Planners Face Challenge of Building Neighborhoods and Economic Opportunities

Within the toolbox that planners have at their disposal, there are multiple options available to improve the physical environment. However, as the growing recognition of economic inequality shows, planners have fewer tools to improve the lives of individual citizens. Bill Fulton writes in Governing that planners "can’t do the one thing that would most improve residents’ lives: put money in their pockets."

"In large part, the answer boils down to the old people-versus-place question in urban policy: Do you focus on improving struggling neighborhoods in the hopes that everyone in the neighborhood will be better off? Or do you focus on helping people get a leg up, even if it means they leave the neighborhood?"

The challenge for planners, Fulton writes, is to seek the right balance between improving neighborhoods and improving the lives of its residents. Evidence shows that poorer residents living among more affluent neighbors will have better economic livelihoods, but moving more affluent residents into poorer neighborhoods can trigger gentrification, which will ultimately displace those who could benefit most.