Connecting state and local futures: Goal setting and growth management of small towns in Florida

Americans are reluctantly turning to setting goals for their communities and states. Hundreds of localities — big and small, urban and rural— involve citizens and public officials in comprehensively thinking about their potential, preferable and practical futures. The process is generally open and representative; the results tend to generate consensual policy and action agendas. Strategic planning assesses strengths and weaknesses, considers major external and internal factors, concentrates on specific topics, determines resource availability and emphasizes practical results. The connecting themes of the state and a small community are generally neglected. They are reconnected in this study so that each might better face common problems.