Effectiveness of a Participatory Visioning Method for Area Development through a Citizen-Initiated Urban Planning Game

A Case Study of Area Development Practices in the Fukae District, Kobe City

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of initiatives aimed at collaboratively envisioning the future of an area through multi-stakeholder collaboration and planning through a back casting approach to achieve those visions. However, methods for overcoming differences in perspectives and levels of understanding regarding projects among citizens, local governments, and other stakeholders, while fostering citizens' creative initiatives and grounding visions in the lifestyles they aspire to achieve, remain insufficiently established. In this study, the process of a citizen workshop in the Fukae district of Kobe City using a city planning game "Tsumugu, Vision, Match -imagine the future vision ! " was analyzed, and 1) the actual state of citizens' future images of the city and 2) the potential for ideas linking future images with spatial changes in the district through the combination of future images and walking tours were clarified.