Chapter 7: Multi-Sector Collaboration and Workforce Housing in Minnesota

Many problems faced by communities are complex and multi-faceted, what Rittel and Webber (1973) referred to as “wicked problems.” The complexity of these problems necessitate collaboration across public, private and nonprofit sectors to find solutions that address the many facets of the issue. Providing workforce housing in rural Minnesota is one such wicked problem that has brought players across sectors together to create solutions.

In their 1973 article, Rittel and Webber argued that unlike engineering and scientific problems, which can be addressed using scientific methods, the social problems faced by public planners were often “wicked” and not amenable to such solutions. According to the authors, these social problems are ill-defined and are never really solved, just re-solved over and over. Rittel and Webber’s article became the basis for discussions of complex or wicked problems in public policy and administration. Several authors have used the concept of wicked problems in examining how public entities address complex issues (Bache et al., 2016; Catron, 1981; Head & Alford, 2015; Termeer et al., 2015; ; Weymouth & Harzt-Karp, 2015; Zhang & Kim, 2016).