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

by Judith E. Innes, David E. Booher

This analysis of emerging practices of collaboration in planning and public policy presents a new theory of collaborative rationality to overcome the challenges of complexity, fragmentation, uncertainty and global processes. This is insightful reading that will move both practice and scholarship to new levels.

Genres: Urban Planning

254 pages, Kindle Edition

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.