disaster from 1991 through 1999 while the plans
studied were being prepared and implemented. Burby et
al. (1997) found that development pressures tended to
stimulate attention to hazard mitigation in local government planning, as did the existence of chronic losses.
Other studies (e.g., Berke & Beatley, 1992; Birkland,
1996; Godschalk et al., 1989) have found that natural
disasters served as triggering events that lead to action
on proposals made in plans that received little attention
from elected officials prior to the disaster. In this study,
the measure of development pressure is a five-point scale
from very low to high, based on local planners estimates.
The degree of chronic losses from hazards is measured as
the number of buildings that have been repeatedly damaged by floods, based on information provided by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency. The existence
of a disaster (yes or no) comes from reports provided by
local planners in each jurisdiction. Additional details on
measurement of the variables analyzed in this research
are available from the author on request.
Data analyses include descriptive statistics reporting the degree of citizen involvement in plan making, bivariate statistics that examine the associations between
citizen involvement and plan strength/implementation,
and multivariate models. Square root transformations
of three variables (implementation success, population,
and scope of mitigation measures used in 1991) were
employed in the multivariate analysis to meet required
statistical assumptions. Diagnostic tests revealed no particular issues of multicollinearity in these models. Levels
of statistical significance are reported for the bivariate
and multivariate statistical analyses.
Before proceeding to the results of the analysis, three
caveats should be noted. First, the focus on a policy without a public, such as hazard mitigation, may limit gen-

38 APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1

eralization of the findings to similar policies; whether

the findings are applicable to more salient, less technical issues addressed in plans is not known. The limitation here should be in the direction of conservatism,
however. That is, I would expect the effects of citizen involvement to be greater for policies that are of greater
importance to citizens, such as traffic congestion, economic decline, and the protection of neighborhood
character, and for issues that are less technical, such as
housing. If the studys expectations about citizen involvement are supported for the less salient, more technical policy problem, I believe they can be confidently
generalized to other policy arenas. If they are not supported, however, it is still possible that they would apply
when issues are more salient to and easier for the public
to understand.
Second, because local governments in only two
states, both of which employ planning mandates, were
studied, care should be taken in generalizing the studys
findings to all states and, in particular, to states that lack
mandates. It is possible, for example, that local planners
pay more attention to citizen involvement when state officials are reviewing their actions, as in Florida, or when
citizens can appeal their actions to a quasi-judicial tribunal, as in Washington. Third, the measure of plan implementationwhether an action recommended in a
plan was subsequently takenis admittedly crude, since
it does not take into account various degrees of implementation, such as actual enforcement of regulations
adopted or funds budgeted to programs established.
Nevertheless, because adoption is the first step in effective implementation, I believe it provides a useful gauge
of the degree to which plan implementation is occurring
in the places studied.

Findings
Citizen Involvement in Plan Making
Citizen involvement in plan making tends to be
dominated by an iron triangle composed of local business and development interests, local elected and appointed government officials, and neighborhood groups.
Local governments in Florida and Washington saw six
groups most often represented in plan making, as shown
in Table 1. Of the six groups, two represented local government (elected officials and department personnel)
and two represented business and development interests. Rounding out the top six participants were neighborhood groups and the media.
A substantial minority of places obtained participation from environmental groups and special districts,
but a variety of other groups were infrequently involved.

MAKING PLANS THAT MATTER

TABLE 1. Stakeholders represented in the comprehensive

planning processes.
Types of stakeholdersa

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Groups most often representedb

Business groups
Local elected officials
Development groups
Local government departments
Neighborhood groups
Media representatives
Other groups represented
Environmental groups
Special districts
Affordable housing groups
Property owner groups
Port, fishing, and marine industry groups
Agriculture or forest industry groups
Professional groups
Older peoples groups
Groups representing disadvantaged people
living in hazardous areas

% jurisdictions

75
72
68
63
58
57
43
40
32
27
22
17
15
15
5

Question: Looking over this list of possible groups, please tell me

which, if any, was represented, either formally or informally,
during opportunities you gave citizens to take part in the process
of preparing the comprehensive plan.

The mean number of stakeholder groups participating in the

comprehensive planning processes studied is 6 (standard
deviation = 3.4). The median is 5. The sample consists of a
random sample of 60 jurisdictions. See Appendix, Figure A-1 for a
complete list.

They include property owner groups (surprising in this

day of property-rights concerns); groups representing resource industries, such as agriculture, forestry, and fishing; professional groups; older peoples groups; and
groups representing the interests of disadvantaged
households, such as affordable housing groups and
groups representing poor people exposed to hazards.
The makeup of the stakeholders represented in plan
making would not be surprising to those who have followed scholars such as Logan and Molotch (1987),
Logan et al. (1999), and Stone (1989), who argue that
local government decision making about urban development is dominated by either a growth machine or corporate regime made up of government officials and people whose livelihoods are strongly affected by planning
actions. The comparative absence of groups representing less advantaged households and those representing
environmental concerns is rather surprising, given mandates for inclusiveness from codes of ethics, mandates

for environmental quality in state and federal legislation,

and the arguments made by planning theorists from
Paul Davidoff (1965) and Sherry Arnstein (1969) onward, who have called for planners to pay attention to
the needs of the powerless.

Effects on the Strength of Plans and Plan

Implementation
When planners in Florida and Washington involved
a broader array of stakeholders in plan making, they produced stronger plans and policy proposals that were
much more likely to be implemented than was the case
when participation was limited. As shown in the top section of Table 2, hazard-mitigation measures proposed
in plans increased 72% (from an average of 2.9 to an average of 5.0) when the number of stakeholders who participated in making the plan increased from less than 5
to 10 or more. Implementation success more than doubled. Planners batted 50-50 (a success ratio of 1) when
they involved few stakeholders in plan making, but this
increased to a success ratio of 2.4 when they involved 10
or more stakeholders.
The bottom section of Table 2 shows the strength
of plans and implementation success planners achieved
when they obtained the participation of particular types
of stakeholders. When property owners and environmental groups participated, plans were stronger on average, and proposals made in plans stood a much higher
than average chance of being implemented. Since these
two groups often have conflicting interests, it seems possible that citizen involvement processes that included
them provided a forum in which consensus about appropriate policies could be achieved. As noted above,
however, each of these two groups was involved in less
than a majority of the plan-making processes examined.
Participation by both at the same time occurred in only
11 of these 60 jurisdictions. Other groups whose participation seems to produce stronger plans (i.e., plans that
contained more proposals) include neighborhood
groups and local government departments. Implementation success improved with the added participation of
government departments, special districts, and development groups, in addition to property owner and environmental groups.
When stakeholders take the initiative and put proposals on the table for consideration in plans, both the
strength of plans and implementation success improve
markedly, as shown in Table 3. In fact, stakeholder advocacy has the strongest impact of the various sources
of policy initiative examined. Plans in which stakeholders were one of the sources of initiative for attention to
hazard mitigation on average proposed 5.5 mitigation
measures versus an average of 3.7 for the sample as a

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 39

RAYMOND J. BURBY

TABLE 2. Effects of stakeholder participation on plan strength and implementation success.

Breadth of participationa

Mean number of hazard-mitigation

measures proposed in planb

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Number of types of stakeholders who participated in planning process (n = 60)

Low (less than 5 of 15; n = 21)
2.9
Medium (5 to 9 of 15; n = 27)
3.9
High (10 or more of 15; n = 12)
**5.0**
Average for entire sample
3.7
Participation by type of stakeholdersd
Property owner groups
Environmental groups
Neighborhood groups
Local government departments
Agriculture or forest industry groups
Special districts
Development groups

*4.6*
***4.6***
***4.5***
***4.4***
4.3
4.1
4.0

Implementation
success ratioc

1.0
2.1
**2.4**
1.8
**2.4**
**2.3**
2.0
**2.1**
2.4
*2.2*
***2.2***

Based on 15 groups represented in the plan-making process (see Appendix, Figure A-3 for a complete list).

Based on list of 16 hazard-mitigation measures that could be proposed for adoption in comprehensive plan (see Appendix, Figure A-2 for a
complete list).

n = 55. Calculated as number of proposals for hazard mitigation adopted divided by number of proposals not adopted. Excludes five local
governments that prepared plans with no proposals for hazard-mitigation measures (and thus no recommendations to implement). The sum
of adopted and not adopted measures is greater than the average number of mitigation measures proposed in plans, since the latter includes
jurisdictions in which no measures were proposed, while the former include only those jurisdictions with plans that proposed one or more
measures.

Participation by the remaining groups did not result in a statistically significant increase in the number of measures proposed in plans,
measures subsequently adopted, or the ratio of measures adopted to those not adopted.

* p < .15

** p < .05

*** p < .01 (difference of means tests)

whole; the mean implementation success rate was 2.8

in comparison to an average rate of 1.8 for the sample as
a whole. Advocacy of hazard mitigation by the planning staff and other governmental departments is also
important for plan strength but has less effect on
implementation success, where stakeholder advocacy
is the critical factor in moving ideas forward from proposals made in plans to actual actions undertaken by
governments.
Planners lack of impact on plan implementation is
not too surprising, given their often marginal role in
local government growth machines or governing regimes. But it would be a mistake to conclude that planners have no impact on what governments do. Instead,
these findings suggest that their influence is indirect and
channeled through the strength of the comprehensive
plan and their role in bringing stakeholders into the
planning process. The multivariate models summarized
in Table 4 illuminate this indirect influence. On the one
hand, the initiative of planners has the single strongest
impact on the number of hazard mitigation proposals

40 APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1

made in plans, when other explanatory factors are controlled for in the multivariate model. On the other hand,
it has little direct effect on implementation success. But
implementation success varies positively with the
strength of the comprehensive plan and the number of
stakeholders that planners induce to participate in the
plan-making process (keeping in mind issues of statistical significance and differences in the variability of each
of the explanatory variables).
Planners in the past have been criticized by scholars
for their apparent political impotence (e.g., Altshuler,
1965; Benveniste, 1991; Catanese, 1984; Rabinovitz,
1969). The data reported here indicate that while planners impact on policy implementation, on its face,
seems limited, planners in fact can be effective in seeing
their ideas translated into governmental action. Their
influence comes from putting policy ideas on the table
that are not likely to bubble up from stakeholders
(planners were twice as likely as citizens to be one of the
sources of attention to natural hazards in comprehensive plans). And by informing and empowering stake-

MAKING PLANS THAT MATTER

TABLE 3. Comparison of impacts of stakeholders to other sources of policy initiative for attention to natural hazards in
comprehensive plans.

Source of initiativea

% citing
source

Mean number of
hazard-mitigation measures
proposed in planb

Implementation
success ratioc

23
50
30
38
87
8

***5.5***
***4.9***
**4.8**
3.9
4.6
3.7

***2.8***
2.1
*2.3*
1.8
2.2
1.8

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Citizen advocate or group

Planning director or staff
Someone else in local government
State or federal agency
Our understanding of state requirements
Whole sample
a

Question: Now I have some questions that deal specifically with natural hazards. Which of these statements describes where the initiative
came from for including natural hazards in the comprehensive plan? More than one statement may be correct. Including natural hazards in
the comprehensive plan was initiated by:
The planning director or staff
Someone else in local government
A citizen advocate or group
Our understanding of state requirements
A state or federal agency
Other source

Based on 16 hazard-mitigation measures that could be proposed for adoption in comprehensive plan (see Appendix, Figure A-2 for a
complete list).

N = 55; Excludes five local governments that prepared plans with no proposals for hazard mitigation measures (and thus no
recommendations to implement). Calculated as number of proposals for hazard mitigation adopted divided by number of proposals not
adopted.

* p < .15

** p < .05

*** p < .01 (difference of means test)

holders through broadly inclusive citizen involvement

processes, planners enable stakeholders to secure government action in policy arenas, such as hazard mitigation, that more often than not receive little attention
from elected officials.
The effects of the control variables on the strength
of plans and success of implementation present no particular surprises. Any differences between the states of
Florida and Washington beyond the measured variables
do not affect the strength of plans produced, which
provides greater confidence in the ability to generalize
the study findings. Population size is associated with
stronger plans, probably reflecting greater resources for
planning in larger places, but population growth rather
than size affects implementation success. This likely is
due to the greater salience of planning in general in
places that are experiencing rapid growth.
The scope of the hazard-mitigation measures that
were in existence in 1991 did not affect subsequent attention to hazards in the plans adopted but did influence implementation success. The lack of effect on the
strength of plans could be the result of two offsetting
effects. On the one hand, localities that were doing more

to mitigate hazards in 1991 probably needed less attention to hazards than places with limited hazard-mitigation programs at the start of the study period. On the
other hand, planners in those places may be more committed to governmental attention to mitigation. The
stronger impact on plan implementation may reflect
policy learning in the locality. Over time local elected officials may have become comfortable with mitigation
as they learned its benefits. It is also possible that with
more experience with hazard mitigation, measures
proposed in plans were more sensitive to the political
environment.
The degrees to which hazardous areas have experienced development pressures and repeated losses are reflected in the attention given to mitigation in plans, but
they do not enhance the likelihood for implementation.
Instead a focusing event such as a natural disaster is
needed for the problem to be catalyzed and local governments to act on the proposals made in plans. This
finding underscores the importance of strong plans, so
that hazard mitigation has been thought through and
proposals crafted before a disaster occurs.

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 41

RAYMOND J. BURBY

TABLE 4. Multivariate model of the effects of stakeholder participation on plan strength and implementation success.
Standardized regression coefficients
Hazard-mitigation
measures
proposed in plana

Variables
Stakeholder participation
Number of types of stakeholders who participated
Attention to hazards in plan initiated by citizens

*
*

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Plan strength
Number of hazard-mitigation measures proposed in plan
Control variables
State (Washington)
Attention to mitigation initiated by local officials other than planning
staff
Attention to mitigation initiated by planning staff
Staff capacity for mitigation
Scope of hazard mitigation, 1991
Demand for land in hazard areas
Chronic losses from hazards
Natural disaster, 19901999
Population, 1990
Population growth, 19901999
Model statistics
Number of observations
Adjusted R2
F-value for overall model

Implementation
success ratiob

.14*
.15*

*
*

.20*
.26*

.26*

.10

.04

.08
.37***
.07
.07
* .16*
** .29**
.02
* .16*
.01

.14
.17
.01
* .19*
.14
.13
** .27**
.09
* .22*

60.00
.48
*** 5.94***

55.00
.25
** 2.38**

***

Dependent variable is the number of 16 potential hazard-mitigation measures that were proposed in the comprehensive plan (see Appendix,
Figure A-2 for a complete list).

Dependent variable is the number of measures proposed in a plan that were subsequently adopted divided by the number of measures
proposed in that plan that were not subsequently adopted (square root transformation to meet regression assumptions).

* p < .15

** p < .05

*** p < .01 (one-tailed)

Effects of Planners Choices on Stakeholder

Involvement
Decisions that planners make about stakeholder involvement processes affect how many different types of
stakeholders actually participate. These decisions help
explain why participation often is limited to the iron triangle (businesses, neighborhood groups, and government officials). By the same token, if they know what
factors affect participation, planners can make better
choices in the future or, at a minimum, design stakeholder involvement programs to match the breadth of
participation desired.
Table 5 lists correlation coefficients and standardized multiple regression coefficients between various decisions planners made about citizen involvement and the

42 APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1

breadth of participation that resulted. The four most important decisions planners made, based on the magnitude of correlation and standardized regression coefficients, are (1) the number of stakeholders actually
targeted for participation, (2) the number of different
types of information provided to stakeholders, (3) the
use of a citizen advisory committee, and (4) consciously
setting as an objective of participation finding out citizen preferences. Two participation techniques that, like
advisory committees, serve to ease dialogue between
planners and stakeholders also had some impact: (1) the
use of visioning, charettes, and workshops for establishing goals and deciding on strategies and (2) convening
community forums to air issues related to the plan.
Examination of the choices planners made in involving citizens in plan making explains why stake-

MAKING PLANS THAT MATTER

TABLE 5. Association of planners choices about stakeholder involvement with breadth of stakeholder participation.
Number of types of stakeholders who participateda

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Planners choices (% of jurisdictions)

Correlation coefficients

Standardized multiple
regression coefficients

Objectives sought through participationb

Educating citizens about policy issues (37%)
Finding out citizen preferences (40%)

.45***
.46***

.19***
.21***

Early involvement of stakeholders in planning

process (62%)

.19***

.12***

Number of stakeholder groups actively targeted for

participation (40% targeted 6 or more groups)

.62***

.31***

Number of types of information provided to citizens

during planning process (60% provided 4 or more
of 8 types)c

.53***

.29***

Citizen advisory committee used to facilitate

participationd (used by 50%)

.33***

.28***

Controls
Washington State
Population, 1990
Population growth, 19901999

.13***
.19***
.12***

.02***
.09***
.02***

Model statistics
Number of observations
Adjusted R2
F-value for overall model

60.00***
***
***

60.00***
.56***
8.44***

Dependent variable is an index based on the number of 15 types of stakeholder groups that were represented in the process of preparing the
comprehensive plan.

Objectives not related to stakeholder participation include the following: compliance with state requirements, tapping citizen knowledge and
experience, fostering citizen influence in decision making, and mobilizing an active constituency of citizens who would support plans.

Types of information asked about include maps of environmentally sensitive areas, growth projections, summaries of plan elements, vision
statements, summaries of citizen input, and alternative planning design concepts.

The use of visioning (r = .47) and community forums (r =.36) also induced participation but had less effect than advisory committees in the
multivariate model. Other techniques to gain public input (public hearings, open meetings, workshops, and subcommittees) were only weakly
(r =.3 or less) associated with participation. Techniques used to give citizens information (bill stuffers, brochures, newsletters, etc.) had little
impact on the breadth of participation obtained.

* p < .15

** p < .05

*** p < .01

holder participation was limited in a number of places.

Of the 60 planning processes studied, for example, less
than half targeted five or more types of stakeholders for
participation. In 11 places, no stakeholders were asked to
contribute to the plan-making effort. Similarly, planning departments on average provided four or fewer different types of information to citizens (of eight types of
information I specifically asked them about). Half used
a citizen advisory committee, but less than half (40%)
emphasized learning about citizen preferences. Thus, the

reasons for relatively low stakeholder participation seem

clear.6
What is less clear is why planners in many places pay
relatively little attention to securing the involvement of
stakeholders and the public in plan making. Although
this issue was not addressed directly by this research, several explanations seem plausible. As noted earlier in this
article, concepts of representative government and administrative efficiency may lead local officials to devalue
citizen involvement. As a result, planning agencies,

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 43

RAYMOND J. BURBY

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which often are understaffed to begin with, may have difficulty garnering the resources needed for an effective
citizen involvement program. In addition, planners
themselves may be hesitant to pursue citizen involvement vigorously because staff trained in citizen participation techniques are not available or because the planning staff does not view the resources required for citizen
involvement as worth the benefits obtained. Given the
substantial benefits from citizen involvement demonstrated in this article, the reasons for planner disinterest
in it are an important subject for future research.

Conclusions
This study examined stakeholder involvement in the
making of comprehensive plans using data assembled
from 60 local governments in Florida and Washington
State. The results provide strong support for the idea
that broad stakeholder involvement contributes to both
stronger plans and the implementation of proposals
made in plans, but they also indicate that planners in
many places have made decisions about public involvement that stifle participation. In a typical jurisdiction,
participation in plan making, beyond government officials, is limited to development interests and neighborhood groups. In the case of hazard mitigation (the policy
area used as the test case here), the analysis suggests that
if environmental and property owner groups, in particular, had participated more frequently, the strength of
plans and plan implementation would both have been
enhanced. In other policy arenas, undoubtedly other key
neglected groups would play a similar role. This helps
explain why efforts to prepare comprehensive plans that
cover a whole range of issues in a community need public participation that goes well beyond the narrow interests that typically dominate plan-making forums.
Getting often-neglected stakeholders into the planning process provides planners with an important tool
for increasing their political effectiveness without being
overtly political. Many of the issues planners address in
comprehensive plans, such as hazard mitigation, lack
publics that have the same degree of appreciation of the
problem as planners. By involving stakeholders, planners can increase public understanding of these issues
and persuade potential constituency groups of the need
for action. With broader participation in plan making,
planners develop stronger plans, reduce the potential for
latent groups who oppose proposed policies to unexpectedly emerge at the last moment, and increase the potential for achieving some degree of consensus among
affected interests. This, in turn, can ease the formation of
advocacy coalitions that will work to see that proposals
made in plans are acted upon.

44 APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1

The single most effective step planners can take to

secure broader involvement by stakeholders is simply to
invite a variety of groups to take part in the planning
process. Beyond that, planners can induce greater participation by ensuring that participation is meaningful
to citizens. Planners make participation meaningful by
providing citizens with information about problems and
alternative ways of solving them and by providing opportunities for dialogue among citizens and between citizens and planners. This can occur in the deliberations of
advisory committees, discussions at facilitated meetings,
and through other means. The key is for planners to
work hard to both educate and learn from citizens.
These findings and prescriptions reinforce and extend the conclusions reached by planning theorists
discussed earlier. Previous to this study, empirical investigations to examine their efficacy in planning practice
has been based on case studies (e.g., studies conducted by
Hanna, 2000; Innes, 1995, Innes et al., 1994; Lowry et al.,
1997; Tauxe, 1995; Throgmorton, 1996). By arriving at
similar conclusions using an alternative cross-sectional,
quantitative research design, this study adds another
layer of support for their veracity, and it increases the
confidence planners can have in the notion that broad
stakeholder involvement is important in the preparation
of strong, effective comprehensive plans.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article is based on research supported by U.S. National
Science Foundation Grant No. CMS-9801155 to the University of New Orleans and subsequently to the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Co-investigators on this study
include Philip Berke, David Godschalk, Jack Kartez, and Gary
Pivo. Helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript
were provided by Philip Berke, John Cooper, Robert Deyle, Jack
Kartez, Peter May, and three anonymous referees for this journal. I am also grateful to Denise Boswell, Samuel Brody, John
Cooper, Kathleen Pagan, and David Robison for their help in
coding plans and interviewing local planning officials in the
states of Florida and Washington. Of course, the findings and
opinions reported are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the National Science Foundation, the coinvestigators who participated in the research, or those who
provided assistance with the research and comments on earlier
drafts.

NOTES
1. There is an extensive recent literature on both of these
subjects. In the case of good plans, examples include Baer
(1997), Berke and Conroy (2000), Berke et al. (1996), Connerly and Muller (1993), and Kaiser et al. (1995). In the
case of communication and consensus building, examples include Forester (1989, 1993, 1999), Hanna (2000),

MAKING PLANS THAT MATTER

2.

3.

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4.

5.

6.

Healy (1993), Innes (1995, 1998), Sager (1994), and

Throgmorton (1996).
The notion of planning as a consensus-building process
permeates recent discussions of planning and plan making. For example, four of the chapters in the latest edition
of The Practice of Local Government Planning (Baum, 2000;
Hoch, 2000; Kaiser & Godschalk, 2000; Klein, 2000) stress
consensus building, as do those works cited in Note 1.
This potential was defined as location in a coastal jurisdiction in Florida and west of the Cascade Mountains in
Washington, where flood hazards are ubiquitous.
The lack of public interest in and generally low priority of
hazard mitigation in local policy making has been reported in numerous studies (Birkland, 1996; Burby &
May, 1998; Petak, 1984; Rossi et al., 1982; Wyner & Mann,
1986).
A broader conception of plan quality was also considered,
such as inclusion of fact bases and goals in the measure of
plan strength (e.g., see Berke et al., 1996). Because of the
focus of this research on implementation of proposals
made in plans, a more limited conception focusing on proposed policies and actions is used, hence use of the term
plan strength rather than plan quality. The 16 potential hazard-mitigation measures coded in plans and examined for
implementation are detailed in the Appendix, Figure A-2.
The measures are weighted toward land use (as opposed to
engineering) to reflect the focus on comprehensive, rather
than hazard-mitigation, plans. In addition, land use measures have been found to be those least likely to enjoy preexisting support from stakeholders (Rossi et al., 1982).
The additive index of plan strength weights each hazardmitigation measure equally. Obviously, these measures
will have varying degrees of impact on the reduction of
lives lost and property damage from natural hazards, but
the impact of any given measure is likely to be different in
different communities, depending on local conditions.
Thus, a more sophisticated measure that weights items by
their likely degree of effect on hazard mitigation attained
in the communities studied was not feasible.
A number of actions prescribed in the literature on citizen participation were not strongly associated with variation in the breadth of stakeholder participation in these
places. These include formulation of a plan for participation, appointment of someone to manage the participation process, use of consultant assistance, the stage at
which citizens first became involved (most planners
brought people in early, however), and a variety of participation techniques that offer little opportunity for dialogue with citizens, such as public hearings, surveys, hotlines, and various impersonal channels of communication
(bill stuffers, brochures, etc.).

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APPENDIX

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Jurisdictions Studied
Florida
Atlantic Beach
Bradenton
Cape Canaveral
Cocoa
Dania
Deerfield Beach
Delray Beach
Destin

Ft. Lauderdale
Holly Hill
Jacksonville
Jupiter
Longboat Key
Lynn Haven
Manatee County
Martin County

Mary Esther
Miami Shores
Naples
Niceville
North Palm Beach
Oldsmar
Ormond Beach
Palm Bay

Pinellas County
Pompano
Sarasota
St. Augustine
St. Petersburg
Valparaiso

Washington
Aberdeen
Arlington
Bothell
Bremerton
Brier
Chehalis
Clallam County
Clark County

DesMoines
Enumclaw
Ferndale
Fife
Gig Harbor
Issaquah
Kent
Lacey

Mason County
Milton
Mountlake Terrace
Normandy Park
Pacific
Pierce County
Raymond
Redmond

Renton
Sequim
Skamania County
Thurston County
Tumwater
Washougal

FIGURE A-1. Sixty Florida and Washington jurisdictions in the study sample.

Potential Hazard-Mitigation Measures

Public information
Hazard education program
Publication of hazard maps
Delineation of hazards on subdivision maps
Hazard warning system
Safe development
Special studies or impact assessments to identify
hazard reduction required for new development
Site plan review to identify hazard reduction required
for development approval

Land use
Low-density zoning of hazard areas
Overlay zoning
Down zoning
Mandatory dedication of open space with preference
given to hazard areas
Cluster development to protect hazard areas
Density bonus in exchange for dedication of hazard
areas
Relocation of existing hazard area development
Acquisition of land in hazard areas
Public facility
Policy to locate public facilities outside of hazard areas
Impact fees to finance hazard reduction

FIGURE A-2. Sixteen potential hazard-mitigation measures.

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Types of Stakeholders
Affordable housing groups (e.g., Habitat for
Humanity)
Agriculture or forest industry groups
Business groups (e.g., chamber of commerce)
Development groups (e.g., homebuilders
association)
Environmental groups (e.g., local chapter of the
Sierra Club)
Groups representing disadvantaged people exposed
to hazards
Local government departments

Local elected officials

Media representatives (newspapers, radio,
television)
Neighborhood groups
Older peoples groups (e.g., local chapter of the
American Association of Retired Persons)
Port, fishing, and marine industry groups
Professional groups (e.g., associations of architects
or engineers)
Property owner groups
Special districts (e.g., school districts)

FIGURE A-3. Fifteen types of stakeholders.

APA Journal Winter 2003 Vol. 69, No. 1 49