PlanRVA, the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the Richmond, Virginia area, joined the Culture and Community Network (CCN) as part of its effort to initiate creative approaches to community-centered engagement. PlanRVA, with a jurisdiction covering nine localities and over a million residents, represents an MPO at the early stages of integrating arts and culture into its planning processes. Through its participation in CCN, PlanRVA is exploring how creative strategies can help make infrastructure and transportation planning more accessible, culturally sensitive, and responsive to community needs.

PlanRVA’s engagement efforts are led by staff whose backgrounds are from outside the traditional transportation or planning pipelines. Their nontraditional, nonlinear routes to PlanRVA have created space and opportunity for creativity, empathy, and new modes of engagement.
Kristin Hott, PlanRVA’s engagement coordinator, has a background in grassroots organizing and the arts. She draws on creative practices as a bridge between individual stories and collective community identity. For example, Kristin pursues quilt-making as both a personal and communal practice: after personal tragedy, quilting became a way to process grief while building connections with others. She views community quilts as a metaphor and tool for planning work, stitching together diverse experiences into a cohesive whole.

Grants specialist Emily Williams also brings a unique background to regional planning as a former higher education instructor and union organizer. She has a keen interest in embedding inclusive engagement into the structure of funded projects, ensuring that public input is not an afterthought but part of the process from the beginning. Her approach emphasizes that proposals should not just deliver infrastructure but also create opportunities for authentic community participation.

Both Kristin and Emily were drawn to CCN because of their shared desire to expand community engagement beyond conventional public meetings and comment periods. Importantly, their executive director encouraged their participation, seeing the network as an opportunity to learn from peer organizations and bring fresh approaches to the region. For Kristin and Emily, CCN offered a chance to connect their creative instincts with practical strategies for regional planning.

Arts and culture and engagement efforts

Some of the key efforts PlanRVA implemented in partnership with Smart Growth America and the Culture and Community Network include:  

1. Building internal readiness. Recognizing that staff buy-in is critical, PlanRVA conducted an internal survey to gauge comfort with integrating arts and culture into planning. Rather than rely on a conventional questionnaire, the team created a short video to encourage participation and explain the purpose of the survey, an example of how even internal processes can benefit from creativity.

2. People’s Budget forum theatre. In partnership with a local city government, PlanRVA piloted a “People’s Budget” exercise using forum theatre techniques. Residents were invited to act out scenarios and provide input into city budget priorities, transforming what could have been a technical process into a participatory and engaging experience.

3. PlanRVA Day. On March 14, the agency hosted PlanRVA Day, using creative activities such as maps and sticker-based exercises to help residents better understand infrastructure planning. The event demonstrated that even small, playful interventions can demystify complex planning processes.

4. Zero Fare Transit project. Emily played a key role in a campaign to maintain fare-free transit service after the COVID-19 pandemic. Partnering with the local transit agency, she helped frame a narrative that highlighted the benefits of zero-fare service for local businesses, workers, and the overall well-being of the community. Telling stories served as a key data point, in addition to quantitative data, in building support for maintaining the fare-free policy.

Challenges along the way

PlanRVA’s community engagement capacity has been constrained from the start. The original proposal envisioned a four-person team; in reality, Kristin was initially the sole staff member working on engagement. Limited staff capacity continues to shape how much creativity can be operationalized.

The team has wrestled with questions such as, “Are we doing this to communities, or with them?” This distinction highlights the challenge of balancing creativity with feasibility, ensuring that creative practices are participatory and co-created, not imposed.

Lessons learned

Participation in Smart Growth America’s Culture and Community Network provided valuable space for reflection and connection. Both Kristin and Emily cited the importance of imagination and creativity in reaching marginalized or underrepresented groups, as well as the need for culturally sensitive practices. Kristin emphasized the role of external artistic resources in sparking new ideas. Both also identified tribal engagement as an area of growth, underscoring their awareness of communities that have historically been overlooked in planning conversations.

Kristin and Emily emphasized that everyone is an artist in some way, and that planning organizations should not hesitate to draw on creativity across their staff and communities. Creative engagement does not require professional artists; it requires openness, experimentation, and respect for community voice.

Looking ahead

Although PlanRVA is still in the early stages of its arts and culture journey, it has already piloted innovative approaches that distinguish it from many peer MPOs. Free of some of the institutional baggage that can weigh down larger agencies, PlanRVA is experimenting with new ways of connecting planning to community life. Smart Growth America’s Culture and Community Network has provided not only practical examples but also inspiration, reinforcing that imagination has a place in planning. As the team continues to grow, PlanRVA is poised to evolve into a more creative and community-centered MPO.