Politics and Planning Agency Performance Lessons from Seattle

Abstract

This analysis of Seattle's executive planning agency illustrates how the way planning is organized affects its success. Staff plan-making agencies are contrasted with traditional line departments that exercise regulatory functions. Plan-making agencies cannot easily demonstrate the effectiveness of plans or how they are prepared. Consequently, they have difficulty becoming stable government organizations with an accepted scope of activities. Further, difficulties in demonstrating performance become confounded with political differences among the mayor, city council, and line departments over the role of planning itself.