But instead of moving armored divisions across their maps, they moved subdivisions. And industrial parks, business districts and neighborhoods. All in an attempt to illustrate their visions of how the metro area should develop between now and 2020.

Looking beyond their own communities, the participants who gathered in Brooklyn Center for Thursday's Metropolitan Council workshop spread chips across maps of large portions of the region, signifying where different types of development ideally would occur.

The exercise marked the first step in a Met Council effort to involve communities and individuals in regional planning. The general public will have the opportunity to participate in the same types of mapping scenarios at a series of nine community workshops scheduled for May and June.

Gov. Jesse Ventura, who attended the first part of the four-hour meeting, and Metropolitan Council Chairman Ted Mondale, said the meeting represented a sea change in the way Met Council, which in the past has been criticized by some communities for its heavy handedness, does its job.

``You've heard of the old `don't ask, don't tell' policy? Well, our new policy is `ask, don't tell,' '' Mondale said. ``We believe that the citizens can do a much better job than we can in making (development) choices.''

If the Twin Cities are to stay healthy and competitive as a region, Mondale said, they must plan for growth as a region. He pointed to growth forecasts of 500,000 new residents between now and 2020 and to the prospect of increasing traffic congestion as a motivator for a more regional approach to planning.

The workshop was led by representatives from Calthorpe and Associates, a Berkeley, Calif., planning and design firm. After the ideas from the meeting are combined with input from the upcoming community meetings, the group will put together a handful of regional growth scenarios for the Twin Cities, urban planner Peter Calthorpe said.

The goal, Calthorpe said, is to provide a menu of alternatives rather than an edict on how the region should grow -- and to let citizens and individual communities have a say in regional growth.

Met Council member Frank Hornstein said the exercise offered participants a new perspective on planning.

``Once you look at this area as a region instead of several hundred fiefdoms, then I think the pieces start to fall together,'' he said.

But how easy it will be to convert the vision that evolves in the community meetings into reality remains to be seen -- especially when regional goals could step on some local toes.

``The question is, how do you get from this level down to the local level and implement it,'' said Dwight Picha, Woodbury's community development director. ``That's the difficult part.''

But Picha said the Met Council appears to be on the right track.

``I've never been to anything like this in my 25 years of working for the city,'' he said of the workshop. ``So, yeah, I think it's a big step in trying to build some consensus for the region from a grass-roots perspective.''