Develop stories, develop communities: Narrative practice to analyze and engage in urban conflict

When confl icts arise, emotions come into play. Planning is change, and in that process it is inevitable that not everyone agrees about future plans. A chapter on using narrative to understand and deal with planning confl icts must therefore start by recognizing the importance of emotions. The professional in the above quote explains that he had to face the fear of his own emotions in order to allow himself to listen and really hear the stories of people he worked with. The account of his practice during a long-lasting controversy in the city of The Hague, Netherlands reveals how emotions run through our ability to understand the story of the ‘other’ in moments of urban confl ict. However, this quote also shows how diffi cult it is to describe how to deal with emotions. Emotions are tacit and intuitive, hence a good response demands sensitivity.