Agenda

In 2008, California’s landmark S.B. 375 legislation made regional scenario planning an integral part of meeting the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals through the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS). Though scenario planning for climate resilience benefits from a range of diverse perspectives, it is inherently complex—and, as a result, planners often neglect community-based partners and residents in their conversations on key priorities and actions. This session will focus on outreach strategies that incorporate broader community and stakeholder involvement into climate-focused scenario planning processes and on how to maintain those relationships once built. Institutionalizing such community-based partnerships in planning processes will result in community priorities being more integrated into regional scenario planning for climate resilience.

Using the SocialHour platform, attendees will share updates about their work. Come prepared to share and exchange ideas with other attendees!

Across the country, communities of varying sizes and locales use scenarios to inform their planning work. In Montgomery County, Maryland, planning staff used a regional travel demand model to develop and evaluate alternative futures to understand how external factors could impact the county’s transportation outcomes. Transportation planning representatives will share how the resulting policy recommendations could help the county achieve its transportation vision in these alternative futures scenarios. In California, the Plan Bay Area 2050 exploratory scenario exercise showcases the potential of airing economic real option theory with exploratory scenario planning to provide innovative concepts and tools for the qualitative identification and quantitative valuation of adaptive strategies in changing conditions.

Hear from two metropolitan-area councils about their experiences planning for greenhouse
gas reductions. In the Twin Cities, the Metropolitan Council’s new Greenhouse Gas Scenario Planning Tool aims to enable strategic and efficient greenhouse gas reductions in the region’s cities with an interactive, online platform from which local governments can choose a portfolio
of strategies, understand their impacts over the next decades, and learn how to implement them. From Boston, Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council will share their experiences with another Community Greenhouse Gas Inventory Tool and offer step-by-step guide to inform your own practice.

Natural and Working Lands (NWLs)—like open space, parks, and farmland—are linked directly
to the health of our climate and communities. How can protecting them allow cities and regions to meet their climate goals while still achieving their goals for transportation, housing, and economic development? Using examples from work with the City of San Jose and Merced County, California, this session will ask what scenarios can do to test the impact of urban growth patterns and measure the varying impacts of NWL stewardship and conservation, as well as how findings may direct future climate action.

Using the networking platform Social Hour, each virtual table at this “lunch” will have a planning- related topic to discuss. Attendees are encouraged to move between tables of interest.

In 2020, the Lincoln Institute commissioned six studies that examined different aspects of integrating equity into scenario planning and of scenario planning for low- or no-growth regions. The authors of these studies presented their interim findings at the 2021 Consortium for Scenario Planning Conference—and this presentation will explore the final products, including key takeaways from the effort as a whole and where you can find relevant scenario planning resources.