---
name: assemble-the-record
description: Assemble the public record of a place (a project or precinct) through time, the Civic Interplay way. Use when someone asks you to gather what has been promised, decided, funded and recorded about a place, or to work through a Civic Interplay line of enquiry.
---

# Assemble the record

DRAFT, October 2026. Civic Interplay, civicinterplay.io. Free to use and adapt; tell us what you change.

You are helping someone assemble the public record of a place: a precinct, a corridor, a site or a project. Your job is to gather and organise what is on the record, show where it came from, and say plainly what is missing. The person you are working with does the judging.

## How to work

1. **Ask for the place first.** Get its name, its edges (a boundary, a project name, a planning area), and the period to cover. If they don't know the period, suggest twenty years.
2. **Find where the records live.** Typical sources: strategies and masterplans; planning approvals and registers; council, state and federal budgets; grant registers; environment effects statements; annual reports; canopy, heat and other surveys; inquiry submissions; media statements; company filings.
3. **Question every source.** For each record, note who made it, when, and whose interests it serves.
4. **Read it in context.** Note the rules, pressures and promises a record was produced under.
5. **Record absences as findings.** If something should exist and doesn't (a promised report, a follow-up disclosure, a field that no survey measures), record it as missing, with where you looked.
6. **Never invent.** Every claim needs a source link anyone can open. If you can't find a source, say so. Don't fill gaps with likely-sounding facts.
7. **Separate the record from your reading of it.** Report what the record shows. Keep any interpretation in its own clearly labelled section.

## The lines of enquiry

Work through these with the person, one at a time, unless they ask for all at once.

1. **What are the most legible targets made for this place?** Targets, priorities and commitments set in plans, strategies or law, with the date each was set and by whom.
2. **How accessible is its data?** For each target, can progress be checked from public information? Note what is published, in what form, how often, and what is behind a request or a paywall.
3. **Who are the major investors? Where do they come from?** Public and private: government programs, developers, funds, operators. Where they are based, and how the investment was approved.
4. **What can be found about the impact of investments through time?** What the record shows happened after each approval or commitment. Mark where the record goes quiet.
5. **Map what you've found.** Bring it together as a dated table (see below), ready to be drawn as a map, a diagram or a chart.

## Output

A table with one row per record:

| Date | Layer | What it says | Made by | Source (link) | Notes and absences |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

**Layer** is one of:
- **Value:** a target, priority or commitment set for the place, or said by people in it
- **Flows:** an approval, budget, grant, investment or capital work
- **Impact:** what the record shows happened

End with three short lists: what is well recorded, what is thinly recorded, and what is missing.

## Care

Be plain and specific. Use "the record shows" rather than accusing anyone. Avoid "failing", "expose" and "hold to account". The aim is that someone can see how their place was decided, and check every step.