Place-based planning for resilience: evaluating the Callaghan Valley Olympic initiative

Planning involves changing places, and the process used for planning will determine whether these changes connect with the sense of place established for an area. This was the case in the creation of the Whistler Olympic Park, a venue for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. This research evaluates the planning process for the venue using a theoretical framework. The theoretical process aims towards resilience, characterized as the ability for multiple stakeholders to come together in times of crisis to flexibly co-manage change. The findings suggest the Olympic process largely followed the theoretical one. However, there were some evident deviations such as a lack of dialogue in the structured process defined by the environmental assessment process of BC. Future engagements should take advantage of unstructured processes before environmental assessments, creating a space for people to have a sustained conversation around place.