Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Citizen Participation And Strategic Planning For An Urban Enterprise Community, Michael Leo Owens

New England Journal of Public Policy

Public policies rarely have single objectives. For the federal Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities initiative, bettering the socioeconomic opportunity structure among a collection of the nation's low-income areas is only one of its goals. Another initiative objective is to foster the representation of common citizens, especially residents, in the planning and implementation of strategies and programs designed to redevelop these low-income areas. Strategic community planning was the method chosen by the initiative's designers to achieve both objectives. This article, which makes use of the case study approach, addresses strategic community planning as an instrument of advancing citizen representation in urban …