Planners studying implementation continue to search for better ways to determine whether and how well plans have been implemented. Even when we can identify areas of non-conformance between plans and outcomes, it can be unclear how to interpret them. This paper presents a conformance-based framework for evaluating plan implementation based on a GIS comparison of planned versus actual land use. This method is especially useful for making distinctions between instances of non-conformance that are benign artifacts of the development process and those that suggest the presence of breakdowns in the planning process.

Although participatory planning has become a well-established emphasis in the planning field, planners often find that land-use outcomes conflict with community goals, resulting in a dissatisfied citizenry. I argue that these conflicts often result from disconnects between steps in the planning process, which tend to occur in instances where the “baton” of implementation passes from one document or one agency to the next. I identify four common areas of disconnect within the planning process, propose explanations for each of the disconnects, and suggest ways to overcome this tendency for the planning process to break down.

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Problem, research strategy, and findings: Social equity goals are supposed to be prioritized in planning along with economic and environmental goals, yet in practice they are often de-emphasized. We developed a publicly available plan equity evaluation tool to investigate to what extent and in what ways local governments incorporate goals and recommendations that would advance equitable outcomes in their comprehensive plans. Using plan content analysis, we find that most plans do not talk about equity, nor do they include many goals and recommendations that would advance equity. More recent plans, plans in communities with more planning capacity, plans in coastal communities, and plans with strong public participation processes have stronger equity orientations. Limitations of our study include that we had a small sample size of 48 plans in a single state, our coding was partly conducted by volunteers, and our study is limited to plan content and so did not investigate existing conditions or equitable outcomes. Takeaway for practice: Plans should make equity a guiding principle. Planning processes need to be multifaceted. Plans should identify vulnerable people and geographic areas and ensure equitable protection from hazards and equitable distribution of amenities. Future land use changes should be more transparent.

Many planners work at private consulting firms, and many local governments use their services, but we have little idea of how consultant involvement affects plans. Analyzing data from a survey of local officials who engage planning consultants, we find that while engaging consultants does not appear to nudge local officials in a policy direction different from their preferences, it does appear to yield plans with a policy focus more oriented toward smart growth. This raises questions about the kind and degree of consultants' impact on the legitimacy of the planning process.