What Social Media Taught This Planner about Reaching Residents

When Brittany Simmons started posting content on social media, her goal was to make urban planning more relatable and engaging for people outside of the profession. Over the past several years, the Detroit-based planner has gained thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, posting videos that explain how the built environment affects daily life and why walkability is essential to thriving cities.

As much as Simmons uses her platform to teach, she has also learned a lot from her comments section, and those interactions have helped shape how she approaches community engagement. Simmons, a planner with OHM Advisors, shared some of those lessons at the 2026 American Planning Association (APA) National Planning Conference (NPC26) in Detroit this past spring.

@signedbritt living in a walkable neighborhood will absolutely change your life (for the better)!! #walkability #walkable #citydesign #urbanism ♬ original sound - E. Nygma 🍿

Back to Basics

Over a year ago, Simmons posted a TikTok chronicling a day in her life as a planner. "I take the viewer along for a public meeting from beginning to end — the prep, the meeting, the aftermath," she said at NPC26, "and I ask, 'What will it take for you, the individual watching this video, to engage with local processes?'"

The comments that caught her eye revolved around logistics: How do community members find details like the time and venue address? Can they bring their children? Are there virtual meeting options?

Responses like those are a reminder that community members are interested in planners' work, but they don't always have the information or access to participate in engagement efforts. "It's not that they don't have things to say, it's that we're not making it easy for them to say it," Simmons said. "At the end of the day, we're all working toward the same thing: We all want better places to live, work and play."

The way Simmons sees it, community engagement has three pillars that planners should follow:

IT SHOULD BE EASY

Community engagement doesn't need to be elaborate or time-intensive to be effective. "Have stickers, sticky notes — just something that's simple," she said.

IT SHOULD BE SOCIAL

"People like to socialize with one another, whether it's the planning team, their neighbors or the local community businesses," Simmons said. "Provide an opportunity and a space for them to do that."

IT SHOULD BE INVITING

If someone is late to an event or happens to walk by a meeting, "they should feel comfortable to join in," Simmons said. "They shouldn't feel like they missed a ton of information." Utilizing public spaces where people already gather, such as farmers' markets or community festivals, is key.

Out-of-the-Box Outreach

Simmons said she tested this concept in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit that is home to around 11,100 people. OHM Advisors was brought on to reimagine Charlevoix Street, one of the city's major business districts, to increase economic development and make the street more pedestrian-friendly.

@signedbritt I've been an urban planner for about 5 years and I've done quite a few "creative" things to get public feedback, but I just know there's more fun stuff I could do. I'm excited to figure out what that stuff is and put it in action #urbanplanner #urbanplanning #urbanism #communityengagement #cityplanning ♬ Do For Love - Instrumental - The Hit Crew

"We started with a standard city hall meeting against my will, but we got a pretty decent turnout, and we got good feedback," Simmons said. "However, the people who came to that meeting skewed older. It also skewed one race, which wasn't necessarily representative of the community surrounding Charlevoix Street."

So, they tried something else: a family-friendly pub crawl. For a few hours on a Tuesday evening in March 2025, residents could pop into two local bars on Charlevoix Street, each with different activities, to share their vision for the business district.

The outreach didn't stop there, as the planning team participated in two pop-up events at an annual street festival. Through these efforts, they were able to get more feedback that was representative of the community.

"Throughout the engagement process, we heard from residents that there are so many different kinds of people on the street: older adults, toddlers with their parents, young children on their bikes and more," Simmons said recently. "Naturally, each user group has different needs."

Charlevoix Street is now under construction. When it's completed later this fall, the $3.8-million makeover will include curbless parking and widened sidewalks for improved accessibility, green infrastructure like rain gardens, new raised planters and updated string lighting.

While Simmons thinks a little creativity can go a long way, "that isn't to say that we should throw traditional engagement away," she said. Instead, it's about figuring out how to incorporate new ideas to make the process more inclusive.

"The deliverables we make — reports, graphics, plans — require creativity and innovation," she said. "What if our engagement process looked a similar way?"

Top image: Courtney Hale/Getty Images