Planning with Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy

by Judith E. Innes

Analyzing emerging practices of collaboration in planning and public policy to overcome the challenges complexity, fragmentation and uncertainty, the authors present a new theory of collaborative rationality, to help make sense of the new practices. They enquire in detail into how collaborative rationality works, the theories that inform it, and the potential and pitfalls for democracy in the twenty-first century. Representing the authors’ collective experience based upon over thirty years of research and practice, this is insightful reading for students, educators, scholars, and reflective practitioners in the fields of urban planning, public policy, political science and public administration.

Genres: Urban Planning

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2010

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Innes and Booher's concept of collaborative rationality passes a "sniff test" through the combination of both effectively describing the hard-to-pin-down quality of processes that work, and appropriately diagnosing the issues of those processes that seem to have all the right pieces but fail in the end. It has become my go-to book when I need to start down the path of topics like local knowledge, role playing and bricolage, networked power, and the eloquent DIAD model. There are a couple of statements that prompt the raising of an eyebrow or two — while pulling together a lot of interrelated good ideas, it's not perfect, but it's the best start I've seen to describing a realistic, 21st century practice incorporating what we know about systems in general.