Over the last couple of years, I’ve presented about my book, Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions: Managing and Envisioning Uncertain Futures many times. While preparing a presentation for the Inter-American Development Bank’s Regional Policy Dialog, I began to reflect on what obstacles face practitioners seeking to introduce scenario planning in their local contexts. As […]
New Publication: “Scenario Planning for Slow-Growing Regions”
Many urban regions outside of booming metros experience “sprawl without growth” — where the urban core loses population and new sprawl development is added at the fringe even as the overall regional population remains stable (or even declines). Thus far the planning field didn’t have a great way to model scenarios for this situation. Together […]
Scenario Planning vs. Economic Theory
I used to think I had a handle on the basic theoretical debates between mainstream (or neoclassical) economics and urban planning institutions and practices, but a recent book opened my eyes to the realization that scenario planning’s focus on non-quantitative uncertainty is yet another area where planning conflicts with ideas from economics. Although my research […]
Questions People Ask About Scenario Planning for Cities
Last fall I spoke to a number of groups about scenario planning and my book, Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions: Managing and Envisioning Uncertain Futures. Here are some of the questions that frequently cropped up. 1. What tool should I use? The simple answer to this question is, any one! Since scenario planning refers […]
Top 5 Urban Scenario Planning Mistakes
My forthcoming book, Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions, describes the diverse ways that scenario planning methods are used by urban planners. In general I try to take an inclusive approach and discuss a wide variety of projects that use scenarios, since planning is diverse and therefore different settings call for different methods. However, I […]
An Overview of ‘Scenario Planning for Cities and Regions’
I’ve mentioned that my new book is forthcoming soon–sometime in March–but I haven’t said much about what it contains. Now that I have completed my review of the proofs, I thought I would share an informal summary of its contents. The book contains 11 chapters organized into four parts. Part 1, “Foundations,” provides the basic […]
New Library of Materials for Teaching Scenario Planning
For several years I have been a member of the Open Planning Tools Group, an innovative group of practitioners and scholars interested in scenario planning and the development and use of new planning tools. After many discussions, the group decided to take some more concrete steps to create resources for planning educators. I decided to volunteer […]