The Comprehensive Plan Of Allen County Indiana PDF Download

This thesis explores the use of community visioning as one public participation technique in developing a county-wide comprehensive plan. In 2004, Allen County and Fort Wayne, Indiana conducted several public meetings to collect vision statements from community residents. These statements were used to formulate the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. For this thesis, ten participants in the planning process were interviewed about their opinions of the visioning process as it was undertaken by the county. Additionally, the vision statements were compared to the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan to assess how well the planners incorporated the visions into the plan. It was found that the people interviewed generally viewed the vision process favorably. Some people, however, were dissatisfied with the final outcome of the plan. Most people felt that the visioning process was successful, worthwhile and contributed to the production of a solid comprehensive plan. The comparisons of the vision statements with the comprehensive plan showed that, on the whole, the visions were indeed used to formulate the goals and objectives of the plan. The findings of this thesis are consistent with other case studies found in the planning literature.