Last week I wrote about how improving the health of Arizonans is critical to improving the quality of life and reducing health care costs… and that effective strategies are ones that incorporate the principles of population health. A city’s General Plan can be a large public health lever to improve outcomes because it’s the long-range planning guide for the city… addressing energy, housing, neighborhoods, public facilities, natural resources, transportation and land use. Ordinary community members can have an influence by getting involved in their city’s General Plan. But… where can folks start to get involved? I’ll use Phoenix as this week’s example.
The City of Phoenix is in the middle of developing their General Plan- and 2013 is the year of heavy lifting. Phoenix has a website called My Plan PHX as their General Plan info hub… and the “How it Works” link site is a good place to start. A good next step is to go to the Conserve Create ConnectPHX site and weigh in on the development and recreational ideas proposed by others- or post your own ideas. There are numerous topics related to population health already posted. There are 256 days remaining to comment on the PHX Plan… so get going.
Next week I’ll post info about the schedules and logistics for the General Plans in other AZ cities.
