Attending to the demands of the small business community in a resident-oriented community planning process presents challenges for planning practitioners. This article addresses the dynamics of participatory planning from a small business owners perspective. A case study of community planning in Portland, Oregon, that intended to identify the needs and desires of the community, as well as identify strategies and actions that would improve the area is presented. The demands of the business owners involved in the project are compared with subsequent policy actions. It was found that city planners communicated these demands in an unbiased and technically competent manner.
Current methodologies tend to favor quantitative approaches.
However, quantitative approaches are insufficient for capturing the full range of potential program benefits. This paper will examine a community stewardship partnership program, describing current efforts of evaluation and suggesting areas of improvement. The purpose of this document is to consider the specific example of the Community Watershed Stewardship Program in its efforts at self-evaluation to measure success in achieving its goals. The program is a partnership between Portland State University and the City of Portland s Bureau of Environmental Services in a community driven initiative that looks to improve watershed health and engage citizens in forming networks of cooperation. It is hoped that those who are involved with the program will use the recommendations laid out in this document as an impartial analysis of what might be done to improve the efficacy and utility of its evaluations.