At the ISOCARP Institute, we recognise that the nature of development is changing in many places across the world. New approaches to governance are emerging to encourage diverse voices in decision-making, aiming to create more balanced socioeconomic systems and equitable built environments. 

Despite intentions to actively engage a broader range of communities, finding effective strategies to do this can be complex: many of our existing participatory processes fall short in their capacity to understand the range of experiences and perspectives in our populations. Implementing effective citizen participation that leads to positive changes in our living environments means creating spaces that allow us to listen to and learn from each other. We can do this using storytelling.

Storytelling offers a means to authentically and effectively engage with citizens through the creation of shared imaginaries. By utilising it in participatory processes, we can provide deeper insights for decision making that reflect the experiences and perspectives of citizens and use these to ignite change in our living environments.

The ISOCARP Institute has developed a new methodology for citizen participation that uses AI-powered visualisation software to make the stories of citizens come to life in real time and thus better understand their perspectives and desires. 

The methodology takes place in a workshop setting. It is straightforward to deploy, enjoyable for participants and effective in producing actionable insights for decision making. It can be used in a variety of projects for exploratory analysis and co-creative solution design and combined with other tools and methods.