Scenario Planning and Visualization at Large (i.e. Regional/Metropolitan) Scales
Desire to use tools like CommunityViz, SketchUp, etc., but at a larger scale.
In SE Maine, looking to do something with CommunityViz - have done build out analysis, but want more scenario analysis.
Montpelier did scenarios in CV, mainly for visualization, not analysis.
Need to have a point layer for existing structures in order for them to be visualized and use that as a starting point for future growth allocation.
CV has pre-modeled impact calculations for various indicators.
No limit on size of area, as long as you've got the time to let it do data crunching.
Do you have to buy CV or can you just temporarily lease access to it and server space?
No, but it's relatively inexpensive now, and pretty intuitive to use.
Another tool called “What If” from University of Ohio.
Rehoboth Beach Delaware has hired a GIS person just to immerse himself or herself in CV so they can start working on it.
There's a small but growing community of people doing CV that you can hire to come in and do things.
Can CV map demographic trends and movement of particular groups? Yes, using census data.
What about political will to do some of this stuff at the regional level? Local politicians may not be happy about this kind of build-out analysis at the regional level.
It worked okay in Maine, but was just used as an informational tool.
Burlington ended up just having to do local scale build out analysis rather than regional for political reasons.
People get scared that you're going to infringe upon their local land use control.
Different to just show projected development under current zoning than to start playing around with shifting the growth.
People don't realize the full implications of future growth.
Visualization tools are not always as useful as people think they are going to be. There needs to be truth in visualization, too - when the model looks so real, people tend to trust more that that's exactly what is going to come about.
Perhaps you have to be careful to use the visualization tools to put the question back to the public. When the responsibility is put back to the community to say what it is that they want, the visualization can just be a tool for that dialog. It helps if the person coming in to show the visualization/scenarios doesn't live there - he/she can say, “it's your problem, I don't have a stake in it.”
You need to be able to cover all of the different interests in the scenario process so they each have their own thing.
Scenario development should be values-based.
RealityCheck (ULI) and dot-map exercises.