Full Report - Knight Program in Community Building

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HURLEY | THE PUBLIC PROCESS5Over the last thirty years, alternative dispute resolution has grown into a professionalfield of practice, complete with academic theory, field-tested techniques, andpractice area specializations. Public participation and public policy dispute resolutionis one area of specialization. Current practice and theory in this area have developedfrom a variety of sources.The Civil Rights and Feminist movements of the 1950s – 1960s drew attentionto the dynamics of power and promoted individual self-determination and socialequity. The failures of 1960s urban and transportation programs spawned disillusionmentwith government and the role of experts, leading to demands for, andeventually federal requirements for, more participation of citizens in planning anddevelopment decisions.The 1960s – 1970s environmental regulations issued to implement the NationalEnvironmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, theEndangered Species Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response,Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA; a.k.a. Superfund), among others, led togridlock in the courts. Environmentalists were dissatisfied because environmentalregulations were on hold; the EPA was dissatisfied because it could not implementCongress’ mandates, and industry was dissatisfied because of lasting uncertainty.Everyone was unhappy with the high costs and long delays engendered by fightingpolicy battles in the courts. They looked to the experience of federal programs tomediate labor disputes, and began to develop multi-party mediation techniques.Because the emphasis was on breaking administrative and judicial gridlock, the goalof these experiments was to develop consensus among all of the parties.At the same time, the growing presence of community mediation programs ledto the availability of trained mediators in community settings. Some of these programsexpanded beyond individual disputes to address community disputes, often relatedto local planning decisions.All of these forces led to a thriving field of academic study and professionalpractice. Today, the Association for Conflict Resolution (created by a merger of theSociety for Professionals in Dispute Resolution, Academy of Family Mediators, andConflict Resolution Education Network) has eighteen divisions of practice, withover seven thousand members. Universities around the world have departments ofConflict Resolution, including several with Ph.D. programs.
HURLEY | THE PUBLIC PROCESS6So what does all of this have to do with New Urbanism? New Urbanists arestruggling to develop answers to problems that others have already addressed, orat least have studied much longer than we have. To illustrate this point, I willcompare current consensus-building practices with New Urbanist charrettes, pointingout ways that New Urbanists could incorporate the lessons from consensus-buildinginto their practices.Theory and PracticeTheory and practice are closely related endeavors in the field of consensus-building.Most academics also practice, and many practitioners contribute to research projects.Professional associations and conferences include a diverse mix of academics andpractitioners. Consensus-building practice draws on several streams of well-definedtheory, including social psychology, group dynamics, conflict resolution/mediation,systems theory, social network theory, organizational learning, feminist theory,and cultural theory. The relationship between consensus-building theory to practiceis robust: practitioners use theory to gain a deeper understanding of their work;theoreticians test their theory through practice.In contrast, modern-day charrettes seem to be primarily practice-based, drawingvery little from theory. Academics in architecture and planning pay almost no attentionto the way the fields are practiced, and there is very little academic analysis ofcharrette processes. Practitioners believe that charrettes can produce better qualityplans through local input, interdisciplinary teams, short feedback loops, focusedattention, the creative environment, and public filtering of ideas. A related belief isthat charrettes build support for the plan by creating a high-quality plan and havingan open process. These beliefs are empirical; we believe them because we see themto be true in practice. However, they are primarily descriptive, and not normative.They describe what happens, but not why it happens. The lack of theory underlyingour practice means that we stumble in the dark. We do not have an understandingof the dynamics of the overall process, an understanding that could give us directionwhen things go wrong.Lesson: A close relationship between theory-building and practice developmentcan enrich both. Since academics have shown little interest in charrette practice,practitioners should educate themselves about relevant theories and begin toarticulate how theory can improve charrettes as well as identify the holes in theorythat experience uncovers.
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Full Report - Knight Program in Community Building

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