Imagine you are a planner with a local or regional planning agency or a policy analyst with a state legislature, administrative agency or interest group and have been asked to become an expert on a particular issue. You should direct your paper to a broad audience, but assume that it consists of political officials who may act upon your recommendations (i.e. the mayor, city manager, or city council) and the public – who may have their own opinions and interests. Your paper should therefore be accessible, yet knowledgeable and professional in tone and content. Your paper should conform to standard academic guidelines regarding citation of sources.
An issue paper attempts to identify what the problems at issue really are, to isolate the fundamental objectives involved, to suggest planning and policy alternatives, and to identify the potential impacts and implications of choices among them. It also summarizes existing laws, policies, and planning regulations that bear on the problem (either as part of the problem or as possible solutions), and other resources that could be brought to bear on it.
An issue paper is supposed to be as complete an assessment of all that is currently known about the problem as the readily available data and literature will allow. The idea of an issue paper is to explore the problem at a depth sufficient to give the reader a good idea of its dimensions and the possible scope of the solution. Based on this, it might be possible for the decision-maker to conclude either to do nothing further or to commission a definitive study looking toward some sort of action recommendation.
The issue paper must have four parts, as described below:
- Problem Definition (Draft: 1-2 pp; Final: 3-4 pages).
The problem definition portion of the issue paper accomplishes the following:
- Defines concisely what the problem is;
- Explains why it is important;
- Describes its present and potential future magnitude (and the basis for your estimate);
- Details who is affected by it;
- Explores its possible causes.
Be sure to cover both physical causes of the problem and underlying human sources or activity patterns that influence physical causes; be as specific as possible. Be sure also to be candid about uncertain or disputed issues, such as conflicting estimates of the magnitude or causes of the problem; to use data if readily available; and to cite their sources.
- Existing Policies (Draft: 2-3 pp; Final 3-5 pp) Summarize existing government laws, policies, regulations, and programs that bear on the problem and briefly assess why these policies are not solving it. You should focus on Austin unless you have discussed another approach with the professors. In this section you are expected to:
- Define and explain what the existing policies are to combat your problem
- Determine whether the existing policies are effective?
- Discuss any potential barriers to effectiveness such as inadequate funding or political opposition (which may or may not exist in Austin)
- Explain why you believe the policies are/are not effective?
Make you consider whether the reasons that policies are not effective causes of the problem themselves? Enacted perhaps for different purposes, or subverted in practice by other objectives?
- Alternatives (Draft: 2-3 pp; Final: 3-5 pp).
Identify the main criteria you believe any solution to the problem should meet if it is to count as a solution, and then describe briefly what alternative actions might prove to be effective solutions. Be creative here: be sure to consider proposals already under consideration by others (i.e. in other cities, regions, or states), but don’t be limited to them – use your own ideas about planning tools and techniques that might be effective, as long as you can think of some good reasons for them. Take a more unconstrained look at possibilities that may have been overlooked or too quickly dismissed by others as not feasible. In this section make sure you:
- Describe briefly each alternative you have identified
- What actors would be needed in order to implement each alternative
- Explain how and why you would expect it to be effective
- Discuss the pros and cons (use your own objectives and criteria: examples could include its costs, positive and negative side effects, and uncertainties).
- Recommendations (Draft: 1-2 pp; Final: 3-4 pp; Given your assessments in the previous three parts)
- State what specific course of action you would recommend if you had to make a recommendation without any additional time or information (this can be either one of the alternatives above, or some mixed solution, or no action),
- Explain your reasoning for that recommendation
- Identify as specifically as possible what additional analyses would contribute the most to improving the quality of the decision if you had additional time and resources to spend on studying it.
