Projections, politics, and practice in regional planning : a case study of MetroFuture

Abstract

This thesis describes the comprehensive planning effort undertaken by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in the Boston area. This effort engaged over 4,000 of the area's residents between 2002 and 2009 and produced a new vision and action plan for the region entitled 'MetroFuture,' Without formal authority to ensure compliance with the plan, the agency worked to increase the scale, transparency, and specificity of its efforts in order to build broad-based support for implementation. This study analyzes MAPC's use of modeling, public participation, and advocacy and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the agency's "new regionalism" approach. They were able to achieve more diverse participation, a more comprehensive plan, and actionable recommendations with input from a much broader set of actors than previous efforts. They were hampered by the lack of political endorsement from state and local leaders, as well as by financial constraints and their inability to secure stakeholder agreement on key recommendations. The concluding discussion makes recommendations to other metropolitan regions trying to re-think how best to conduct comprehensive regional planning efforts.