Goal Achievement, Relationship Building, and Incrementalism: The Challenges of University-Community Partnerships.
The University of Illinois at Chicago's Neighborhoods Initiative is used as a case study of how planning occurs in a situation of shared power; what the relationship is between the goals of participants and what actually gets done; and what the role of planners is in linking knowledge to action. The collaborative planning model is characterized by incrementalism, and relationship building is a key element. Relationship building and goal achievement are not opposites; the achievement of goals requires some level of trust in a partnership. The relative emphasis on one or the other depends on the specific context in which planning is done. The implications for planners and planning education are a greater emphasis on political and communicative skills in order to be effective in collaborative planning.
This paper reports a study of clergy attitudes concerning an ecumenical Christian agency. A sample of clergy in Middletown (N=126) were asked about whether any of2 7 activities were appropriate for such an agency, about the importance of these activities, and about the appropriateness of various tactics for such an agency. The results were analyzed for the entire sample by church-type and by the theological views of the respondents. Broad support was found for only three activities: lessening drug abuse, lessening teenage pregnancy, and lessening family abuse. Beyond these activities, conservatives and liberals favored different ecumenical programs. The paper concludes with comments about developing interchurch agencies.