Participation, charrettes, and consensus-based planning : how do we get from vision to reality?

The process by which ideas, designs, and plans are formulated has an influence on whether or not they will be implemented. Consensus-based planning is a tool which is being incorporated more and more in planning efforts in order to create broad-based goals and objectives. However, many times it is used in the comprehensive planning process where it is more difficult to gauge the amount of implementation being done. There is a large amount of information on how consensus-based planning creates stronger decisions, goals, etc. based in the public interest but there is little information on how these decisions or goals impacted their communities. The study looks at obstacles to implementation and what would have helped to eliminate them. It also questions whether, if consensus-building techniques had been used during the planning process, it would have helped to eliminate these obstacles to implementation. In order to answer these questions, three charrettes conducted by Community Based Projects of Ball State University in the years between 1990 and 1992 are evaluated.Department of Urban PlanningThesis (M.U.R.P.