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Dissertation
We cannot do it alone: an interpretive policy analysis of urban stormwater governance
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
Oct 2012
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/etd-4077
Abstract
With its innovative Green City, Clean Waters program, the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) is the first city in the United States to commit to managing stormwater predominantly using green infrastructure on a city-wide scale. To PWD, this Green City, Clean Waters policy primarily means reducing the amount of stormwater that flows into the City's combined sewer system by decreasing the imperviousness of the urban environment. It also means that it cannot accomplish this goal alone. Because the green stormwater infrastructure approach entails managing stormwater where it lands, PWD must consider the other city agencies who manage and the members of the public who live, work, and play in these city spaces that PWD wants to green. The approach PWD has proposed thus relies on the involvement of multiple city agencies as well as the public. With this study, I examine what it means to PWD and its city and public partners to implement a green infrastructure approach to stormwater management in this collaborative way. To do so, I conducted an interpretive policy analysis, informed by political ethnography, including document analysis, interviewing, and participant-observation. Specifically, examining the inter-agency collaborations and the government-public collaborations involved in the implementation of this policy, I draw lessons about complexity and uncertainty, difference, trust, identity, legitimacy, and accountability. More broadly, I explore what PWD's networked approach to stormwater governance means for democratic policymaking in the City. I suggest that although this approach is more inclusive there remain contradictions between traditional, rationalist public administrative practices and what it means to practice policy in this new governance network. While PWD works to resolve these contradictions, I suggest that lessons drawn from this interpretive policy analysis through the lens of deliberative democracy may enhance the democratic policymaking processes of the City's stormwater governance.
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Details
- Title
- We cannot do it alone
- Creators
- Katharine Antonia Travaline - DU
- Contributors
- Christian Hunold (Advisor) - Drexel University (1970-)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Civil (and Architectural) Engineering [Historical]; College of Engineering (1970-2026); Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 4077; 991014632060504721