As time goes by, planning decisions are becoming more and more complex and controversial due to competing economic interests, different cultural values, and divergent views about property rights and the role of government.
In the midst of increasing complexity and uncertainty, city planners, public officials, and community residents are seeking tools in order to prepare for the future, be proactive about challenges to expanding their use, and employ the potential for open access to the planning process.
Luckily, there is a resource out there devoted solely to what is necessary for strategic decision making: scenario planning tools. The website
ScenarioPlanningTools.org will aid citizens, planners, and decision makers in finding the best technology to achieve the civic engagement needed to ensure community support for decisions about development, land-related policies, and public investments.
So how did the idea come about? Why devote a website to these tools? The site is driven by research from the
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, an organization devoted to key issues concerning the use, regulation, and taxation of land. Their policy focus report entitled, “
Opening Access to Scenario Planning Tools,” explains how the traditional predict-and-plan paradigm is now inadequate to address today’s challenges.
The authors identify a need to develop and implement planning tools and processes that foster anticipation and adaptation. To begin, the researchers reviewed existing research and experiences with scenario planning and documented the results of a series of workshops and conversations convened by the Lincoln Institute and the
Sonoran Institute in 2010 and 2011. Participants included professional and citizen planners who practice scenario planning, academics researching scenario planning, and experts who develop tools to support scenario planning.
The policy focus report offers recommendations such as development of an online platform to facilitate collaboration, capacity building, and open source activities among scenario tool developers, urban planners, and other tools users. In essence, ScenarioPlanningTools.org is the online companion to this report. The website includes news updates from the ongoing efforts around scenario planning tools, with emphasis on a variety of visioning, land use, transportation, and other planning efforts -- plus links to resources and participating organizations.
Due to the emergence of new and improved scenario planning tools over the last 10 years, the supporting organizations of the site believe that the use of scenario planning can increase and that the goal of providing open access to the full potential of scenario planning tools is certainly within reach.