Making the Middle: Planning to Create Socially and Economically Vibrant Middle-Class Communities

Abstract

Making the Middle acknowledges trends toward greater inequality within the United States (US) and makes a case for expanding middle-class communities through the tactics available to planners. Equity, deliberative, and actuarial planning theory advocates for operational frameworks planners can employ to help foster and expand socially and economically vibrant middle-class communities. Growing class stratification within the US provides a rationale for the importance of a socially and economically vibrant middle class. Social and economic vibrancy, and the ability of middle-class communities to create such environments, is defined through the incisive lens of Jane Jacobs. By connecting theoretical frames of equity, deliberative, and actuarial planning, planners can foster and grow middle-class communities.