Enhancing community engagement in scenario-based urban planning and policy development using experiential futures

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ABSTRACT

Engaging with uncertainty is a mounting challenge in urban planning and policy development. One approach that professionals have frequently adopted to navigate growing scales, scopes, and speeds of change is scenario planning. While valuable in identifying avenues with which to accommodate increasingly unpredictable conditions, scenario planning as currently practiced has limitations, particularly in the realm of participatory engagement. A growing body of literature cites not just the need for more effective engagement tactics in scenario-based planning and policy work, but the importance of engaging emotional and sensory responses to potential future conditions. Given such findings, the potential presented by the growing field of experiential futures, which provides multisensory exploration of possible futures through role-play and other forms of interactive simulation, merits more attention in the urban planning and development disciplines. This exploratory research investigates the implications of using experiential futures in three scenario planning related development projects. Project comparison serves to articulate how the experiential futures field might positively shape community engagement, civic participation, and knowledge generation in scenario-based urban planning and policy development efforts.
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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Limited effectiveness of community-based participation is hardly restricted to scenario-based planning approaches. Existing and traditional modes of urban planning have long failed to involve more community-based methods. According to Burayaidi ;(2000) “in the rational comprehensive tradition, city planning has historically concerned itself with the physical environment.” This approach is based on the belief that “land use problems can be isolated from socio-economic, racial, and ethnic concerns” (Burayidi Citation2000). While this more rational, mechanistic approach to comprehensive planning has created certain improvements, such as widespread improvements to urban public health, it has also created many problems(Ammon Citation2009; Campanella Citation2011; Jacobs Citation1961; Lees Citation2000; Longstreth Citation2006; Putnam Citation1995).
2. Text written in the languages of different First Nation peoples, including the Wendat, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and Anishinaabe (Ojibway), appears in various areas of the city. When participants focus on the text, they are able to hear those languages spoken out loud, connecting to Toronto’s early inhabitants as a result.
3. Additional research cites the efficacy of experiential futures in enabling participants to “step out of their current institutional paradigm, consider alternative possibilities and identify actions required to achieve the desirable ones” (Silver Citation2022).
4. As many researchers have noted, increasingly uncertain urban conditions are making scenario planning a more essential planning approach. Goodspeed states the issue directly in his Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions (Citation2020), writing that traditional planning’s general tendency to extend current trends and practices into strategies for future development create growing degrees of vulnerability, including “homes flooded because they were built in areas thought to be safe from storms, public funds wasted on infrastructure to accommodate growth that never materializes, or a mismatch between the types of housing units available and what people prefer” (pp. 24–25).
5. As Sheppard et al (Citation2011) states, “(t)here is an urgent need for meaningful information and effective public processes at the local level to build awareness, capacity, and agency on climate change, and support planning and decision-making … . ;(that) collaboratively localize, spatialize, and visualize possible climate change effects and community responses in the community’s ‘backyards’.”
6. As Sandercock (Citation2010) has insisted, much of urban planning practice, scenario-based approaches included, disenfranchises and excludes urban residents by focusing on unengaging plans and difficult-to-decipher reports. Such methods often solidify the need for technical expertise in planning, rather than widening the breadth of stakeholders who are valued and empowered in city-making work. With scenario planning’s enduring emphasis on technocratic approaches (Schmidt-Scheele Citation2020; Burt, Mackay, and Mendibil, 2021), it has been found to perpetuate systemic inequities (Einstein, Glick, and Palmer Citation2019; Sideri Citation2011s Citation2021). Given these trends, the field could potentially benefit from the enhanced tools for embodied participation that experiential futures provides.
7. As Cinderby et al (Citation2021) state, “(m)ethods that help frame problems, incorporate diverse knowledge, and equitably identify goals for change are critical needs in transformative processes. CMs (Creative Methods) activate rich thinking by creating liminal spaces where people are free to express themselves. This encourages experimentation, leading to new ideas (Lam et al. Citation2018; Pereira et al. Citation2018). CMs facilitate the effective communication of concerns whilst also revealing community strengths or assets (Abson et al. Citation2017; Galafassi et al. Citation2018; Wang et al. Citation2017).”
8. With the overarching goal of exploring how experiential translations of potential scenarios can encourage participants to engage with possible trajectories of long-term change, the wider geographical range allows for a slightly broader evaluation of challenges and opportunities in implementing experiential futures tactics (Candy Citation2010; Candy and Dunagan Citation2017; Candy and Kornet Citation2019; Chakraborty and McMillan Citation2015; Chermack and Coons Citation2015; Merrie et al Citation2018; Malinga et al. Citation2013; Schoemaker Citation1991; van der Heijden Citation1996).
9. The Future Energy Lab was one of four labs the UAE created in the mid 2010s to influence long-term national policy. One explored the future of aviation, another the future of blockchain. The Future Energy Lab explored the country’s energy future. It was set up in collaboration with DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority), to develop future research and insights into the energy sector, which is a key pillar for building a sustainable future in the UAE and the world (Weatherby, Eyler, and Burchill Citation2019).
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