Storytelling of and for Planning Urban Planning through Participatory Narrative-building

Participatory planning and design became a crucial element of urban practice. Yet, many different types exist, ranging from linear to multi-dimensional, or from informing-only to citizen-led practices. This paper explores the less conventional approach of storytelling as a planning methodology. The work builds upon storytelling workshops which are carried out as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 funded +CityxChange project, which develops positive energy blocks in seven European cities with a key element on citizen involvement. Further, the paper builds upon the work of Anderson, Davidson, Devos, Gambarato, Sinek, and most importantly, Throgmorton and Van Hulst. Storytelling is the oldest form of communication and was used long before written or visual communication. It is the primary form of historical information being transferred from generation to generation. Despite the multiplicity of media forms today, it still has a crucial role in communicating messages in a variety of fields – ranging from marketing to entertainment and policymaking, among many others. While it has existed for millennia, it was extensively conceptualised over the last decades and is nowadays applied in a more structured form with a variety of underlying research. In principal a “story consists of a collection or body of stories about characters joined in some common problem as fixers (heroes), causes (villains) or harmed (victims) in a temporal trajectory (plot), leading towards resolution within a particular setting or context. It is constituted by the plot, character, and moral of the story. The anticipated goal of a story depends on who is telling and listens to the story, as well as where, why and when it takes place and is perceived. Stories are used across various fields, mostly with the goal to build a narrative which conveys a certain message or builds a common vision. A story starts usually in the past and expands into the future, evolving into a shared goal, justification, or vision for the audience; therefore, generating support for the process and justifying the ways it is implemented and what it results in or what the direct implications and consequences are. Two types of storytelling can be identified: Linear knowledge transfer processes and cyclical processes of knowledge mobilisation. The first describes a linear process from producers to users (storytelling of planning), while the latter focuses on reciprocal exchange to foster co-creation to generate and collect information through the narratives from the community (storytelling as planning). The collective development of narratives through stories can strengthen the communal agency of the citizen while it can be used to improve the perspectives of other stakeholder groups better by collaboratively or independently creating fictitious narratives and stories. This can on highlight potential mismatches between expectation and reality of the needs of the community, while also helping to gain additional insights by choosing a different perspective before advancing to other citizen engagement elements in the planning process. In the project +CityxChange, storytelling is seen as one of the methods and tools for enabling Open Innovation 2.0 inside the project, in exchange with other projects, and in collaboration with, e.g., prospective cities to replicate developed solutions. The paper is structured into the objective behind storytelling in the context of urban planning and the project in particular, its theoretical background, defining the meaning and importance of storytelling in the broader context of urban planning as well as experiences from other fields. This is followed by the scope of storytelling in the +CityxChange project and the objective, approach and outcomes of the storytelling workshops, leading towards a replicable approach to apply storytelling in the planning process.