Structural drivers of sustainability and resilience strategies in small(ish) cities: a text analysis of comprehensive planning in Indiana

For decades, the world’s largest and most globally significant cities have been pledging to tackle climate change, resilience, sustainable development and social injustices through a proliferating ecology of plans. Far less is understood about what is happening in smaller communities. This study employs an institutional lens and automated text analysis to examine the resilience and sustainability “shared strategies” embedded in local land-use plans, which are used in many countries to guide the spatial distribution of development in metropolitan regions. We find evidence that communities that are more highly educated and less racially diverse focus more on “quality of life” amenities within their plans, such as pedestrian resources and environmental amenities. By contrast, communities that are more racially diverse focus greater attention on green stormwater infrastructure to address flooding. Plan “quality” is negatively associated with an amenities’ focus. Taken together, these findings suggest comprehensive land-use planning is both a means for reflecting exclusivity as well as pursuing community needs or goals related to specific resilience or sustainability themes.