REGIONAL PLANNING GAMIFICATION: A GAME-BASED APPROACH FOR ACTIVATING REGIONAL PLANNING STRATEGIES

A GAME-BASED APPROACH FOR ACTIVATING REGIONAL PLANNING STRATEGIES

Abstract

While gamification has already been a topic of discussion for years (Scholles, 2005, p.326-333), the reality of planning does look different. In the presented work, issues of the formal regional planning in Germany are depicted in general and specific on the Stuttgart region. Well-known as the key economic region in Baden-Württemberg and southern Germany with global players such as Daimler, Porsche and Bosch in economically performing sectors like engineering, automotive industries and business services, even Stuttgart faces several challenges, which broadly can be subsumed as growth related pain. In the regions characterised by growth pains, actors in regional development, citizens and political decision-makers from various municipalities are confronted with one another in multiple constellations along with their positions and motivations. As an overall spatial planning concept, the regional plan has to take integrated account of the functional interrelations of the region and mediate between competing uses while it is often met with incomprehension, reluctance or even headwind, corresponding with negative consequences for the acceptance and appreciation of the plan. The current procedures, concepts and planning instruments of formal regional planning to ensure sustainable settlement development seem to have reached their limits. They need to be supplemented by persuasive instruments, among others, in order to convincingly convey the concepts in political decision-making processes (Stiewing, Mangels and Grotheer, 2020, p.1)

One persuasive, game-based approach for the above-mentioned issues with a focus on mediation, consultation and integration into political decision-making processes has been developed within the framework of a student project by students of the master's program in urban and regional development at the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern and will be presented in this paper. It addresses both citizens and political decision makers of the municipalities at the interface of regional planning and offers a possibility to present regionally relevant but locally rather intangible matters in a comprehensible way in order to stimulate an awareness-raising process. At the same time, this paper shows in which fields of practice the designed card-game can be used.