Evaluating Regional Plans and Community Impacts

Some of the most important impacts of regional plans occur at the community level. For many reasons, however, such local impacts are not often treated in regional planning. This issue is explored in general and related to the state-of-the-art of comprehensive evaluation methods. An approach is suggested whereby comprehensive regional planning agencies can assess both the regional and local impacts of alternative plans. This approach structures the presentation of information about regional and local plan impacts, and provides a simple format for facilitating subjective assessment of such impacts by decision makers and community residents. This approach involves the construction of a comprehensive goals-achievement matrix.