Visioning
No firm in the nation has more experience helping communities develop shared visions for the future.
Crossing Boundaries
Most planning considerations—transportation, environmental issues, economic issues, etc.—transcend jurisdictional boundaries. ACP has been called upon by some of the largest and most complex places in the country—New York City, Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, among others—to facilitate visioning and planning processes and has emerged as a leader in helping the numerous jurisdictions and stakeholders in these communities to work together to develop mutual goals, strategies and plans.
Building Consensus
ACP believes that public involvement leads to consensus only when it is built on a solid foundation of ideas. That foundation of ideas must come from the input of a diverse group of residents reflective of a community’s true demographics and representing all interests, races, classes and socio-economic groups—as well as from credible technical work.
Removing Barriers
Many of ACP’s projects have included the challenge of engaging specific, hard-to-reach populations in meaningful ways. To achieve this end, ACP has successfully incorporated multi-lingual workshops into visioning processes, as well as strategies to target those English-speaking groups—youth, African Americans, second home residents, senior citizens with special mobility needs, and low-income persons who depend on public transportation, among others—that are traditionally underrepresented in planning processes.
Creating Better Places
For ACP, creating plans is not enough. Our goal is to create better places. The visions and plans that ACP has facilitated throughout the nation have a strong record of implementation success due to the public’s continued involvement as stewards of the vision or plan, the identification of favorable trends and opportunities, and the development of a specific timeline for implementation.