Abstract
Faculty within urban planning, public administration, and other policy-oriented programs are challenged with exposing their students to and then training them in an array of methods that lie at the core of these professions. Young professionals are expected to enter their fields with a mastery of a broad set of methods including, but certainly not limited to, surveys, cost–benefit analysis, interviews, demographic projections, alternatives analysis, project/program evaluation, and basic statistics. These professionals are expected to be able to discern good data from bad; generate quick and dirty analyses for some projects and multi-year, exhaustive analyses for others; and then translate all of this work into text and visual displays that convey key information in an economical and useful manner to a mix of sophisticated and unsophisticated audiences. While these nascent professionals have a challenge in learning these methods, the instructors that teach them have a different, but equally challenging, charge: teaching students these methods in as few as two or three semesters of coursework.
Longtime a staple of the planning methods curriculum of many planning programs, the third edition of Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning is a welcomed update to a classic text that attempts to tackle much of this methodological ground. Carl Patton of Georgia State University and David Sawicki of the Georgia Institute of Technology, coauthors of previous editions, are joined this time by Jennifer Clark, also at Georgia Tech. First published in 1986, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning attempted to provide a guide to the basics of many methods that lie at the core of the policy-oriented professions. The 1993 update, portions of which I used during my time as a student under Sawicki at Georgia Tech, brought new case studies and updated content to the book. Twenty years in the making, the third edition of Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning is simultaneously an exciting and disappointing update to this classic text.
Before detailing the strengths and weaknesses of this textbook—and let us be clear that this is a textbook—let me first review the book’s organization. At its core, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning is broken into two major parts. The first nine chapters present the methods and the approach to policy analysis advocated by the authors. The remaining seven chapters present case studies through which readers can apply the skills learned in part one. In the opening chapter, the authors do an excellent job establishing the purpose of the book and the overall approach they bring to policy analysis. In short, the authors distinguish between researched analysis and quick (or basic) analysis, and they emphasize that their book focuses upon the latter. The fundamental difference between these approaches is that researched analysis requires a detailed, well-resourced, and oftentimes time-intensive assessment of a problem, whereas basic analysis is completed much more quickly, at much lower cost, and with much less rigor. Patton, Sawicki, and Clark write that “this book is different from others in that we present only quickly applied methods, those that can be useful when there is no time for researched analysis” (p. 3).
One of the biggest strengths of Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning is that it stakes out its ground as a generalist, applied policy analysis book and generally stays true to that throughout the text. In chapters 3 to 8 readers get solid, but far from exhausting, overviews of a number of fundamental data gathering and analysis methods. For example, chapter 3 on “Crosscutting Methods” introduces interviewing, survey analysis, document review, and even a bit of basic statistics. Chapter 7 on “Evaluating Alternative Policies” introduces methods of forecasting and evaluation, the latter of which includes discounting, sensitivity analysis, and a section on “political analysis.” Somewhat unique among planning and policy analysis methods textbooks, the book emphasizes the need for policy analysts to learn, understand, and respond to the political context they are working in. These sections on how to undertake political analysis, spread across several chapters, are among the strongest in the book.
While billed as a methods textbook, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning also explores issues of what I might term “research design.” Chapter 2, “The Policy Analysis Process,” includes sections on ethical considerations for analysts in addition to a solid overview of a rational model-based, policy analysis process. The topic of Chapter 4, “Verifying, Defining, and Detailing the Problem,” includes material that is often found in research design classes in planning and public administration programs. Chapter 5, “Evaluation Criteria,” very efficiently covers some extremely important ground on the challenges to and importance of establishing criteria when undertaking policy analysis.
Following the research design and methods-based chapters are a set of case studies through which students are expected to apply what they have learned. One of the strengths of the book is the rather diverse set of cases. Included in this mix are two downtown redevelopment initiatives, an assessment of a university parking policy, a recommendation for a municipal solid waste strategy, developing an allocation formula for home heating fuel, and an analysis of a proposed state tax on plastic shopping bags. Most of these cases were present in the 1993 version of the book and reflect real-world events of the 1970s and 1980s, although a few have been updated for this edition. While the cases are generally interesting, they are quite uneven in their detail and the background stories used to inform a given case. The biggest issue I have with the cases is that they read as dated, despite attempts by the authors to update them. Considering the real estate boom and bust of the first decade of the 2000s, an underlying political climate of reduced taxation and regulation, and the clear impacts of climate change on communities, I would have loved to see more contemporary case studies.
All of the chapters are well written by scholars who know their material, but the presentation is very much in the form of an old-school textbook with very dense text on most pages and a remarkable lack of pictures throughout. Most notably, the case studies lack maps, pictures, and other visual material that might make them come alive. Despite an enticing cover image of Seoul’s unearthed downtown river, this is not a showpiece textbook, one that grabs the imagination of the reader with its graphical style. This lack of visual flair is striking, especially given the book’s $100 price tag. On the positive side, this version does include a number of new charts that illustrate the flow of certain analytical methods and reinforce the connections between evidence, analysis, and recommendation.
In my own experience as a planning methods instructor for almost twenty years, academics tasked with teaching this material have a real challenge in finding the right book(s) for their classes. A good generalist’s planning textbook, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning’s major strength is its breadth, not its depth. For teachers and students looking for a textbook that covers very important ground on research design and fundamental planning methods, one will be well served by this book. As I noted earlier, I especially appreciate the authors’ commitment to underscoring the importance of politics in the realm of policy analysis. However, other books provide much greater detail on specific methods, such as Klosterman’s beloved, but dated, Community Analysis and Planning Techniques (Rowman and Littlefield, 1990), which provides an excellent overview of different forecasting and economic base analysis techniques. Similarly, Wang and vom Hofe’s very expensive Research Methods in Urban and Regional Planning (Springer 2007) offers a detailed look at demographic, economic, land use, and transportation methods. Perhaps the most apt comparison text is another book coauthored by Patton, with Bill Page at the University of Buffalo, Quick Answers to Quantitative Problems: A Pocket Primer (Academic Press, 1991), which offers brief, but useful, summaries of a number of core analytical methods. These books offer much more detail on specific methods than Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning, but at the expense of material on research design, evaluation criteria, ethical challenges, and the politics of policy analysis.
For more than two decades, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning has stood as a classic planning and policy analysis text, one used to educate thousands of students in planning, public administration, and other policy fields. The book’s reputation as a useful, if dry, textbook on the topic of policy analysis is well earned. The book sits in an easily accessible spot on my bookshelf, and it would represent a wise investment for any young policy analyst’s library. My hope is that the fourth edition gets published sooner than the twenty years between the second and third editions and that the next update brings visual flair, greater connections to current planning issues, updated and more compelling cases, and even more politics into the discussion. If these things occur, then Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning might be just the policy analysis textbook we’ve all been looking for.