Assistant Director Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department Charlotte, North Carolina
This presentation describes ways to involve the youth population and garner their interest in your planning process.
Equity and inclusion are central to the Charlotte (North Carolina) Future 2040 Comprehensive Plan’s policies and public engagement process. The project team incorporated equity into all parts of the plan and worked hard to ensure minority voices were included. They included equity in every step of the process, from ensuring meeting locations in underrepresented areas to recommending policies. With the plan’s adoption, Charlotte residents have new tools to help the city become more inclusive and prosperous.
The plan includes games to make plan content more accessible to kids of all ages,. One board game, Growing Better Places, is designed to facilitate conversations among players to build consensus about the top priorities for the city, and to allocate new growth across the city based on those policy priorities. In addition, the city launched a TikTok challenge as a creative way for community members to show what they think matters most for Charlotte over the next 20 years.
NPC Peer Reviewers assigned this presentation a learning level of Foundational. For more on learning-level descriptions, visit our General Information Page.
Learning Objectives:
Learn out-of-the-box ways to engage, educate, and stay relevant to youth.
Discuss barriers to reaching the community’s youth.
Explore ways to leverage funding for creative outreach and engagement methods.
