Ballarat Imagine

Ballarat Imagine 

(From Fayad, S. and Kendal, L. forthcoming)

Ballarat Imagine was developed by City of Ballarat practitioners in 2013 to address the challenge of setting a community vision for the future of the city that would align with the HUL approach. Ordinarily, city visioning focusses on the what and where of change, however the HUL requires cities use their valued characteristics and distinctive identity as a departure point for change - to guide how change can best occur.

Ballarat Imagine is used as the starting point for undertaking participatory engagement. It is set in the context of a changing city (the non-negotiable) and asks citizens and stakeholders:

• What do you love about Ballarat? (Values and attributes)
• What do you imagine for Ballarat? (Future scenario)
• What do you want to retain in Ballarat? (Limit of acceptable change).

Responses paint a distinctively localized picture of the city/neighbourhood and are used to set the collective vision and key priority areas for city strategies, local area planning projects, interpretation planning and many other applications. The method also helps build community pride by celebrating the values of the city and local citizens.

This simple but innovative approach is now being used extensively by the City of Ballarat for many different types of community engagement programs as well as by several cities around the world who are adopting the HUL approach. (Fayad, Buckley 2019).

Sharing Ballarat Imagine with the world

Ballarat Imagine is being explored and implemented in many different cities. Below is an excerpt from a report for the world heritage city of Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.