Beyond the Black Box: User-Friendly Technology

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• What role evidence plays in the planning process
• How to prioritize and make the case for investments that meet multiple community goals
• How to navigate tools that support transparent local decision-making

MORE SESSION DETAILS

How can planners better integrate data and evidence into the planning process? Explore three technologies that make research accessible to the public and support informed decision-making. A new web-based tool, Streetsmart, illuminates the relationships between transportation strategies and community goals in a visually compelling way using the best evidence available. The County Health Rankings and Roadmaps provides a snapshot of how where we live, learn, work, and play influence health, along with a searchable menu of evidence-informed strategies that can serve as a starting point for local change. Finally, Alta has created an online interactive tool that allows the public to apply their own weights to multiple community goals and see in real-time how their input influences community-infrastructure investments. Representing nonprofit, private, and academic sectors, the panel will engage with the audience through a series of questions. What is evidence? What is its role in decision-making? How does performance-based planning change your work? The panel will raise issues such as whether to caveat research findings for decision-making and explore the tension between generalized findings and specific contexts. Come and provide feedback on how these tools could better serve the needs of planners.