Multimedia Explorations in Urban Policy and Planning

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxxii

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2. ETHNOGRAPHY, EPISTEMOLOGY, HISTORY

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Film Works Wonders: Analysis, History and Town Plan United in a Single Representation

      • Leonardo Ciacci

      Pages 3-15

   3. From the Campfire to the Computer: An Epistemology of Multiplicity and the Story Turn in Planning

      • Leonie Sandercock

      Pages 17-37

   4. Beyond the Flatlands: Digital Ethnographies in the Planning Field

      • Giovanni Attili

      Pages 39-54

3. CONTEMPORARY PRACTICES

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-55

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   2. Mobilizing the Human Spirit: An Experiment in Film as Social Research, Community Engagement and Policy Dialogue

      • Leonie Sandercock

      Pages 57-83

   3. (Re)Presenting the Street: Video and Visual Culture in Planning

      • Elihu Rubin

      Pages 85-103

   4. Digital Media and the Politics of Disaster Recovery in New Orleans

      • Jacob A. Wagner

      Pages 105-128

   5. Social Justice and Video: Imagining as a Right in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

      • Jessica Hallenbeck

      Pages 129-149

   6. "The Beginning of Something": Using Video as a Tool in Community Engagement

      • Wendy Sarkissian

      Pages 151-165

   7. "La Campagna che si fa Metropoli": Film as Discovery

      • Leonardo Ciacci

      Pages 167-176

   8. Representations of an Unsettled City: Hypermedial Landscapes in Rome

      • Giovanni Attili

      Pages 177-207

   9. Seeing and Being Seen: The Potential of Multimedia as a Reflexive Planning Methodology

      • Penny Gurstein

      Pages 209-222

4. TEACHING WITH/THROUGH MULTIMEDIA IN PLANNING AND DESIGN

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 223-223

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   2. Participatory Design and Howard Roark: The Story of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center

      • Sheri Blake

      Pages 225-243

   3. Learning as an Aesthetic Experience: Digital Pedagogies in Planning Didactics

      • Lidia Decandia

      Pages 245-263

   4. Cinema and the "City of the Mind": Using Motion Pictures to Explore Human-Environment Transactions in Planning Education

      • Michael Dudley

      Pages 265-286

   5. Stinging Real! Four Essays on the Transformative Power of Films and Storytelling in Planning Education

      • Andrew Isserman, Anuttama Dasgupta, Susy Hemphill, Mallory Rahe

      Pages 287-315

   6. Conclusions

      • Leonie Sandercock, Giovanni Attili

      Pages 317-327

The book is a collection of essays exploring the potential of multimedia to enrich and transform the planning field. By multimedia the authors refer to a broad range of new information and communication technologies (from film and video to digital ethnography and the internet), which are opening up new possibilities in planning practices, processes, pedagogy and research. The authors document the ways in which these ICTs can expand the language of planning and the creativity of planners; can evoke the lived experience (the spirit, memories, desires) of our 21^st century mongrel cities by engaging with stories and storytelling; and can democratise planning practices.

The text is epistemologically radical, in presenting an argument for the importance of "multiple languages" (ways of knowing) in the planning field, and making the connection between this epistemology and the almost infinite potential of Multimedia to provide varied tools to accomplish this transformation, displacing the supremacy of the rational, linear and hierarchical with more open, playful and imaginative approaches. Each of the authors brings practical experience with different forms of Multimedia use and reflects on the different potentialities offered by Multimedia for critical intervention in urban and regional issues, and the power dynamics embedded in such interventions.

• Innovation
• Languages
• Multimedia
• Planning
• Segregation
• Urban and regional

From the reviews:

“This is a very admirable collection of essays, which greatly advances the intellectual project of treating stories and storytelling as crucial parts of planning and urban transformation. … essays are meritorious, I find several of them to be especially valuable. … the book is well worth reading by anyone interested in this particular frontier. … Sandercock and Attili have provided a very fine piece of work … . I would strongly encourage Sandercock and Attili to expand on this brilliant exploration of the frontier … .” (James Throgmorton, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 31 (1), 2011)

• School of Community & Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

  Leonie Sandercock

• Dipt. di Architettura ed Unrbanistica, "University of Rome ""La Sapienza""", Rome, Italy

  Giovanni Attili

Leonie Sandercock is the author of ten books, the most recent of which include Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities (1998) and Cosmopolis 2: Mongrel Cities of the 21^st Century (2003). The latter book won the Paul Davidoff Award for best book awarded by the American Collegiate Schools of Planning. She also received the Dale Prize for Community Planning (2005), and the BMW Award for Intercultural Learning (2007), for her paper on 'Cosmopolitan Urbanism'. She co-authored with Giovanni Attili the book and DVD package Where Strangers become Neighbours: Integrating Immigrants in Vancouver, Canada (Springer, 2009).

Giovanni Attili is an Urban Planning PHD, Research Fellow at the University of Rome (La Sapienza) and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC, Vancouver). He is recipient of the G.Ferraro Award for the best Urban Planning PhD Thesis in Italy in 2005. He is co-editor of the book "Storie di Citta" (Edizioni Interculturali, 2007), author of the book "La citta dei migranti" (Jaca Book, 2008) and co-author of the book and DVD package Where Strangers become Neighbours: Integrating Immigrants in Vancouver, Canada (Springer, 2009).

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