Case analysis reveals that intertwining empirical, narrative, and pragmatic validity bases strengthens futures knowledge in spatial planning, indicating actionable criteria should guide decisions.
The article introduces a theories of truth perspective to futures knowledge in spatial scenario planning. The theories advance existing typologies by making validity bases explicit: correspondence (empirical fit), coherence (narrative consistency) and pragmatic (usefulness). The theoretical analysis is illustrated with a scenario planning case, which studied the future of urban and regional structure of Finland and utilised different knowledge types integratively. The findings suggest that the constant intertwining of validity bases enhance the robustness of futures knowledge. The article recommends complementary use of knowledge types and proposes that pragmatic criteria – instrumentality and ability to generate planning action – should guide knowledge use.
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Airikkala et al. (2026) studied this question.
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