Presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, 2011.

1. The Regional Image:
Interpreting the Visual
Products of Regional
Planning
Alissa Barber Torres,
Ph.D., AICP
Association of Collegiate Schools of
Planning Conference
October 15, 2011

2. Approach
• Studied “How Shall We Grow?” 2050 regional
land use scenario (“The 4C’s”)
• Includes seven Central Florida counties (93
local governments)
• Implementation through decades of local
stakeholder decisions and interpretations
Can that be done effectively?

3. “The 4C’s” Scenario
Source: http://www.myregion.org/RegionalVision/VisionMaps/tabid/204/Default.aspx

4. Visual documentation Visual instructions
Visual persuasion
Visual
intervention
Scenarios as
Textual
“instructions” to create
persuasion
a future place
(“storytelling”)

5. Approach
• Dissertation considers scenarios as technical
and persuasive communication
• Five one-hour interviews and two focus groups
with planners (N=14)
• Qualitative “data slice” providing insights for
further research
• Other scenarios may not have same
characteristics and outcomes

6. Approach
• Included comparison to Harris Interactive
Community Values Survey
• Values: growth management, neighborhoods,
nature, schools, transportation
• Also used rhetorical analysis (Healey 2007)
designed for regional scale
• Assessment context of “imageability”--
elements that create “identity and structure in
the mental image” (Lynch, 1950, p. 9)

7. Approach
“What space is being referred to? How is it positioned
in relation to other spaces and places? What are its
connectivities and how are these produced? How is it
bounded and what are its scales? What are its ‘front’
and ‘back’ regions? What are its key descriptive
concepts, categories, and measures? How is the
connection between past, present, and future
established? Whose viewpoint and whose perceived
and lived space is being privileged?”
(Healey, 2007, p. 209-210).

8. Research Findings
• “The 4C’s” scenario not functioning well as
technical communication
• Two community values not seen in scenario at all
• Needs clarification the meaning of design/visual
elements
• Would benefit from more detailed textual
support within scenario’s “real estate”
• Can’t rely on shared mental context among
planners about the regional place depicted

9. Research Findings
Assessment of Scenario Legend
White dotted lines are confusing and not on the legend.
Doesn’t give accurate description of where people will live based on sprawl and
quarter-acre lots. What is defined as undeveloped? No definition in the legend.
Also need definition of conservation—would it include conservation
subdivisions?
Bothers me that vacant and conservation are different—not clear—where would we
build after 2050?
Legend doesn’t describe nonresidential that is in mix. Existing conservation looks
forested, not wetland.
Why are development areas both hatched and not hatched?
Color palettes usually are specific to planning—dark to light for density/intensity,
and this doesn’t do that.
Source: Focus Groups and Interviews.

10. Research Findings
Assessment of Scenario Place Icons
Growth or population.
Consider to be growth centers to focus densities and intensities.
Shows current location of employment and residential centers in region and what
growth projections are. How and where future growth will take place.
Misleading where height of colored boxes suggests building height, but is actually
population.
Not clear the size of column equals people—may be with clusters—nominal, but
ordinal and interval here—no way of determining.
Thought it was transportation icons.
Pink boxes say 100,000 population or more, but doesn’t tell why four are
together.

11. Research Findings
Assessment of Scenario Lines (Transportation)
I don’t know, I have no idea [after referring to legend]—connection corridors.
Swooshes are connections.
Economic regions that have partnerships with each other.
Transportation and connectivity between places. The map represents
multimodal nature of the region and the connection of centers.
Nominal levels shows where going, but not volume.
Doesn’t suggest surface travel, as goes top of box to top of box [place icon].
Roads and railroads—look like we’re flying, as don’t connect on ground.
Multimodal connections and the short pink block are confusing.
Source: Focus Groups and Interviews.

12. Research Findings
• Planners’ interpretations vary, often by their
own specializations or value systems
• No planner identified two of the five
community values within the scenario
• Many challenges to defining a region in this
setting among planners, even individually
• Regional sense of place or narrative not
present or emerging

13. Research Findings
• Need detailed content to support intrepretation,
using text and clear visual/spatial logic
• Kostelnick and Hassett warn visual conventions
fleeting and often based in particular moment in
time (2003, p. 190)
• Planning community may not sustain conventions
needed to interpret the scenario over intended
life (2050)
• Implications for realizing community values and the
desired “future place “

14. Research and Practice
• Need testing with larger samples
• User-centered design approaches specific to tasks
(“think aloud” protocol)
• Observe planners in workplaces (ex. Healey, Carp)
interpreting and comparing to local plans
• Comparison of U.S. visioning scenarios’ visual
conventions as a visual meta-analysis

15. Research and Practice
• Testing with prior dialogue and consensus about
regional context
• Review of scenarios with better regional contexts
(ex. Portland, the Buffalo Commons )
• “Storymapping” regional narratives online
• Use of digital media, like Krieger’s “Urban
Tomography,” for participatory image-making
• Create region in gaming/virtual environment or
Central Florida MST decision theater

16. References
Healey, P. (2007). Urban Complexity and
Spatial Strategies: Towards a Relational
Planning for Our Times. London and New
York: Routledge.
Kostelnick, C. and Hassett, M. (2003). Shaping
Information: the Rhetoric of Visual
Conventions. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Lynch, K. (1950). The Image of the City.
Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.