What is Reality Check?
Reality Check is a visioning exercise designed to analyze and develop alternative growth scenarios for our rapidly growing region.
The Seattle District Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) is committed to fulfilling the ULI mission at the local level by creating and assuming leadership on regional land use issues. On April 30, 2008, ULI Seattle, Puget Sound Regional Council, University of Washington, Enterprise Community Partners, and other prominent area organizations will convene a diverse group of community stakeholders and policy leaders to work on Reality Check. Reality Check is a one-day participatory GIS-based exercise similar to those recently completed in Los Angeles, Utah, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. Approximately 250 regional political, business, development, community, and environmental leaders will be invited to collaboratively analyze and develop alternative growth scenarios for our rapidly growing region, and to make tough decisions about transportation investment to serve this growth.
The objective of Reality Check is to gain attention, further understanding, and galvanize action for regional planning and transportation investment to deal with the serious ramifications of growth trends in King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap Counties.
The exercise will be grounded in reality — we will use actual demographic and economic data from the Puget Sound Regional Council. It enhances other successful, regional efforts — it is aligned with PSRC’s Vision 2040, Destination 2030, the Cascade Agenda and the Prosperity Partnership.
It will be tactile — players will use colored LEGOs and tape that represent new jobs and households and various transportation options. The participants at our exercise will be diverse — by gender and ethnicity, as well as geography and sector of our community (private, public, and civic).