Home In the CommunityRegional Visioning and Cooperation Reality Check

To learn more about Reality Check, view the short video on the Washington D.C. event prepared by ULI Washington.

What is Reality Check?

Over the past 15 years, regional visioning has emerged as a dynamic and important tool for building regional consensus related to growth issues. ULI’s regional visioning program of work assists District Councils and their partners as they plan, build upon, and implement regional exercises and visions. "Reality Check," a one-day participatory visioning exercise created by ULI Los Angeles and inspired by Envision Utah, is an important tool available to District Councils to engage regional leaders in a regional dialogue on growth issues. 

“Reality Check” is a visioning exercise that allows participants working in diverse groups of 8-10 regional leaders to allocate expected growth using chips or legos on large scale regional maps. It is an exercise that asks the questions -- How should we grow? Where should we grow? The solutions developed by each group can be compared against current trends and plans and/or be aggregated with the other group’s growth scenarios into an average solution for analysis purposes.

The exercise is designed to provide a region-wide awareness of the level of growth that is expected; to recognize the legitimate points of view of different stakeholders; and to lay the foundation for the development of a concrete list of next steps to assure quality growth to meet the region's needs in the future. While each visioning exercise and process is different, the overall education and awareness-raising goals of Reality Check have the power to create a regional dialogue that results in consensus on where and how the region will grow over the next 25 or 30 years.

For more information on how to plan a Reality Check event, visit Reality Check Guide and watch the Reality Check Los Angeles video and Washington video.

“Reality Check brought together many of Southern California’s warring constituencies and led to a broader and more inclusive vision for the growth of the Los Angeles region.”– Stuart R. Mork, Reality Check Chair, Los Angeles

Which Regions Have Played Reality Check?

ULI Los Angeles, in partnership with the University of Southern California (USC) Lusk Center for Real Estate, conducted a visioning exercise in 2001 to raise awareness of the impending population increase forecasted for the region. Close to 200 community leaders from the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors gathered to try to envision where to accommodate the Los Angeles region’s projected growth. The outcome of the exercise was a series of growth models presenting alternative visions for how Los Angeles might accommodate new residents.

In addition to Los Angeles, Reality Check exercises have been successfully held in Washington, DC (2005), North Texas (2005), the State of Maryland (2006), Tampa Bay (2007), and Charleston, South Carolina (2007); the Uplands and Midlands regions of South Carolina have Reality Checks in progress.  The following Reality Check exercises are currently being planned: Seattle (April 2008); Arizona (3 across the state) -- Phoenix (May 2008) Tucson and Flagstaff (in progress); Triangle (2009); Jacksonville (2009); and Richmond (2009).

Reality Check Resources

• ULI Reality Check Guide for District Councils
• Case Studies for Action: ULI Los Angeles Reality Check (PDF file)
• Reality Check Logo (pdf) and (jpeg) 
• Press Release: Washington, DC, Region Gets a Reality Check
• Ed McMahon, Senior Resident Fellow, ULI: The [Washington] Region Needs a Reality Check
• Baltimore Sun: Getting Ahead of the Game-Workshop Focuses on Coping with Region's Projected Growth
• Reality Check Los Angeles video