Since the start of the 21st century, formalized economic development planning has become an important feature of local governance in Canada and the United States. Contrasted against scattershot and informal approaches of the past, city governments are beginning to articulate their local economic development goals and ‘roadmaps’ to achieving them – often codified in published planning documents. However, this perspective towards planning is in a nascent stage and there remains considerable variability in what cities are doing. This research, therefore, seeks to analyze the varying states of local economic development planning among cities and develop a classification system based on a maturity model. This will help categorize current levels of achievement and capacity and present practical direction for city officials as they consider how to move forward in economic development planning. To do so, this research relies on a comprehensive content analysis of economic development planning documents of the 52 cities in the Province of Ontario, Canada, supplemented with 25 interviews with city officials. Based on the findings of this analysis a five-stage model was developed, showing that most cities are currently at early (‘pre-takeoff’) or emerging (‘takeoff’) stages in their planning efforts; and broadly, a shift towards evidence-based planning is needed for local economic development planning efforts to reach ‘level flight’ or maturity.