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i 136 The Practice of Local Government Planning 'f problem. Choosing what projects will.tie built and what projects will not be built I I is the most crucial step in."the CIP-process, yet it continues to be troublesome. For example, how does a city decide-which is more important—enlarging a wa- Ij terline, building a new library, purchasing more parkland, or repaving a street? I In a more "quaint'era planners thought that one simply evaluated each project i in terms of the coverage of the comprehensive plan and the facility plans(that is, the park plan); the project was either in the plan or not. However, plans never specifically identified all the potential projects that.can come up through the line departments of city government. Moreover, as comprehensive plans have be- come more policy-oriented they rarely identify specific projects. And some com- munities have plans that are completely out-of-date or are still under prepara- tion. Communities have responded to this problem in a variety of ways. some of which will be discussed here. One traditional and still widely used priority system divides proposed projects into four categories: essential,desirable.acceptable,and deferrable.These cate- gories are usually further defined in terms of whether a project contributes to public safety, prevents.hazards. satisfies a critical need, or would be of benefit but is not essential. Another type of priority system labels projects in terns of r i criteria such as protection of life. public health maintenance, conservation of natural resources. and replacement of obsolete facilities. A moments reflection on these types of systems leads one to the conclusion 1 that they cannot be particularly helpful since the real criteria remain unarticu- lated. What is the dividing line between essential and desirable'? is it more important to reduce operating costs or to replace obsolete facilities? One response to the priority problem that has been tried by some communi- ties is the construction of scoring or point systems whereby a project is evalu- ated in terms of a particular criterion(for example.contributing to public safety) and a score of between, for example, I and 10. Using the internal logic of such systems, it is to be assumed that projects that get a high score are more desir- able. It cannot be overemphasized that such numerical systems should be very cautiously used. They cannot be used as a substitute for judgment and. if not carefully constructed and applied, they can do more harm than good. I Recently, a number of communities have been reexamining the ways in which they set priorities. These communities demonstrate a renewed interest in I. coordinating capital investments with community development policies. A fre- quently heard word—linkage—demonstrates increasing effort to explicitly link community development policies with capital investment decisions. The Day- ton illustration given earlier in this chapter is one example. Ii The CIP of Memphis, Tennessee, is an illustration of recent efforts to link �II priority systems to development policies. In Memphis, as is true in many other mature cities, available public funds are shrinking. Therefore, the Memphis cri- teria necessary to more precisely focus limited - tena are based on the Idea that it t e ry p Y available funds in projects and neighborhoods where they will do the most good. These criteria are based on high priority areas for investment identified by the city staff and are related to adopted neighborhood plans. The concept of high I , priority areas for investment is based on the following concepts: (1)Geographic areas of the City experiencing preliminary or advanced deterioration have multiple problems which tend to be interrelated; (2) by treating problems , IIsimultaneously or in a coordinated manner, a greater impact can be made on an area i than by treating each problem independently; (3) priority areas can be identified based on the current conditions and needs of.these areas along with goals and objectives of the Administration; (4) since funds-and manpower are limited in each program area and City division, these limited funds should be directed to the same accepted priority areas so that, for example, streets and drainage are improved and housing rehabilitated as other capital and operating projects are implemented; (5) by ( concentrating improvements within designated priority areas, fragmentation is �' reduced and impact is maximized."