Planning Go series-No.1
“Fresh off the Boat”
Board role-playing game designed for the course: Immigrant and sustainable development
Game background
How cities prosper? Sustainable population growth can tell.
Urban planners and municipal governments can use zoning and fiscal methods (taxation and subsidy) to meet the goals of sustainable economic development, social equity, and community resilience. The newcomers can bring new demand for market prosperity and increase the diversity of the society, which are important for a robust society. However, along with immigration, the competitions of space, resources, and economic opportunities are increasing, which might influence the robustness of the local community if the urban space is not well-organized. In addition, the economic and political power of immigrants, especially the first-generation are usually less than their local residents’ counterparts due to identity, previous social capitals, local culture or policies. How do urban planners help immigrants settle down, maintain the interests of stakeholders, and spatially balance their interests are important for urban governance.
Well, what and how better urban planners can do to serve local community and newcomers? Let’s go!
Game purpose in the game-based classroom
1. This game aims to lead students to actively understand the significance of inclusiveness and the challenges in global cities from the different perspectives of stakeholders.
2. This game will check the following assumptions or questions by simulating all stakeholders’ behaviors.
1) If all the participants only make selections under utilitarianism, can a final outcome reach a balance between market efficiency and sustainable development which also reach other goals in urban planning, such as inclusiveness, livability, and sustainability?
(In other words, the urban planning only focuses on the economic outcomes and local residents and immigrants only care about how to occupy more space rather than life quality such as accessibility, can they finally have higher accessibility and sustainable score than the situation in the second assumption)
2) If urban planners try to reach the goals including efficiency, inclusiveness, livability, and sustainability, can they have a better outcome than that in the first situation?
3) What if the social types of the immigrant community and local community are changed, will the results with different purposes change a lot?
(e.g. one type of change is that local and immigrants are competitive over collaboration, then both of these two communities become more friendly and collaborative. Another type of change is: immigrant community is weaker in economic and political impact in the beginning and then some of immigrants become as strong as local residents.)
3. This game will lead students to think and discuss the typical challenges or phenomena in urban governance (e.g. interests conflicts between immigrants and local residents, gentrification, anti-immigrant attitudes or behaviors, etc.) and deepen understanding about what they have learned in relevant classes about resilience, sustainability, inclusiveness, and equity.
