Power of Persuasion: How Planners Shape Decisions Through Communication

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Because most planning decisions are ultimately made by politicians, effective communication with elected officials is essential for shaping their decisions. In this study, we empirically examined whether email communications initiated by urban planners affect planning-related decisions made by politicians and what communication tactics work. We leveraged a unique data set of all email communications between planners and politicians and voter records of politicians on planning-related decisions in the city of Tallahassee (FL). We built a dynamic network model as a temporal exponential random graph model and adopted text-mining methods to examine email communication dynamics. We found that a more positive sentiment conveyed from email content was statistically significantly associated with a politician’s tendency to vote consistently with a planner’s recommendation. Moreover, corroborating communications from various planners were more persuasive than repeated communication from a single planner, suggesting that an organic, decentralized approach to communication is more effective than a hierarchical, top-down one. Takeaway for practice: Urban planners should take the initiative to reach out to politicians to establish positive communication channels. In addition, strengthening collaboration within the planning department by presenting unified information from various planners to a politician can enhance the politician’s confidence in the message and lead to more effective shaping of their decisions.