Structural drivers of sustainability and resilience strategies in small(ish) cities: a text analysis of comprehensive planning in Indiana

Aaron Deslatte, Juwon Chung and Eric Stokan

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2025, vol. 68, issue 1, 185-206

Abstract: For decades, the world’s largest and most globally significant cities have been pledging to tackle climate change, resilience, sustainable development and social injustices through a proliferating ecology of plans. Far less is understood about what is happening in smaller communities. This study employs an institutional lens and automated text analysis to examine the resilience and sustainability “shared strategies” embedded in local land-use plans, which are used in many countries to guide the spatial distribution of development in metropolitan regions. We find evidence that communities that are more highly educated and less racially diverse focus more on “quality of life” amenities within their plans, such as pedestrian resources and environmental amenities. By contrast, communities that are more racially diverse focus greater attention on green stormwater infrastructure to address flooding. Plan “quality” is negatively associated with an amenities’ focus. Taken together, these findings suggest comprehensive land-use planning is both a means for reflecting exclusivity as well as pursuing community needs or goals related to specific resilience or sustainability themes.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2023.2240951 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:68:y:2025:i:1:p:185-206

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJEP20

DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2023.2240951

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management is currently edited by Dr Neil Powe, Dr Ken Willis and George Bill Page

More articles in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().