Community visioning is a collaborative process of giving the people who live, work, and play in a place the opportunity to have a say about what they want their community to be like in the future.
Broadly, community visioning takes into account the following:
- The things people love about their community and want to retain.
- The challenges and issues they want to address and solve.
- What new aspects become a part of their community fabric.
Through this process, a community might imagine what it wants to be in ten years or look ahead to 20 years and beyond.
Community visioning can result in a big-picture statement, a series of statements, or become the heart of a detailed community plan.
What are the outcomes?
The process creates a shared community vision that is aspirational and forward-thinking. It guides key decisions about that community, particularly those made by the government. It can also help guide how community-based and non-government organizations provide services and products and how developers and other investors shape and contribute to that community.