Sachi Arakawa—Cascadia Partners

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For GIS Day 2025, Sachi is bringing her passion for scenario planning to the stage. Scenario planning is a way to explore different futures for a city—denser, greener, more connected—and understand the tradeoffs of each. By combining spatial analysis with real-world constraints, Sachi creates interactive, map-based “games” that invite community members to step into the planner’s shoes. Participants get to explore what could happen if their city grew in different ways, and more importantly, what those choices mean for the people who live there.

This keynote dives into how scenario planning helps planners and communities navigate uncertainty. It’s not about predicting the future—it’s about preparing for it. Using maps, data, and a bit of creativity, scenario planning helps cities test out ideas, respond to future uncertainty, and make better decisions, together.

GIS users will leave this session with practical insights on how to use scenario planning in their own work—and a fresh perspective on how maps can do more than show where things are. They can help show where we’re going.

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Sachi is a partner at Cascadia Partners, where she helps cities think long-term and make big decisions about their futures. As an urban planner, Sachi blends data, creativity, and community insight to shape more livable places. Sachi believes good planning is collaborative and engaging, and she uses map-based activities to gamify complex planning topics and make them fun and relevant to everyday people.

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