Assessing Readiness for Economic Development Strategic Planning: A Community Case Study

Abstract

Current approaches to strategic planning overlook the importance of being ready to undertake such a complex and significant process. Our experience with a strategic planning project in Beatrice, Nebraska suggests that denial, anger, blame, depression, and withdrawal are common but subliminal reactions to economic change. Unless planners recognize these affective responses and build them into the strategic planning process, negative attitudes will be an obstacle to new economic strategies. This article describes a preplanning component that planners in Nebraska now incorporate into community economic development as a result of the experience in Beatrice.