Reality Check

Summary

This community visioning exercise that uses regional maps and Legos to supplement to discussions of planning and growth issues. Lego blocks may represent jobs, housing units, people, or other attributes to help people devise a vision for the future.

Tool Description

Reality Check events bring citizens together in a workshop format to consider scenarios for growth and to define a vision for a community or region.  While not specifically focused on identifying elements of community character, Reality Check events focus on adding value and identifying strategies for protecting the most important elements of the community.  Participants use Legos and regional maps to consider alternatives, allocate growth and resources, and devise a vision.

Citizens attending a Reality Check event sit at tables in groups of about 10 people and are guided through a discussion of planning and growth issues.  Participants then use Legos to allocate growth, new jobs and residents, and other attributes in future visions of the community (each Lego represents a certain number of jobs, housing units, people, or other attribute).  After the workshop, organizers create a report that analyzes and collates results from each group.  The report includes tools, recommendations, indicators, trends, and visions for the region.

Reality Check was designed and run by the Urban Land Institute. The last workshops run by ULI (according to their website) were completed in 2009.

Associated Costs
  • Additional Supplies
  • Facilitation

Strengths

  • Reality Check is a fun, interactive way for people to get a sense of the region and an understanding of policy tradeoffs.
  • The process is a relatively quick way of gaining feedback from a large number of people.
  • Reality Check can be set up to evaluate scenarios and identify important elements for nearly any aspect of community planning.

Limitations

  • Reality Check works best in regional settings or larger communities.
  • Reality Check requires citizens to come to a meeting and devote a block of time to the planning process.
  • This event is more easily applicable to scenario development and evaluation than it is for visioning and the discovery of community character.
Submitted By: svannostrand
Last Updated: August 8, 2012, 12:44 pm

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