Opening Access to Scenario Planning Tools - Knight Foundation ...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
issues that society will face over the next 50
years (Milly et al. 2008; National Research
Council 2010). In response, a new model
of anticipatory governance in planning
practice considers a range of possible futures,
prepares strategies to respond to one or
more of these futures, and then adapts to
those changes as the future unfolds over
time (Quay 2010).
The concept of anticipatory governance
entails three basic steps:
1. Use foresight and futures analysis:
Foresight is the act of looking forward to
what is possible. Though we cannot predict
the future, we can anticipate a wide
range of potential future conditions. Different
scenarios can be based on expert
opinion or developed using models that
estimate future conditions across a range
of values for one or more factors. These
are not normative scenarios to be compared
or valued individually; rather they
are used in aggregate to explore the
sensitivity or risk of various factors (e. g.,
population, economy, climate) and their
range of impacts. Such analysis clarifies
uncertainty by helping planners identify
and focus on the most important aspects
of future possibilities.
2. Anticipate adaptation: Using the
futures analysis, potential actions to
adapt to particular futures are identified.
These actions may be important to preserve
future options or respond to specific
potential changes. Such actions may be
flexible, allowing incremental implementation,
or they may be robust, working
well across a large number of possible
futures.
3. Monitor and adapt: On a regular
basis the factors related to the anticipated
futures are monitored to identify changes
and the need to respond. As different scenarios
become more or less likely, actions
anticipated for them can be implemented
or abandoned as appropriate. Given the
long time frame for issues such as regional
growth and climate change, planning and
monitoring time frames can span many
decades. Thus educating future decision
makers and institutionalizing these
concepts is critical.
Most applications of anticipatory governance
have occurred in fields tangential to
community and regional planning, such as
water resource planning, open space conservation,
and climate change adaptation.
An exception is its use in Urban Land Institute
(ULI) Reality Check regional visioning
projects in Maryland, Arizona, North Texas,
and the Puget Sound area. These tactile
exercises use LEGO ® bricks to allocate future
growth on a game board map. Increasingly,
these activities are tied to GIS analysis
capabilities to generate multiple stakeholder
scenarios (foresight) and scenario analysis
methods to create robust regional planning
strategies (anticipation).
Vision North Texas,
Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas
Vision North Texas (VNT) is a grassroots regional
visioning effort organized in 2005 as a publicprivate-academic
partnership among North Central
Texas Council of Governments, the North Texas
District Council of ULI, and the University of
Texas at Arlington. The intent of this effort is to
move the region away from a business-as-usual
model and toward a more sustainable future. VNT
conducted dozens of development principle exercises
using LEGO ® bricks in different parts of the
region, resulting in an ensemble of future urban
form scenarios. Analysis revealed a range of perspectives
toward the region’s future urban form, yet
there was consensus about the need for alternatives
to inefficient and unsustainable suburban sprawl.
Rather than selecting a single regional vision,
VNT crafted four mutually inclusive visions (connected
centers, return on investment, diverse distinct
16 policy focus report Lincoln Institute of Land Policy