Public Participation in Regional Planning

The spark which ignited the public consultation process described in this report was a suggestion by a distinguished advisory committee to the Harvard economic studies at its final meeting on June 30, 1959. The Committee recommended that Regional Plan take all its findings to a broader public than the Association had ever before reached, including use of edu­cational television.

This concept was pressed forward by Amory H. Brad­ford, then Chairman of Regional Plan, and John P. Keith, Executive Vice President. The ensuing ​“Goals for the Region” project was developed by Regional Plan’s staff and Telic, Inc., under the leadership of William B. Shore, RPA Information Director, with Louis B. Schlivek, author of Man in Metropolis. It broadened the program from just dissemination of findings to include consultation with organized groups of television viewers and other publics.

This report describes the pioneering public partici­pation process which is playing an important role in shaping the Second Regional Plan.

Preparation of the Second Regional Plan began with basic projections of the Region’s future prepared for the Association by the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration (published in ten volumes between 1959 and 1961). The Association staff added an analysis of prospective land use and its implications in Spread City (1962).

All of these projections were translated into a sketch of what living conditions might be like if present policies and trends continued. This was discussed with many groups, as described in this report, including some 5,600 persons in the Goals for the Region Project (1963). The public response programs demonstrated serious citizen dissatisfaction with the prospects which the uncoordinated decisions of thousands of individuals and organizations appeared to be bringing.

The Second Regional Plan is a response to the problems identified in these earlier projections. The Plan will propose directions toward which development should be guided and will set out a strategy for changing the unplanned trends toward patterns better suited to the Region. It will not be a rigid blueprint for the year 2000; it will be a basis for judging the long-term validity of current decisions.