Invited presentation to East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, Orlando, FL, August 2011

1. The Regional Image: Interpreting the
Visual Products of Regional Planning
Presentation to East Central Florida Regional
Planning Council
August 5, 2011
Alissa Barber Torres, Ph.D., AICP

2. Source: http://www.myregion.org/RegionalVision/VisionMaps/tabid/204/Default.aspx

3. Approach
• Regional scenario planning growing national trend,
but with few published evaluations
• Envision Utah, Atlanta 2025, Reality Check done
across U.S., with varying methods and visual
language
• Work being published about regional scenario
development and regional planning
• Need for more study of visual practices and
technical communication

4. Approach
• Scenarios intended to be “instructions to the future”
• “The 4C’s” regional scenario relies on 93 local
governments to implement locally
• Hundreds of land use, transportation, and capital
investment decisions over decades
• Changing audiences over time
• What would be needed to implement it effectively?

5. Approach
How do scenarios help planners facilitate the regional
place envisioned by the regional community?
Do the scenarios express the community’s values
determined during the regional visioning project?
Is a regional sense of place or identity creating visual
contexts that affect interpretation of scenarios?
What alternatives to a 2D scenario image could better
communicate community intent and values?

6. Approach
• Five one-hour interviews with planners
• Two focus groups with planners
• Fourteen total participants interpreting the scenario
• Pre-test and post-test surveys
• “Data slice”—not generalizable, but gives insights
for future research
• No stratified sampling or related research
techniques—”first come, first served”
• Resource constraints

7. Approach
• Also included comparison to Harris Interactive
Community Values Survey
• Five identified community values: growth
management, neighborhoods, nature,
schools, transportation
• Rhetorical analysis (Healey 2007) designed for
regional analysis
• Approval by UCF IRB (IRB Number SBE-10-06785 )

8. Approach
• “Mixed methods” focus group and interview
compromise measurement
• Feedback obtained on the same inquiries and
combined
• Sample sizes too small to sort and extrapolate
responses based on method of participation
• Cannot conduct cross-tabular analysis of
responses based on participant characteristics
• More research in both settings with much larger
sample sizes would be needed to conclude about
effects

9. Approach
• Influenced by Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the
City
• How planners situate themselves within the
scenario
• How place and imageability are communicated
• “Imageability” as qualities in the physical
environment that create “identity and structure
in the mental image” (Lynch, 1950, p. 9)

10. Research Findings
• Participants found interpretation
challenging
• No clear consensus emerged
• Many practical questions arose about
scenario elements
• Only one participant interacted with other
text within scenario document
• Extreme variation in assumptions and
outcomes

11. Research Findings
• “The 4C’s” scenario likely not functioning as
technical communication of values
• Needs clarification of design elements
• Requires more established visual conventions
(field) or annotations (scenario)
• Would benefit from more detailed textual support
• Can’t rely on shared mental context among
planners about the regional place

12. Research Findings
Assessment of Scenario Landmarks
Orlando, Daytona, Eustis, Cocoa, Space Center, Melbourne.
Orlando airport, I4, Cape Canaveral, Polk County, Sanford Airport,
Turnpike, State Road 27.
Orlando, OIA, Orlando Sanford Airport, Sanford, Altamonte Sprints,
Oviedo, Winter Springs, University of Central Florida.
Downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Winter Park, Maitland, Lake
Mary, Sanford, Heathrow, Titusville.
Lake Apopka, the extent of the urbanized area.
Orlando is the series of pink blocks.
East bound is Space Coast, Port Canaveral.
I orient by roads, but can’t tell Interstate 4, State Road 429, and the
Florida Turnpike.
Source: Focus Groups and Interviews.

13. Source: How Shall We Grow? website, myregion.org

14. Research Findings
Assessment of Scenario Legend
I think it’s clear, but have to know the area to know where you’re at.
Undeveloped—to me that would be unclear—could it be developed? Not conservation. Show
highways and railroads, but not transit—thought scenario values it.
No, not really—some of ideas and concepts are not practical, and some of the places that have
hamlets and villages aren’t appropriate—not all are feasible.
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 area—would it include conservation subdivisions?
Not clear. Compass is crooked—easier if straight north. Too much deference to coast.
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.
Which highways are proposed?
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.

16. Research Findings
Assessment of Scenario Place Icons
Growth or population.
Roads help orient, symbols like airports give landmarks, green stuff looks like preservation, boxes
are towns, bigger if more dense.
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.
Intensity.
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.
Each bar may represent a city.
Concentrations of development density and intensity.
Thought it was transportation icons.
Pink boxes say 100,000 population or more, but doesn’t tell why four are together.
Source: Focus Groups and Interviews.

17. 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.
Some degree of connection.
Connections.
Nominal levels shows where going, but not volume.
Doesn’t suggest surface travel, as goes top of box to top of box [place icon].
Transportation corridors.
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.

18. Research Findings
Community Value: The scenario and its
accompanying text tell me that growth needs to
be strictly managed and limited.
strongly agree 1
agree 2
disagree 8
strongly disagree 3
no opinion 0

19. Research Findings
Community Value: The scenario and its
accompanying text tell me that neighborhoods
are important and create safety and security.
strongly agree 0
agree 1
disagree 3
strongly disagree 10
no opinion 0

20. Research Findings
Community Value: The scenario and its
accompanying text tell me that nature should be
preserved and enjoyed by residents.
strongly agree 3
agree 6
disagree 3
strongly disagree 2
no opinion 0

21. Research Findings
Community Value: The scenario and its
accompanying text tell me that schools are the
cornerstone of good communities.
strongly agree 0
agree 1
disagree 2
strongly disagree 11
no opinion 0

22. Research Findings
Community Value: The scenario and its
accompanying text tell me that transportation
and public transit need to be developed or
improved.
strongly agree 0
agree 5
disagree 6
strongly disagree 3
no opinion 0

23. Research Findings
“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).

24. Source: How Shall We Grow?: A Shared Vision For Central Florida, Final Report, myregion.org

25. Research Findings
• Interviews found that the meanings they
interpret vary, often by their own
specializations or value systems
• Two of the five community values defined not
identified within the scenario by any reviewer
• Responses highlight the challenge of defining
a region--boundary concepts vary
• Regional sense of place does not appear to be
emerging

26. Research Findings
• Must formalize and articulate visual conventions
within planning
• Scenarios depend on text reinforcement and
communication over time for interpretations and
meaning within communities of practice
• Kostelnick and Hassett warn visual conventions
fleeting and can only be assessed at particular
moment in time (2003, p. 190)
• Local discourse community of planners may not
sustain conventions needed to interpret the scenario
over intended life (2050)

27. Further Research and Practice
“Planners face the almost impossible task of
representing the city or region in two-
dimensional space that can be visualized at a
single glance. Every map is a model, and every
model is a radical simplification—an
abstraction—of reality” (John Friedmann,
2008, p. 251).

28. Further Research and Practice
• Testing with larger samples
• User-centered design approaches specific to tasks
(“think aloud” protocol)
• Comparison of “The 4C’s” to original scenario
design with specific placemarks and different
style
• Testing with prior dialogue and consensus about
regional context

29. Further Research and Practice
• Observe planners in workplaces (ex. Healey, Carp,
Spinuzzi, and others)
• Note discourses, interpretations, comparisons to
local communities’ plans
• View interactions with other stakeholders,
such as property owners or developers
• Note rhetorical choices of planners within
regional visioning and interpretation
processes

30. Further Research and Practice
• Investigate more scenarios within practice,
especially with textual support
• Identify how scenarios are “branded” through
text, analogies, and naming to support the
visual conventions
• Compare U.S. visioning scenarios’ visual
conventions to do a visual meta-analysis
• Review scenarios supported by better regional
contexts (ex. Portland, Buffalo Commons )

31. Further Research and Practice
• Need in Central Florida for better articulation of
scenario conventions and values
• Important implications for land use, public
engagement, environmental planning
• Chance to showcase region’s digital media
capabilities
• Involve the public in community design at smaller
scales

32. Further Research and Practice
• Several options to extend and clarify “The 4C’s”
• Krieger’s “Urban Tomography” to build regional
context
• Potential tour in MST decision theater or gaming
environment (per original HSWG? Project)
• UCF Resources: Institute for Simulation and
Training (IST), School of Visual Art and Design,
others

33. Further Research and Practice
• Second Life, Freeman’s “Imaging Place”
• “Storymapping” or placemarking on website
(Intersect, OpenStreetMap, worldKit sites)
• Community iteration of scenario at local level
• Text annotation directly on scenario
Source:
http://institute.emerson.edu/vma/faculty/john_craig_freem
an/imaging_place/imaging-placeSL/

34. Further Research and Practice
Photo and scenario source:
http://www.orangecountyfl.net/YourLocalGovernment/County
Departments/GrowthManagement/
PlanningDivision/StateRoad436StateRoad50AreaRedevelopmen
t/tabid/882/Default.aspx

35. Source: Polk Growth Matters, Polk County Planning Department

36. Source: Polk Growth Matters, Polk County Planning Department

37. References
Friedmann, J. (2008). “The uses of planning theory: a bibliographic essay.”
Journal of Planning Education and Research 28 : p. 247-257.
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.

38. Source: Polk Growth Matters, Polk County Planning Department

39. The Regional Image: Interpreting the
Visual Products of Regional Planning
Presentation to East Central Florida Regional
Planning Council
August 5, 2011
Alissa Barber Torres, Ph.D., AICP