The strategic plan offers a menu of economic options for federal and local officials to consider:

• Provides for watershed management within targeted growth areas;

• Sets aside 93.8% of the region as conservation zones and open space;

• Addresses dependencies on unsustainable tourism practices;

• Provides opportunities for economic diversification; and

• Proposes better management of regional transportation impacts associated with mass tourism.

“Regional planning efforts of this scale are not all that common,” Culbertson says. More than 400 local leaders, women’s groups, youth groups and experts provided input to the team made up of Design Workshop, Austrian Tourism Consultants and JPL of Amman.

The Pierre L'Enfant International Planning Award recognizes planning practices and efforts undertaken outside the United States to promote communities of lasting value. Design Workshop was the only American entity within the three-partner consortium that the Petra Development Tourism Regional Authority retained to complete the strategic plan.


“This plan is a critical guide to the preservation of one of the New Seven Wonders of the World,” says Marie L. York, APA board director and 2012 awards jury co-chair.  “It will serve as a valuable model for regions facing the competing challenges of attracting tourism and protecting cultural resources.”


The award will be presented on April 16 during APA’s National Planning Conference in Los Angeles.