Sowing and Tending Seeds of Change in a Field of Stone: System Dynamics-Based Spatial Visualization and Dialogue-Informed System Dynamics as Public Engagement-Enhancing Resource Management Tools in Door County Wisconsin

摘要

This paper reviews our experience using visual system dynamics-based scenarios to invite, encourage, and support community dialogue about how Western Lake Michigan's Door County, Wisconsin might cope with its experience of the intense development pressures confronting accessible and attractive communities everywhere. Recent efforts reported here seek to adapt or develop workable and cost-effective approaches to limiting and mitigating culturally, ecologically and economically degrading impacts on a community challenged by a worrisome combination of attractiveness, accessibility, and ecological fragility. The paper outlines our experience with a continuing process of pragmatic, and sometimes clumsy, use of dialogue, system dynamics modeling and state-of-the art spatial visualization tools to encourage and support community planning. This preliminary report on the evolving experience is offered both as perspective for other community applications and to lend intriguing context for advancement and application of methods and tools to further the, still under-supported, community application of systems modeling.