Are Michigan Cities Planning for a Changing Future, or More of the Same?

Abstract

Planners may ask how Michigan cities are planning for their futures. After all, growth requires planning and investment to decide proactively where and how to accommodate new populations and jobs. The Michigan Planning Enabling Act requires that communities adopt a master plan that considers “trends in land and population development” that “may project 20 years or more into the future.” What future is it that Michigan planners are considering in these plans, and does this future align with what Michiganders want? This article reports the results of an analysis of 262 master plans for Michigan cities collected in 2022. The analysis finds that overall, 47% of plans anticipate future population decline, and only 44% anticipate growth. Plans which contain specific quantitative forecasts of future growth contain an average planned population growth rate of only 0.19% per year. Only a small number of plans used scenario-based methods which allow for the exploration of growth and decline in the context of future uncertainty, and could be useful for cities to prepare future plans.