Introduction

Dramatic Storytelling in Planning

By: Moozhan Shakeri

"Planning is a form of persuasive storytelling, and planners are both authors who write texts (plans, analyses, articles) and characters whose forecasts, surveys, models, maps, and so on act as tropes … in their own and others’ persuasive stories." James A. Throgmorton

The 1990s marked a transformative decade in urban planning, as years of effort culminated in the emergence of then-compelling alternatives to the dominant rational planning model: storytelling and communicative rationality. By the late 1970s, it became clear to practitioners and scholars that purely scientific methods, large-scale modeling and forecasting, were not enough to create effective plans. Logical persuasion, top-down communication of facts and figures, and ‘educating’ the public on planning issues had also all failed in major regeneration programs of the 1950s.

Since then, storytelling has come to be widely recognized as an effective communication method in participatory and collaborative planning, helping communities imagine the future together and making complex data accessible to diverse stakeholders. But was storytelling just about communication?

Some core elements of the early work on storytelling and communication have been overshadowed by the appeal of participatory models; most notably the framing of strategic decision-making itself as an act of storytelling. When Throgmorton wrote about planning as persuasive storytelling in 1991, he was not just describing how planners communicate their ideas to other actors. Central to his idea was the assumption that making decisions, choosing one idea over another, selecting relevant information from irrelevant, and shaping the city’s unfolding events are by nature acts of storytelling.

What Throgmorton described as persuasive storytelling about the future was a dramatic narrative, one that invokes emotions, persuades the public to act, and reveals the emotions, characters, and values of the planners themselves. It meant to allow planners to weave the rational and emotional elements of their decision-making into one coherent, effective story.

"What constitute a good story? It invovles much more than merely listing a facts or ordering events chronogically insead a good storyteller mush use all the elements of the storyetlling craft to nararte the unfolding events over time in some particular location. The teller has to decide where to begin and end the tale, how to arrange and shape that is in plot the flow of events." - James A. Throgmorton

Drama & Facts

Throgmorton’s idea of persuasive storytelling, rich with drama and emotion, was, for many planners, too close to fiction and seen as undermining the profession’s commitment to evidence-based, factual planning. Planners failed to recognize that dramatic storytelling is not about fabricating stories. On the contrary, it’s about managing information, through timing, structure, perspective, and the careful choice of what to reveal and when. Its dismissal as non-factual reflects a fundamental misunderstanding, one Throgmorton warned about in the 1990s.

It has also prevented planners from fully leveraging new tools and technologies. As interest in storytelling tech grows, gaming, VR, and AR are explored in planning, but often remain flashy copies of traditional methods or one-way communication tools.

In 2010, Sandercock and Attili compiled a compelling collection on the use of multimedia in urban policy and planning in their book Multimedia Explorations in Urban Policy and Planning. They showed that despite multimedia tools’ potential for policymaking, the rich knowledge they generate is often treated as needing scientific scrutiny, reinterpretation, and analysis. In my study of games in urban planning, I observed a similar pattern, reducing games to simulation systems to ensure the ‘scientific validity’ of the data collected.

Chronotopes of Urban Change

Seal on the Beach revisits the idea of “planning as persuasive storytelling about the future” by exploring dramatic multimedia storytelling processes and technologies in theater. Theater uses various mediums, sound, light, the human body, and words, and incorporates spatial thinking. Its collaborative storytelling approach can offer valuable methodological and process inspiration for planning. Seal on the Beach will work with dramaturgs, set designers, storytellers, sound designers, and others involved in multimedia story creation to understand synergies for urban planning practice.

If you are interested in getting involved, or know someone who is, please contact us at hello@sealonthebeach.com