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Oakland, where it’s a little safer and closer to work for a price he can still afford, even though he’ll have to sell his San Leandro house at a loss. 12 Patty N. Tre-Preneur is frustrated that the City’s infrastructure isn’t supportive. The local hospitals, overwhelmed with uninsured emergency room patients, have started to confine their services and have eliminated many outside ventures. This affects Patty’s ability to be successful locally—though she has created jobs in several remote cities along the east coast. Collaborative research firms are leaving town, putting Patty’s business at additional risk. Business fees are becoming intolerable. The absence of festivals and other community events distance Patty and her husband from downtown, where deteriorating structures are increasingly present. Patty’s concern about crime governs when and where she walks for exercise. Her husband was just laid off and their health insurance terminated, putting additional strain on their relationship. Patty’s big decision is whether to sell her business at a loss and move elsewhere, or stay and keep trying to make it work. Emma Elderly is living an isolated life, afraid to to venture out into the community. She watches a lot of crime reports on TV and, while afraid to move, she talks about it. She’s disconnected from city government and politics. Because her family lives far away, she relies on diminishing city services. Her health issues make her a frequent patient at the Kaiser emergency room. Afterword Each Scenario suggests possible outcomes in an environment that is shaped by governance/politics and economic forces. They demonstrate that thoughtful people, when presented with specific conditions or facts, can reasonably identify outcomes that should be considered in a planning and decision making process. In this exercise, Scenario 2, West Side Story, clearly is the outcome, the objective, to be sought. Embracing that outcome does not make it the official future. Too many forces and trends are at work. The real challenge is seeing ourselves in each future at the same time. This should not be a deterrent to achieving the best possible outcome for San Leandro. Intrinsic to to this must be unanimity around a vision of the City we want. San Leandro— officials and residents alike—embraced a post-war vision that came to be. A reprise is possible, even though the economic and technological climate is now vastly different. But a collaborative vision, achieving it, in effect becomes the standard by which all politics, policies and practices are coordinated and measured. Do they facilitate and expedite processes (e.g. permitting) and progress? Decisions must be thought through to their shortand long-term consequences. The plethora of information available is both facilitating and complicating. So are the unknowables certain to arise near and from afar. But if the vision, the standard, is fixed and embraced, the “right” decisions and the actions will follow, giving San Leandro its best chance for the outcome we can envisage. 13 Thank you! 1. Dave Johnson from the Chamber of Commerce, also Chris Zapata and Cynthia Battenberg with the City, who quickly stepped up to offer their support for this new adventure. 2. Tim Holmes and Zocalo for providing our event day’s caffeine. Mmm. 3. Cece Adams for her generous, ongoing support, and for bringing refreshing lemon water for our event day. 4. Ptah Asabi and Josh Dillman, our Rapid Scenario Planning Day interns, for assisting during the event, to Ptah for his ongoing work with us throughout writing this paper, and to Carolline Holanda for stepping in mid-course and adding her valuable contributions. Thanks also to their teacher Mrs. Styner and the DECA project of San Leandro High School for securing these wonderful interns. 5. All who participated in making this day and this work possible. 6. You, our readers, for having the curiosity and the imagination that it takes to see the stories and changes. 14