PLAN 502: WEEK 6
The Tail End of Hudson, “Wicked
Problems,” and Communicative
Rationality
Housekeeping Items
• I have your outlines and I’m working away on
them, but I’m swamped with marking and
getting ready to move so I can’t promise to
get them back as soon as I would like.
• The policy assignments are due on the 28th.
• I will probably re-arrange the last two or so
weeks of class so we have more time to hear
from Maria Inês on environmental policy in
Brazil.
• Reminder: 10th Urban Issues Film Festival will
be on Friday, November 6th on campus for
from 3 to 9 (food provided at 5 p.m.).
Hudson – Last Few Pages
• It will be in Building 356, Room 109 (the
auditorium) and will feature short and longer
films on the broad theme of housing
regeneration. Pre-registration required.
• His criterion of public interest: does each
tradition have an explicit theory of the public
interest, and how does each handle conflict or
do they tend to gloss over conflict?
• Human dimension: does the tradition in
question only acknowledge “objective decision
rules,” or does it consider subjective issues of
emotions, ideology, politics, aesthetics, and
psychology?
Hudson – Last Few Pages
• Feasibility: The map is not the terrain, but at the
same time the map needs to simplify to some
degree so that people can understand and
plan without oversimplifying. Does each
tradition accomplish this?
• Action potential: Can the theory of each
tradition be carried into action, build on
previous experience, and find creative solutions
to problems?
• Substantive theory: ability to see the bigger
picture in space and time, to predict the future
and the consequences of various decisions.
Hudson – Last Few Pages
• Capacity for self-reflection: Which of the
traditions seems most able to think critically
about its own work and to make changes
accordingly.
• Which tradition or traditions do you think is
strongest in each of these areas?
• What kind of planner do you see yourself as
being? Synoptic, incremental, transactive,
advocacy,
or radical?
One Might Ask What Do Each of These Traditions
Have to Say About “Wicked Problems”
• Characteristics of wicked problems:
 Interlocking issues and constraints – solving one
problems can exacerbate or create others
 Multiple stakeholders with differing views
 No once-and-for-all, definitive solutions
 Limited resources and/or political ramifications
• As Wikipedia notes, “[t]he use of the term ‘wicked’
here has come to denote resistance to resolution,
rather than evil.”
• A good example of wicked problems is the
challenges Translink has faced in raising the
necessary revenue to invest in an enhanced transit
system in the Greater Vancouver region. The
province recently forced it to hold a public
referendum on increased funding, which it lost.
“Wicked Problems”
• This enabled the province to take the heat
off itself for not investing in transit.
• When Translink was more autonomous, it
tried put a levy of $75 a year on cars. Car
drivers protested, it was an election year,
and the province put the kibosh on it.
• Often it comes down to a matter of
subjective perceptions. Transit investments
invariably benefit car drivers, Translink’s
maintenance program also exists to expand
and improve roads. Car drivers don’t
subsidize car drivers; it’s the other way
around. Car drivers are massively subsidized
out of the public purse.
“Wicked Problems”
• The article I asked you to read – “Come Hell or High
Water” from The Globe and Mail – about the likely
inundation of south Florida from sea-level rise also
illustrates wicked problems. The problem is clear
and real enough for scientists, but residents are in
massive denial: they think their home will be spared,
despite their dependence on infrastructure, and
think it will only be a problem for future generations.
• Unless people are willing to confront an issue how
can you address it?
• As we discussed in another class of mine, it seems
only the tangible experience of a crisis induces
people to change their views, and even then
there’s no guarantee.
“Wicked Problems”
• Cities in Canada receive only about 8% of all tax
dollars collected by all three levels of government.
• Unlike American cities, they have few mechanisms
for raising revenue – property taxes, permit fees,
and development cost charges. And, like their
American brethren, Canadians don’t like anything
that smacks of additional taxes; hence Translink’s
problems.
• Another example of a wicked problem is when a
left-leaning government wins an election and
wants to make significant changes in policy and
risks divestment by corporations and loss of credit
by the International Monetary Fund, thus
potentially resulting in the crippling of the
economy.
“Wicked Problems”
• It has been suggested that three strategies for
solving wicked problems is to a) restrict the number
of decision-makers; b) have groups compete in
coming up with alternative solutions, or c)
collaborate to find solutions with all relevant
stakeholders. Each of these approaches has up
sides and down sides.
• How do we go from wicked problems to positive
solutions? I don’t have any definitive answers, but I
think we need to address all four systems in model
simultaneously – for instance, building transitfriendly, not automobile-dependent neighbourhoods, building cities that have a smaller ecological
footprint, and trying to educate people to have
want different things.
John Forester
• In his most famous text, Planning in the Face of Power,
Forester says that “[p]lanning is the guidance of future
action” (elsewhere he says it is the linking of knowledge
and action).
• He notes that planners do not work “on a neutral stage,
an ideally liberal setting in which all affected interests
have voice; they work within political institutions, on
political issues, on whose most basic technical
components… may be celebrated by some, contested
by others” and where some people have way more
resources and access to information and influence than
others.
• “In a world of conflicting interests – defined along lines of
class, place, gender, organizations, or individuals – how
are planners to make their way.… [H]ow are planners
supposed to respond when private profit and public wellbeing clash?”
John Forester
• He notes they are supposed to organize public
participation in bureaucratic organizations that may be
threatened by such participation.
• In this chapter in the text, he distinguishes between
dialogue, debate, and negotiation, and the need to
facilitate the first, moderate the second, and mediate
the last. The last should achieve “win-win” rather than
“lose-lose” outcomes.
• He makes a statement on p. 207 I’m not sure I agree
with: “The social sciences seem more taken with ‘physics
envy’ than with any growing respect for applied work.
Our professional schools remain riddled with antiintellectualism, with theoretical fads disconnected from
the entanglements and challenges of practice, and with
conceptions of ethics that reduce normative thinking to
simplistic pronouncements of ideals.”
John Forester
• He is a fierce opponent of traditional public
process: decide, announce, and defend.
• He has a matrix with one column headlined by
“High Voice/ Participation,” which can result in
either effective mediated negotiations or poor
negotiations as represented by boisterous public
hearings.
• The second column is “Low Voice/ Participation,”
with effective negotiations in the form of dealmaking (not necessarily representative), or weak
negotiations in the form of bureaucratic
procedures. Can you think of examples of each?
John Forester
• He poses the question on p. 208: “how to marry
substantial participation, perhaps representing
generations yet to come and non-human wellbeing of course too, with effective negotiations
that create value and do not squander it, value
here including concerns including justice no less
than those with health and environmental
quality.”
• There are positive examples – for instance, the
Cowichan Watershed Stewardship Roundtable
and the Nanaimo River Watershed Roundtable. I
believe someone from this class is involved with
the latter.
John Forester
• Forester is from the “communicative rationality”
school, which the editors of the book have been
critical of. He assumes that in policy debates in public
forums, participants need to ask, when listening to an
eloquent advocate for a particular position/ policy:
 What are they advocating for and is the evidence
there to support her claims?
 Does the government have the authority to
implement the policy?
 Does the political support exist to make her
recommendations feasible? And
 Who is she and what gives her credibility to make
these statements?
John Forester
• If one were looking at the phenomenon of
suburbia, one would have to a)try to ascertain
the positive and negative aspects of suburbia
from a fact-based point of view; b) consider the
relevant issues [These two are linked; if you
don’t care about nature and other species,
then the impact of suburbia on ecosystems will
be outside one’s cognitive frame of reference.]
and c) phenomenology, which refers to
understanding human viewpoints from the
inside outside out – why do some people like
suburbia, what does it mean to them, and how
does it fit into their sense of identity?
John Forester
• There is a very useful passage on p. 211: “In
dialogue… we seek understanding and
knowledge of the other. In debate, whether
about the ‘facts’ or justification, we do something
else again: we’re seeking to establish or refute an
argument. In negotiation or cooperation,
however, we’re doing something yet different
again: we’re seeking an agreement on a course
of action (when no established Authority can
simply impose an outcome).”
• “…mediators seek to manage interdependence,
to build relationships, to craft agreements on
action to change the world.”
One possible example of Forester’s model:
The Cowichan Stewardship Roundtable
• It is made up of very diverse stakeholders:
• In attendance at a recent meeting were Meg Loop (CLT),
Keith Lawrence & Kate Millar (CVRD), Paul Rickard and Ted
Brookman (BCWF), Parker Jefferson (One Cowichan), Ian
Morrison (CVRD Area F), Klaus Kuhn (Area I), Eric Marshall &
Carol Hartwig (CVNS), Don Closson (BC Parks), Shaun
Chadburn (North Cowichan), Genevieve Singleton (nature
interpreter), Chris Morley (Friends of the Cowichan), Ray
Demarchi, (retired wildlife biologist), Alistair MacGregor, Peter
Julian, Joshua Berson, Jennifer Hermary, and Jean Crowder
(fed. NDP), Rod Carswell, Jean Atkinson & Di Gunderson
(CLRSS), Barry Hetschko and Martha Lescher (SMWS), Dave
Lindsay (Timberwest), Ken Epps (Island Timberlands), Ken
Clements & Claude Theirault (Sidney Anglers), Helen Reid &
Natalie Anderson (Cowichan Tribes), Brian Tutty (retired
fisheries biologist), Tom Rutherford (DFO), Swarn Leung (HUB
committee of concern for Koksilah watershed), Goetz
Schuerholz (CERCA), Ron Diederichs (BC-FLNRO), Doug
Routley (MLA Nanaimo-N. Cowichan), Brian Houle (Catalyst),
In addition to the Roundtable…
• In addition to the organizations mentioned, there is
the Cowichan Lake and River Stewardship Society
and the Cowichan Watershed Board formed to
oversee and direct the implementation of the
Cowichan Basin Water Management Plan. “The
• mandate of the Board is to provide leadership for
sustainable water management to protect and
enhance environmental quality and the quality of
life in the Cowichan watershed and adjoining
areas. The Board is unique in that it is a partnership
between Cowichan Tribes and local government
(the CVRD) in conjunction with the federal and
provincial governments. It is co-chaired by an
elected member from each of the CVRD and
Cowichan Tribes.” See http://cowichanwatershedboard.ca/.
• However, it has no representation from conserva-tion or environment groups.
Alaska Fisheries
• Pre-statehood, the US government
managed the Alaskan fishery. In 1938: there
was a harvest of 120 million fish. In 1958, a
harvest of 20 million.
• A year later, Alaska became a state.
• For a variety of reasons, by 1972 the harvest
was even lower.
• It was decided to take action in the form of
· limiting the entry of new fishing vessels; ·
rebuilding wild stocks; · constructing
hatcheries; · improving stock enhancement,
and · initiating ‘ocean ranching.’
Alaska Fisheries
• With ocean ranching one strips the
eggs from the brood stock, rears them
in a hatchery, then places them in
ocean nets for 3-4 weeks offshore
away from wild stock migration routes,
after which they are turned loose.
• Meanwhile, they have spent enough
time to become imprinted on the
area of the ocean nets to return and
are thus easy to scoop up, rather than
having to be chased.
Alaska Fisheries
• In Oregon, where ocean ranching
was initiated, it was taken over by
Weyerhauser.
• In Alaska, the key focus for debate
was the hatcheries. There was strong
pressure for them to be corporatecontrolled on the argument that
governments are inherently
inefficient, but the fishers resisted.
They didn’t want to see the
privatization of the commons.
Alaska Fisheries
• The state government responded by
bringing all the players together to come up
with a strategic plan, of which ranching was
a key component.
• Initially, government took over the hatchery
program and made a hash of it (harvests
declined to 4 million fish). All gear groups
were united in the nature of their critique.
• By 1976, Regional Aquaculture Associations
had been formed representing fishers and
other stakeholders in partnership with the
state. One particularly successful one has
been the Northern Southeast Regional
Aquaculture Association (NSRAA).
Alaska Fisheries
• The organization has achieved its goal of having
85% of fish produced in the area being
harvested as a common resource, as opposed
to by corporations.
• The hatcheries, now operated by non-profit
organizations, are costly to run, as are the rest of
the management and decision-making
activities.
• Conventional banks would not look at them, so
Alaska set up a State Fisheries Enhancement
Loan Fund to extend long-term loans with
holidays on the interest and principal. However,
this was inadequate, so the fishers demanded
that they be subjected to a 2-3% tax on all
landed fish to further contribute to the shared
infrastructure.
• By 1980, the NSRAA had paid off its original loan.
Alaska Fisheries Model
• The benefits of the model:
 It seems to protect and enhance
the fish stocks.
 The benefits stay mostly with fishers
and their communities.
 It avoids the ‘tragedy of the
commons’ (actually open access
systems that Garrett Hardin mistook
for the commons), and
 It keeps control largely in the hands
of those most affected.
 It was achieved by negotiation.
Patsy Healey
• Healey reviews the origins of planning in
modernism and the desire to tame the
irrationalities of the market, the power of big
capitalist companies, and the chaos of industrial
cities.
• Planners wanted to bring ‘scientific knowledge’
and instrumental rationality to the solution of
problems (finding the means to address the
desired ends).
• She divides planning into three traditions:
economic planning, planning for the physical
development of cities and towns, and public
administration and policy analysis. What would
examples be of each?
Patsy Healey
• One example of economic planning would be
the command and control model of centralized
state planning that emerged in the Soviet Union
and Maoist China. This proved inefficient,
degenerated into the politics of “meeting
targets” irrespective of reality, and proved prone
to corruption.
• Others, more akin to anarchists or left-wing
libertarians rejected this model and aimed for
decentralized, more autonomous development.
Ebenezer Howard was influenced by this tradition,
as was Patrick Geddes. It’s carried forward into
the work of Gandhi and E.F. Schumacher.
Patsy Healey
• Another attempt to impose a limited form of
planning on the market is represented by the
ideas of John Maynard Keynes, who argued for
measures to increase consumer demand in the
face of an economic slump by means of
government spending. This was implemented by
Roosevelt through his radical (for capitalism)
“New Deal” program.
• This was a widely accepted doctrine in North
America until the end of the ‘70s when Reagan
and Thatcher began their ascent to power in the
U.S. and the UK. Then “neo-liberalism” became
the order of the day.
Patsy Healey
• This resulted in the slashing of government
budgets and massive deregulation of the
economy, which was accompanied by the
expansion of deindustrialization (jobs going
offshore) and expansion of ‘free trade.’
• This set the stage for the worldwide recession of
2007-08, when even Milton Friedman, the guru of
neo-liberal doctrine, was forced to admit that he
may have been wrong about a number of things.
• This period saw an enormous polarization of
wealth, with the erosion of the middle class and
the increasing emancipation of corporations
from government constraint.
Patsy Healey
• Pam will or has dealt with the different traditions in
physical planning, but Healey contrasts a more
pastoral ideal in Britain with a greater preference
(or at least tolerance) for high-rise living on the
continent (overstated). While not universal (think
Manhattan), sprawl has been the dominant
model in North America, at least since the war.
• Healey mentions, in the tradition of understanding
the practical policies and politics of communities,
the role of what Logan and Molotch called the
“the urban growth machine” – essentially an
alliance of developers, real estate agents, and
local politicians to advance a pro-development
agenda. Nanaimo has been a textbook case.
Patsy Healey
• The rest of the chapter duplicates much of what
we have already read about some of the other
models of planning – incremental and advocacy.
• She also mentions Arnstein’s “ladder of citizen
participation,” which you will be covering in
Lindsay’s class.
• In contrast with Fainstein, she doesn’t believe that
knowledge and value just ‘exist,’ but that they
have to have to be “actively constituted through
social, interactive processes” (p. 230).
• She also believes that there are different ways of
‘knowing’ and communicating knowledge – from
planning reports to storytelling. How can these be
used in planning processes?