Dynamics of Cross-Sector Collaboration: Minnesota's Urban Partnership Agreement from Start to Finish

Abstract

The problems faced by today's public managers are often too large to be solved by a single entity, and require collaboration across government, nonprofit, and business sectors. As new technologies and systematic approaches transform the transportation field, cross-sector collaboration has become an increasingly important policy development and implementation approach. Particularly within the transportation field, an assemblage of technologies is often critical to implementing system-wide strategies aimed at, for example, mitigating traffic congestion. In many cases, designers and implementers of effective transportation policies must combine a variety of technologies with deft relationship building and management. Through the development of comparative case studies of the Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA) initiatives, this research study will complete the examination from start to finish of the Minnesota UPA, and provide additional comparative information from other UPA sites to enhance the certainty of conclusions, and to develop sound lessons for practitioners.