Community Planning: An Introduction To The Comprehensive Plan [Paperback]

Eric Damian Kelly (Author), Dr. Barbara Becker Ph.D. (Author), Frank So (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1559635401 | ISBN-13: 978-1559635400 | Edition: 1

"Community Planning" is an introductory textbook that provides a thorough examination of the comprehensive planning process as practiced in the United States today. The authors consider all aspects of the comprehensive plan: its elements, adoption, and implementation. The book: introduces the planning student to the job of a planner defines and explains the importance of a comprehensive plan details the separate elements that make up the comprehensive plan directs students to resources for obtaining data necessary for creating and updating a plan provides techniques for citizen participation The authors begin with a series of six chapters that offer a step-by-step approach to creating a comprehensive plan for a city, county, town, or village. Following that, they consider focused and specialized plans for particular geographic areas (neighborhoods or downtowns) or for particular planning topics (transportation, parks and recreation). The book concludes with a section that presents techniques of plan implementation.Each chapter ends with separate boxes that consider, for that stage of development, the role of the planner and how citizens can participate in and influence the planning process. In addition, each chapter presents exercises designed to reinforce the learning in the chapter and offers questions for further discussion.By using the framework of the comprehensive plan and walking the reader through the planning process, the authors clearly demonstrate what planners do, and how citizens can become involved in shaping the future of their community. The book will be an invaluable resource for students and faculty in planning departments across the country.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Eric Damian Kelly''s Community Planning, Second Edition is nothing less than a master work planning practice. Whether you are a student or seasoned pro, you absolutely cannot be withou it. Kelly goes well beyond the conventional land use perspective in describing the formulation of comprehensive plans and addressing all plan elements and how they fit together. Moreover, he teases out implementation issues in evey chapter, propelling the reader from analysis to action. Finally there is always an ethical backdrop in this book, distinguishing it from others in the field. Kelly reminds us that we are commanded to ''replenish the earth'' as a basic concept in sustainability- wise advice, like everything in this magnificent text."

(Stuart Meck Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Eric Kelly is a professor of urban planning at Ball State University. He is a past president of the American Planning Association and has more than thirty years of experience consulting with local governments in thirty-five states.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559635401
• ISBN-13: 978-1559635400
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Damian Kelly is a city planner and lawyer who is a Professor of Urban Planning at Ball State University. Kelly came to Indiana in 1995 as Dean of the College of Architecture and Planning at Ball State; he resigned from that position in 1998 but remains on the BSU faculty and served for two and one-half years as acting chair of his department. He is a native of Colorado and spent 5 years as Chair of the Department of Community and Regional Planning at Iowa State University before moving to Indiana. At the Fall 2000 Convocation at Ball State, Kelly was named one of three University Teaching Professors for the 2000-01 academic year.
A graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Kelly also received Juris Doctor and Master of City Planning Degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in public policy from The Union Institute. In 1999, Kelly was named one of the first 46 members of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Kelly was national president of the American Planning Association from 1997-99 and has also served it as a chapter president (Iowa) and as chair of its Planning and Law Division. In 1999, Gov. Frank O'Bannon appointed Kelly to the new Indiana Land Resources Council; he was reappointed to a reformulated council by Governor Mitch Daniels in 2007. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi honorary society. He currently (2008-10) chairs the Muncie-Delaware County Government Reorganization Committee, created under the Indiana Government Modernization Act of 2006.
In addition to his academic and scholarly work, Kelly maintains a consulting practice with Duncan Associates; he is a vice president of that firm, which is based in Austin, Texas, and also has a Chicago office. In 35 years of consulting (20 of those in association with Jim Duncan), he has worked with more than 150 local governments in more than three dozen states. In addition to assisting local governments with plan implementation, he serves as an expert witness and litigation consultant; much of the litigation with which he is involved deals with the intersection of the First Amendment and land-use regulations as they affect signs, billboards and sex businesses.
In addition to books available through Amazon, he is general editor of a 10-volume leagal treatise, ZONING AND LAND USE CONTROLS, available from Matthew Bender, a Lexis-Nexis Company. Some of this technical reports that are not available through Amazon are available from the Planners Book Service at www.planning.org

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Planning in the 21st Century, September 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Community Planning: An Introduction To The Comprehensive Plan (Paperback)

Planning in the 21st Century

BY MARY R. ENGLISH

Part of a growing series on land use planning published by Island Press, Community Planning is modestly titled. It provides much more than an introduction: it gives the reader a working acquaintance with community planning.

In the United States, the concept of comprehensive local planning dates back to the City Beautiful movement spawned by the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In the late 1920s, the concept took off on a grand scale with the Standard City Planning Enabling Act published in 1928 by the U.S. Department of Commerce as a companion to its 1926 Standard Zoning Enabling Act. Both were the culmination of the work of a commission appointed in 1921 by Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce.

While the Department of Commerce's model acts were simply that-models-they provided helpful guidance to states. In 1926, local land use zoning had received the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., which sanctioned the use of public regulatory power to specify how private land may be used. To enable and provide direction for local zoning and planning, states passed legislation patterned on the Department of Commerce models.

Now more than 70 years old, these models have been scrutinized and alternatives have been proposed-by the American Law Institute and the American Planning Association, for example-but virtually all state zoning and planning legislation harkens back to these two standard acts. They are premised on the idea that good government requires professionalism grounded in fact-based analysis and dispassionate forecasting.

Just as you can take a trip without an itinerary, you can zone without a comprehensive plan. Properly done, however, a comprehensive plan brings logic, foresight, and defensibility to zoning and other community decisions. Sometimes called a master plan or a general plan, a comprehensive plan is, as Kelly and Becker note, "a tangible representation of what a community wants to be in the future."

Today, full-blown comprehensive plans typically include inventories of existing conditions, statements of needs and goals, and implementation strategies. Comprehensive plans also broach topics such as population, housing, land use, economic development, public facilities and infrastructure, natural resources, and cultural resources. These are often described in some detail, accompanied with maps and information on historic trends and projections. The comprehensive plan may also detail more specific plans for special areas such as a city's downtown, or special topics such as open space and recreation.

Community Planning is contemporary in its orientation. Kelly and Becker frequently note the need for early and continued involvement of citizens and elected officials in community planning processes. Nevertheless, the book is in keeping with the rationalist, "good government" spirit that motivated the U.S. Department of Commerce's model acts. It provides a systematic, well-thought-out guide to the community planning process.

Kelly and Becker's book was written to serve as a text for introductory classes in planning at the undergraduate or graduate level, and it moves from the general to the specific of tangible plans, the nuts and bolts of developing and implementing plans. The book wraps up with practical information useful not just to students, but also to community leaders with no formal training in planning on what work to expect from planners and on ethical issues to consider in planning. To assist the teacher or the self-taught reader, each chapter concludes with exercises, discussion questions, and annotated suggestions for further reading. The book also has an extensive bibliography.

Over the past few decades, debates have arisen about the utility of comprehensive plans. Are they worth the effort? Is the process of planning really more important than the document itself? Does anyone actually use the plan? As federal subsidies for local comprehensive planning processes dwindled in the 1980s, the popularity of massive plans waned.

Kelly and Becker acknowledge this shift, and they also point out that planning is inevitably political: despite the best efforts of the government reformers, planning remains political with a small p. At its best, it transcends politics and builds consensus across political coalitions. At its worst, it can become so embroiled in local political issues that it loses its credibility and effectiveness.

Nevertheless, this book is testimony to Kelly and Becker's conviction that planning and comprehensive plans, properly done, can and should make a positive difference.

Mary R. English, Energy, Environment and Resources Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

This review originally appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of FORUM for Applied Research and Public Policy.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Community Planning a MUST have for college student planners, May 1, 2000

By 

Street Player - See all my reviews

This review is from: Community Planning: An Introduction To The Comprehensive Plan (Paperback)

We used this text in our planning course last fall and it was excellent! Eric Kelly is a genius when it comes to writing planning books. This book is a must have for all college planning students. I highly recommend it!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent resource, November 9, 2006

By 

John A. Allen (joliet, illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Community Planning: An Introduction To The Comprehensive Plan (Paperback)

This book was a great help in the projects that my instructor assigned. It was very detailed.