The purpose of this study is to explore the role of social entrepreneurs or core visionaries in generating conceptual, financial, and community support and acceptance for a Healthy City/Community initiative in the Bryan/College Station area. This initiative affords all community members the opportunity to participate in long-term regional goals. Crucial questions were: what criteria were seen as beneficial to the community that would garner support to proceed with a Healthy City initiative, what would be desirable and more feasible - to enter into an agreement with an existing entity, an existing medical health provider, related entity or subsidiary, or to set up a new, independent entity to oversee the initiative, where would funding come from, what was the time commitment, and who would evaluate the initiative's success? Another purpose of this study is to explore how a Healthy City's process was adapted and developed for use in the Brazos Valley and how the initial community leaders or initiative "champions" went about initiating and organizing the movement, including identifying manpower needs, whether through the use of volunteers or the hiring of professionals, consultants, or full time staff to coordinate the various activities. Also of interest were the criteria that the initiative's leaders would use to divide their Healthy City's agenda or potential goals into topical components to be studied and analyzed by community representatives for inclusion (or not) into the final, formal Vision Statement for the community for succeeding by 2020. This was a qualitative study; interviews and observations of meetings were the information gathering methods used. According to the results, most participants found their involvement meaningful and enjoyable, but they also feared that no actions would come from the goals set by the community. Areas for further research or investigation might include: subsequent phases enacted by the Brazos 2020 Vision, changes made in dealing with future options after the Final Report was completed or distributed, resulting funding opportunities and movement of key leaders after the Brazos Valley initiative had entered subsequent phases. Another focus might be to continue to research or investigate the timeline for Brazos 2020 Vision up to the year 2020.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of social entrepreneurs or core visionaries in generating conceptual, financial, and community support and acceptance for a Healthy City/Community initiative in the Bryan/College Station area. This initiative affords all community members the opportunity to participate in long-term regional goals. Crucial questions were: what criteria were seen as beneficial to the community that would garner support to proceed with a Healthy City initiative, what would be desirable and more feasible - to enter into an agreement with an existing entity, an existing medical health provider, related entity or subsidiary, or to set up a new, independent entity to oversee the initiative, where would funding come from, what was the time commitment, and who would evaluate the initiative's success? Another purpose of this study is to explore how a Healthy City's process was adapted and developed for use in the Brazos Valley and how the initial community leaders or initiative "champions" went about initiating and organizing the movement, including identifying manpower needs, whether through the use of volunteers or the hiring of professionals, consultants, or full time staff to coordinate the various activities. Also of interest were the criteria that the initiative's leaders would use to divide their Healthy City's agenda or potential goals into topical components to be studied and analyzed by community representatives for inclusion (or not) into the final, formal Vision Statement for the community for succeeding by 2020. This was a qualitative study; interviews and observations of meetings were the information gathering methods used. According to the results, most participants found their involvement meaningful and enjoyable, but they also feared that no actions would come from the goals set by the community. Areas for further research or investigation might include: subsequent phases enacted by the Brazos 2020 Vision, changes made in dealing with future options after the Final Report was completed or distributed, resulting funding opportunities and movement of key leaders after the Brazos Valley initiative had entered subsequent phases. Another focus might be to continue to research or investigate the timeline for Brazos 2020 Vision up to the year 2020.

This research is an evaluation of the addition of a citizen involvement process that has come to be known as "visioning" or "community visioning" to the traditional process of developing a state's transportation plan, a process which has typically been very much an in-government and esoteric province of professionals in transportation planning. The research specifically focuses on the Commonwealth of Virginia and its addition of three citizen participation components the Commonwealth labeled "community visioning" to the traditional transportation planning process. The research examines the three components of "community visioning" with regard to: (1) their impact on the state's transportation plan (VTrans2025); (2) the degree to which they met the expectations of the regulations and best practices requirements of federal oversight; (3) the degree to which they met the expectations of the advocates of visioning and of more "democratic participation" in pubic administrative and policy processes; and (4) the degree to which they could affect the final outcome of transportation policy. Visioning is a relatively new approach to citizen involvement in the planning process. It places the citizen involvement at the beginning of the process instead of the end. Visioning asks citizens key questions about what they envision as a positive future for their community. The purpose or goal of this new visioning is to have the final plans reflect the vision drawn from the citizens and public officials and reached through consensus. This dissertation determined that Virginia put forth a good faith effort to involve citizens of the Commonwealth. Collectively, the citizen involvement activities in VA’s visioning process were reasonable and meaningful. Additionally, Virginia’s vision statement was heavily influenced by the citizen participation activities. However, there are three aspects of Virginia’s vision that are troubling from an implementation standpoint. In short, this dissertation found that the vision is what the people want, but the comprehensive plan does not tell the citizens how the Commonwealth intends on achieving that vision. / Ph. D.

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