Drivers of Change and the Future of Planning

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Learning Outcomes

  • Learn about foresight and understand the difference between foresight and visioning.
  • Understand existing and potential new trends and their possible impacts on planning.
  • Examine how trend patterns will affect the planning profession and what new processes and skills planners will need to navigate change.

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Explore the findings of the research project "Drivers of Change and the Future of Planning," a collaboration between the American Planning Association and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The project will highlight trends identified as potential future disruptors that will have significant impacts on the planning profession and the ways in which communities will live, work, play, and move around in the future. An analysis of trend patterns will inform how planning interventions and processes will have to change and what new skills planners will need to stay relevant and create great communities for all in the future.

Based on the identified trend patterns, planning processes need to change to advance inclusive and equitable planning. Planners can learn from the mistakes of the past to prevent the transfer of existing inequalities into the era of technological progress and digitalization.