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Considering uncertain futures in shrinking regions: Inventing, reinventing, and responding to narratives through scenario planning
Walters, Emma Louise
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/113922
Description
- Title
- Considering uncertain futures in shrinking regions: Inventing, reinventing, and responding to narratives through scenario planning
- Author(s)
- Walters, Emma Louise
- Issue Date
- 2021-12-10
- Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
- Greenlee, Andrew J
- Committee Member(s)
- Chakraborty, Arnab
- Department of Study
- Urban & Regional Planning
- Discipline
- Urban Planning
- Degree Granting Institution
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Degree Name
- M.U.P.
- Degree Level
- Thesis
- Keyword(s)
- narratives
- shrinkage
- scenario planning
- Abstract
- Shrinking places experience a number of social, political, and economic barriers to engaging in future planning. Often, these barriers manifest through the form of narratives and stories which can inspire selective retelling and an inability to adequately address and prepare for uncertain futures. Narratives in shrinking regions tend to produce and reproduce themselves through the lens of the growth paradigm, ultimately leading to narratives that emplot experiences of shrinkage as “bad”. With the ‘entrepreneurial city’ or the ‘growing city’ as the dominant narrative attached to urbanism, cities experiencing shrinkage often reproduce narratives that push them towards growth-oriented planning responses. This thesis discusses the role of narratives in planning, narratives of shrinkage and how those narratives are produced and reproduced in shrinking places, and how scenario planning might create a process for reversing or challenging the reproduction of narratives and provide a platform for imaginative revision. Narratives of shrinkage are engaged through the analysis of planning documents and news stories from Peoria, Decatur and Danville using deductive coding. These documents and narratives perpetuate the growth paradigm through measures of success and planned strategies and highlight embedded feelings of defeatism and poor self-image. Scenario planning is discussed as a possible process to engage and transform these narratives while engaging future uncertainties, allowing communities to challenge growth-oriented ideas of success and prepare for the future with resiliency and robustness.
- Graduation Semester
- 2021-12
- Type of Resource
- Thesis
- Permalink
- http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113922
- Copyright and License Information
- Copyright 2021 Emma Walters
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