Two professors and planners recently won a MacArthur Foundation grant for harnessing the virtual world Second Life for community planning. The online magazine Metropolis has an interview with these two that discusses the impact of a 3D environment to make planning decisions much more accessible to the layperson.
The process that the these two describe for interactive group decisions sounds like an ideal approach, and the use of Second Life means that it’s accessible without a huge investment in software. Their assertion that communicating complex and abstract spatial ideas only becomes intuitive with a 3D immersive view makes great sense. Why are planners still doing this in any other way?
