In an era of increasing complexity, the majority of local land-use decisions in the United States are made by volunteer citizen planners. Often these elected or appointed volunteers enter their positions with a passion for their communities but without appropriate background training. The Michigan Citizen Planner Program was developed to address…

By designing processes to translate social needs into physical terms, the Urban Center at the University of Louisville is turning out its own unique brand of architecture -- one that produces no buildings but that has a real effect on the future of the physical environment. (Author)

Instructional and motivational techniques that have been successful in conducting citizen workshops on the Navajo Reservation are presented. These include showing planning as an integral part of Indian life, teaching map-reading skills, and starting with the familiar and building toward the abstract. (DS)

In the more than 10 years since the inception of EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency) Brownfields Program, brownfields have been redefined. Properties that were shunned or eyed warily by those with the resources to transform them are now viewed as dormant opportunities for economic and environmental rebirth. Communities that suffered aesthetic…

Land use controls are often a major point of conflict between recent migrants and long-term residents of rapidly growing communities. Such conflict was noted in a case study of a rural community undergoing rapid population growth. The revision of a comprehensive land use plan for the community provided the opportunity to evaluate citizen…

Fully annotated, this selected bibliography of materials on citizen participation in rural development is drawn from a large bibliography also published by the Southern Rural Development Center. Representing a severe distillation of extant materials on citizen participation, this bibliography of some 60 entries (most from the late 60's and 70's)…

This workbook is primarily for use in a workshop to provide information on how land-use decisions are made in Idaho, for what reasons, and with what effect. For students, there are classroom activities that correspond to actual problems of land-use decision making, and suggestions for further study and investigation. For teachers, there are…

The 3-year Citizen Leadership Program was designed to develop citizen-directed planning in Wisconsin. The first year focused on citizen involvement in land use planning; the second year, on community goal setting; and the third year, on community development projects. A representative group of 30 citizens participated in the program's workshops…

Discusses the development and implementation of a simulation game for a sixth-grade class that used the structure of Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town," to examine the geographical issues involved in community planning. The land development issue discussed was based on a real-life local concern. (MJP)

The result of extensive research by the Southern Rural Development Center Functional Network on Citizen Participation in Rural Development, this bibliography contains 2,310 citations on citizen participation, 530 of which carry an annotation or abstract. Materials come from computerized information services, published bibliographies, and books or…

The 1979 edition of the Title I, Higher Education Act Program Abstracts is presented. Directed toward state Title I, HEA administrators, the program abstracts are made available in order to encourage nationwide program replication of those tested and evaluated programs that have been conducted with Title I support by institutions of higher…