Southern California: Community-Based Planning in Action

Community-based planning is a collaborative approach that empowers local residents to actively participate in shaping the development of their neighborhoods. By involving community members in decision-making, this process restores a sense of agency and ownership over the changes that impact their lives. It ensures that planning reflects the real needs and desires of the community, fostering solutions that are more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable. Ultimately, community-based planning helps build trust, strengthens social bonds, and creates spaces that truly serve the people who live there.

The community-based planning process naturally fosters collaboration between residents, local governments, planners, and other stakeholders. By bringing diverse perspectives to the table, it encourages open dialogue and shared decision-making, ensuring that multiple voices are heard and valued. This collaboration creates a more holistic approach to problem-solving, where solutions are co-created with input from those who understand the community’s unique challenges and opportunities - community members themselves! As a result, the planning outcomes are more comprehensive and better suited to the long-term needs of the community, creating a sense of shared responsibility and investment in the neighborhood’s future.

Community planning involves people in activities that model what connection can look like. I've found its biggest impact on people is that it gives them an example of how trust can be employed, and helps them rediscover its value.

How does community-based planning impact the stakeholders participating in it?

The biggest people who are impacted by the process are the ones who walk into a room thinking they know why they are there and what they should do. Developers, Planners, and City-Council Members, especially. It holds the power change their minds because it flips the typical ways that they interact with community stakeholders. Changing the medium changes the conversation.

What do those interactions look like?

Community members are used to interacting with planners and council members from the other side of a podium, where there is literally a physical separation between them and those making decisions about their lives and neighborhoods. Community-based planning turns those interactions on their head by opening up informal, unmoderated discussion spaces that allow honesty and collaboration to grow. A great example is role-playing, which we use to help stakeholders embody one another's perspectives. And the great part is it can be done asynchronously, as one of the big challenges is getting everyone in the same room.

You mentioned challenges in facilitating the community-based planning process, what are the main ones you face?

The complexity comes with adapting the languages, so to speak, that different stakeholders speak. An environmental scientist, for example, might use technical language to describe a site plan that isn't understandable to those without a science degree. A council-member might reference policy language that depersonalizes the human impact of a project and has the same affect. In comparison, community-members might use more informal language to talk about the impact a project would have on their health and families. Thus, there's a degree of code-switching required to moderate these conversations is complex in that it requires everyone to be mindful of one another's differences. But that willingness isn't necessarily immediate, and you need to find objectivity somewhere.

Examining case studies of community-based planning is crucial for understanding how this approach functions across various contexts and with diverse stakeholders. By analyzing different case studies in the Los Angeles area, we can identify common patterns and key attributes that contribute to successful planning outcomes. Sadly, there are very few examples of community-based planning nationally. This comparative analysis helps reveal what strategies and practices are most effective in engaging communities, addressing local needs, and fostering collaboration. Understanding these commonalities can enable planners, policymakers, and community members to apply proven methods in their own contexts, leading to more informed and successful community-based planning initiatives.

1. Coalition Building;
2. Youth Involvement;
3. Demonstration Projects;
4. Collaborative Prototype Development;
5. Regular Community Meetings;
6. Celebration and Recognition Events;
7. Physically Integrated Cultural Appreciation;
8. Options for Engagement (i.e. online surveys, in-person activities, community forums).

What is your embedded planning approach?

Embedded planning is literally embedding planners into the communities they serve, strengthening their connections to residents. Typically, planning is centralized, with those in power reluctant to let go. Our approach shifts this by building personal networks that help communities actively participate in decisions. It’s challenging, and requires convincing planners to embrace this model, but it sparks hope by reallocating agency.

How did you come into embedded planning?

I started in architecture, but my work shifted towards organizing within the built environment. The DNA of embedded planning came from my experiences in LA County, where I saw how much hope communities gained when the planning process came to them, rather than the other way around.

What challenges do you face?

One of the biggest challenges is convincing those in power to give up control. Planning is often about control, and there’s resistance to decentralization. Embedded planning requires building networks and creating buy-in at multiple levels. It’s more complex than traditional planning, but ultimately more effective at engaging communities!

What resources are available for planners interested in exploring embedded and community-based approaches?

Planners can learn a lot from other fields, like libraries, which I've found are very trusted institutions in communities. When I worked at the LA Central Library in access services, I had access to millions of books, which helped me avoid costs in college. But more importantly, it introduced me to people from many different communities and areas. Libraries in neighborhoods are often much more accessible and trusted forms of government. Librarians specifically are incredible at bringing people together and forging connections. They’ve even pioneered "embedded librarianship," where they go out into the community and even into prisons, bringing skills and resources directly to the people. Planners can adopt similar models by taking their expertise to the streets, rather than waiting for the community to come to them.

Embedded planning gives communities hope by bringing the planning process to them instead of expecting them to navigate complex systems on their own.

Community-based planning serves as the intersection of environmental justice, equity, and the built environment by integrating these concepts into a unified approach to development. It connects environmental justice by actively involving communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards in decision-making processes and giving space to non-human stakeholders and their needs. This empowers those communities to ensure that projects rectify systemic injustice. Equity is achieved through the redistribution of power, as traditionally marginalized groups gain the ability to shape policies that affect their living conditions, physically represented in their built environment. Community-based planning ensures that physical spaces and infrastructure are developed in ways that reflect community values, needs, and priorities, promoting both social and environmental sustainability. At this intersection, planning becomes a tool for achieving justice, inclusivity, and resilience.

Community-based planning holds immense potential for building resilience to climate change and combating environmental injustice in global communities. By fostering localized understandings and deep connections to place, this approach empowers people to become more invested in their neighborhoods and the environments they inhabit. It offers spaces where residents can form networks, support one another, and collectively address the challenges they face, from environmental degradation to socio-economic pressures. This engagement strengthens communities' ability to withstand displacement, as people are less likely to leave areas where they feel rooted and involved. Furthermore, by actively involving residents in decision-making processes, community-based planning ensures that solutions to climate change and environmental injustice are both locally relevant and driven by those most impacted, creating more resilient and self-sustaining communities.