IEA Graz workshop 2014

13, 14 October 2014

Drama or history?

Stories in urban planning

Barry Goodchild

Sheffield Hallam University

Introduction (1)• Urban planning is a distinctive type of multi-criteria policy

making activity that co-ordinates a variety of different sectors

within a defined area and that, in relation to its environmental

criteria (and these are not the only relevant criteria) covers

issues of resilience and risk avoidance, environmental

protection as well as energy reduction.

• International reviews of environmental transitions either say

little or nothing either about urban planning or other closely

related forms of planning or they complain about the tendency

of governments to ignore the potential role of planning as a

co-ordinating mechanism. (Aix et al 2010: BMVBS 2010:

Roggema 2010, 57) Environmental transitions operates

through a multiplicity of different themes and policy fields of

which planning is only one and commonly only a minor

element.

Introduction (2)• Planning does count, however, if only because it deals with

the future shape of towns and cities. In addition, because

urban planning deals with local issues, it has the potential to

act as an educational device showing the implications of

climate change and sustainable development for a

community.

• There is an interesting example of this. Soka klima is a Berlin-

based educational charity (http://www.soko-klima.de/#) that

tours German towns getting the school kids to imagine the

implications of climate change through plan making exercises.

• Planning is also of value because it provides a mature and

relatively clear account of both the methods of story telling

and, given the acceptance of broad environmental aims, the

contents of those stories. Here I will focus on the methods.

Story telling and planning?• ‘Story telling’ is the construction of a desirable future based on

a narrative of past events, with a plot that expresses some

causal relationship.

- central to social and personal identity, as for example in

enabling a person to understand how they have come to Iive

in a specific place and what this place means both to the self

and others (Goodchild et al 2014).

- equally, stories can be constructed to represent the fate of a

collectivity, a neighbourhood, town or city, for the future as

well as the past.

• In this latter sense, narrative construction is central to urban

planning. Planning is about learning. Story telling is a means

of dramatising and communicating the learning process.

Planning and story telling therefore go together (Forester

1996).

Persuasive story telling• Planning is not just about story telling, however. It is about

‘persuasive story telling’, understood as ‘the preparation of

texts (plans, analyses, articles) that reflect awareness of

differing or opposing views and that can be read and

interpreted in diverse and often antagonistic ways.’

Throgmorton (1992, 18)

• The strength of story telling is that the narrative itself has a

stronger logic and is likely to remain in the memory longer

than any constituent detail (Bruner 1991). Narratives gain

their strength from their plausibility, rather than their

explanatory power. Nevertheless, they are commonly labelled

as true or false and may draw on science or social science.

Story telling as a model of and for practice

• Story telling is implicit in the presentation of almost any

planning proposal or policy analysis or plan. There is a

distinction, however, between story telling as a model of and a

model for planning and policy making (Van Hulst 2012).

• The former, planning as a model of is about the discourses

and dialogues undertaken amongst planning professionals or

researchers or other policy specialists. The latter, story telling

for is about using stories to improve policy and practice and in

addition about communicating to the public.

• Story telling for planning and for the public is a skill and

almost certainly a rare skill. Planners and others involved in

policy making working in a public bureaucracy or a

consultancy seldom think of their work as story telling, even if

their discussions repeatedly use stories to make a point..

Criteria for story telling (1)• Story telling for planning and for policy making involves the

identification of criteria of ‘good’ stories. Throgmorton (ibid 19)

suggests, for example, that planning should learn from films,

plays and novels and should, as a result, the follow a series of

simple rules:

• ‘build conflict, crisis and resolution into their narratives,

‘build characters into the narrative, characters who are interesting and

believable, and whom readers … care about.

‘place the action in its rightful context. That means acknowledging the

settings in which those characters come into conflict.

‘adopt an appropriate point of view. To do so they (the authors) have to ask,

both for themselves and their characters, who is standing where to watch

the scene? Who is speaking? To whom? In what form?

‘use the imagery and rhythm of the language to express a preferred attitude

toward the situation and its characters.

Criteria for story telling (2)• To give an example of the latter, van Hulst (2012) has shows

how the imagery of a ‘missing heart’ may be used to argue for

the regeneration of a town centre.

• Some additional criteria of a convincing story may be

identified.

1) Visual imagery and not just the imagery of language is

important- in catching the attention of an audience, illustrating

themes, offering solutions and heightening the emotional

impact of a story. Rational thinking and rational planning

works through words and numbers. If the author of a plan

wishes to appeal to the senses and to emotions, appropriate

visual images have to be included. O’Neill (2013) suggests

that visual imagery is limited in narratives of climate change

and that this is a weakness of these narratives.

Criteria for story telling (3)• Further, apparently extreme stories promising ambitious

achievements or warning against severe consequences are

less likely to be accepted as credible, according to public

opinion pollsters (1). Much better, if the narrative can be

presented as a learning story that provides a narrative of

ordinary people struggling with real problems, involving a

combination of technical and social analysis and commonly

open to ambiguous or multiple policy interpretations.

(1)

Presentation given by Matt Evans and Tim Silman (Ipsos

MORI) at at a Liverpool University Syposium ‘Keeping the

Flam Alive? Climate Change, the Media and the Public’ held

30 May 2014.

The limitations of drama• There are limits, however, to reducing story telling to a

formula. The subtlety of plots and the potential range and

complexity of situations is too great. Further, the integration of

quantitative information into the story does not necessarily

make for a good read or a good drama, even if necessary for

the sake of completeness and justification.

• Above all, the reference to good reads, drama and novels

goes too far in the direction of a subjective approach to the

production of knowledge, without the use of any tests of the

truth of validity of one account in relation to the accounts of

other people or to material that can be independently varied

outside the scope of the work itself.

• To take, for example, the statements made by the various

characters: where do the characters come from? Should the

statements of one character take priority over others?

Story telling as history (1)• History and in particular historiography, the study of history,

provide an alternative to novels and films as a means of

assessing and developing stories, (Alvesson and Sköldberg

2008, 107-115).

• The parallels are not exact. Historians argue between

themselves whether history can and should provide lessons.

One noted historian, Elton ([1991] 2004, 22) suggests that the

study of history is ‘to free minds from the bondages that the

makers of laws are forever trying to impose upon us’ and that

this necessarily means breaking from views of history as

providing lessons.

• In many ways, however, the parallels between planning

narratives and historical narratives are at least as close as

those between narratives in planning and policy making and

drama.

Story telling as history (2)• History commonly involves the completion and synthesis of

different viewpoints and different stories into an account that

unfolds over time and that, doing so, recognises the existence

of specific events and tendencies, including statistical data in

social and economic histories.

• History involves therefore a mixture of subjective and

objective information, including the consequences, if any of an

event. Unlike theories of planning as story telling, however,

the study of history raises a series of questions about method

and in particular about the social position and origins of the

source information.

Historiographical criteria (1)• Historiography raises questions, about the authenticity of

historical documents, for example whether they are forgeries.

Forgery is not relevant in the preparation of contemporary

stories about planning, spaces and places. The others in

contrast are completely relevant. For example

• (1) Is there any possible source of bias or exaggeration in

what is said?

To provide a specific example, newspapers offer a forum for

public discussion and given the serial character of publication

they also offer a means of monitoring trends in policy

controversies over time. The contents of newspapers are

largely dependent on editorial choices, however and on the

assumed interests of the readership.

Historiographical criteria (2)• (2) Does the informant or the source reveal a voice that is

otherwise seldom heard?

The most excluded social groups often fail to have their voice

adequately represented owing to lack of knowledge, poor

English language skills or other factors.

• (3) How close is the source to the relevant problem or action?

Is the interpretation given by one informant supported by

others or by other evidence?

To provide a simple example, a policy to combat climate

change might benefit from references to flooding. Those

references would, in turn, benefit from the testimony of those

directly affected, showing the social and economic impact.

However, the testimony would amount to no more than an

anecdote in the absence of statistics showing the changing

incidence of flooding over time.

Historiographical criteria (3)• (4) Can the stories presented by informants be influenced by

other, previously elaborated stories?

Informants do not necessarily come up with something totally

new; rather, they comment, build or elaborate on the stories

that are already circulating in either local communities or the

media (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2008, 115, van Hulst 2012).

Stories that reflect personal experience and avoid media

clichés merit the most consideration.

• Once these questions are answered, a coherent story can be

prepared, based on the views of the informants, other

evidence and their analysis. There is much to be gained,

however, from using the lessons of story telling as drama as

well as history. In addition, to have impact, visual images must

be used.

ReferencesAlvesson M. and Sköldberg K. (2008) Reflexive Methodology, London, Sage.

Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The narrative construction of reality’ Critical inquiry, 18:1 1-21.

Elton, G. (2004) ‘Return to Essentials’ in Jenkins, K. and Mumslow, A. (eds.) The Nature of History Reader, Routledge,

London, 21-23)

Forester, J. (1996) ‘Learning from practice stories: The priority of practical judgment’ in Campbell, S. and Fainstein, S.S

(eds),. Readings in Planning Theory, 2nd Edition, Oxford. Blackwell (First edition), 507-28

Goodchild, B., O’Flaherty and Ambrose, A. (2014) ‘Inside the eco-home: using video to understand the implications of

innovative housing’ Housing, Theory and Society (advance on-line)

O’Neill, S. J. (2013). ‘Image matters: Climate change imagery in US, UK and Australian newspapers’ Geoforum, 49, 10-

19.

Throgmorton, J.A. (1992) ‘Planning as persuasive storytelling about the future: Negotiating an electric power rate

settlement in Illinois’, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 12:1, 17–31.

van Hulst, M. (2012) ‘Storytelling, a model of and a model for planning’ Planning Theory 11:3 299–318