ABSTRACT
Public schools exist in nearly every community. As elements of public infrastructure, public schools present unique opportunities and challenges for local planning practitioners. Their quality, both real and perceived, is directly related to surrounding land uses, yet they are run not by the city or county, but typically by a local school district separate from the other coordinated public infrastructure bodies. Prior to the 1970s, local planning and school planning were fairly in sync, and generally development was sequenced to match public school capacity. Today, the norm is poorly aligned planning systems that do little to systematically link public school capacities and operating considerations with new development or redevelopment. This is beginning to change as many cities and states are more concretely addressing the need to coordinate land use and school planning. In many locales, innovative school planning is moving away from the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach to school facilities design.
