Acting under the influence: Plans as improvisational gifts

Abstract

Actors in complex urban environments cope with uncertainties and interdependencies by using each other’s plans, subscribing to pre-existing decision-making frameworks, and building relationships with other actors over long periods of time. Improvisational comedians employ similar strategies to create coherent and meaningful multi-actor stories without a script or director; in short, they use “gifts,” “games,” and “group mind” to cope with uncertainty on stage. We use the metaphor of improvisational theater to illustrate how many plans over many years work to shape the urban built environment. This is accomplished by reformatting over 30 years of plans created by public and private organizations in Charlotte, North Carolina, into an improvised dialog of plans. This improvised “set” reveals how plans are used as signals among diverse actors over long periods of time, offering a counter-narrative to a dominant “plans-as-consensus, then implement” narrative.