Many land development proposals give rise to important quality of life concerns that impact equally thorny and difficult to resolve environmental justice and environmental protection issues. These land use and environmental disputes can polarize communities: leading to bitter confrontations and power struggles among all affected stakeholder groups (that can affect further efforts to collaboratively solve problems for years into the future). Our traditional means of resolving these disputes—lobbying for a political decision in one’s favor or winning through the courts--often leave many citizens and groups burned out, broke, angry and disappointed or distrustful of government’s role as a dispute resolver.
The field of public policy conflict resolution arose in response to those shortcomings. Federal, state and municipal governments and agencies are increasingly using, and even mandating appropriate dispute resolution processes to head off anticipated conflicts through consensus building processes or to resolve important public sector conflicts once they escalate to full-scale disputes or impasse. In order to design and implement controversial development projects or environmental solutions, planning and design professionals must be adept at negotiating agreement among competing stakeholders.
This course is crosslisted with CRP s383. CRP is home.