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

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.