ABSTRACT
The chapters in this volume have raised a number of critical questions for planning practitioners and scholars, highlighting the ways that current planning practices have treated the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community as invisible, immoral, and insignificant. Too often judgments about the relative importance of LGBT people have led to plans that neglect the needs of this community for safe urban spaces in which to live, work, and play. Improving the practice of planning for marginalized people, especially those who are LGBT or queer-identified, requires a refraining of planning away from the mechanical application of technical standards based on heteronormative assumptions. Truly inclusive planning should look at the behavioral expectations that underpin most models and standards, and seek to pay closer attention to questions about the whole population for whom planning is undertaken and consider carefully the impacts of planning decisions on more marginalized communities.
