[Printable Version]

For communities to respond to their challenges, they must resolve, for themselves, that their capacity to solve problems requires revitalization. Outside consultants can make recommendations, but without local ownership of a strategy and implementation plan, it is not likely that the community will take action. The Civic Index, a twelve point community self-evaluation tool, helps communities develop their problem solving capacity by providing a method and a process for first identifying and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, and then structuring collaborative approaches to solving shared problems. Today's column discusses the Civic Index component of Inter-Community Cooperation.

Connecting Community Wellbeing to Regional Wellbeing

Cutbacks in federal funds and destructive economic competition among regions are two factors driving neighboring cities, towns, and counties to look for new avenues of cooperation. Local communities are no longer competing with each other as much as they are competing with other regions in the national and international marketplace. Individual communities need to cooperate with each other in planning for their shared future and addressing regional needs.

An additional factor that has spurred the need for inter-community cooperation is the emergence of issues that are more regional than local in nature: land use, hunger, affordable housing, economic development, and environmental protection. Such problems clearly cross jurisdictional boundaries and so must the solutions. For example, to what avail does a town clean up its river basin if the towns upstream continue to allow industrial wastes to be dumped into that river?

The approaches that communities can take toward fostering inter-community or regional cooperation range from informal agreements to formal political restructuring. David Walker, writing in the National Civic Review describes the two polls of regional associations.

"Informal cooperation is the easiest and probably the most widely practiced approach to regionalism. It generally involves collaboration and reciprocal activities, but not fiscal transactions. The hardest approaches to metro regionalism are complex consolidations and restructurings, which create new area-wide levels of government, reallocate local government powers and functions, and disrupt the political and institutional status quo."

Whichever approach to regional cooperation an area adopts-anywhere along the continuum of ad hoc to strictly formal relationships-certain practices are key to the region's ability to function effectively.

First, a proactive approach to regional problem solving needs to be embraced. Regional challenges, and also opportunities, need to be identified in the early stages. Too often, regional leaders wait to take action, or to even gather, until problems have become full blown crises.

As such, ongoing mechanisms for regional cooperation and discussion should be established. These mechanisms could include regional problem solving assessments, strategy planning sessions, reports on the state of the region, or formal, ongoing working regional bodies.

Second, although regional problem solving efforts can be initiated from leaders of any locality or sector within the region, to be effective, these efforts need to involve representatives from all sectors and areas of that region. The scope and scale of regional problems, just as with that of community problems, require all three sectors - government, business and community-based organizations - to take joint responsibility for meeting these challenges. No one sector or region can "do it alone" and an uncommitted or, worse, antagonistic sector or area can doom efforts to create regional solutions to regional challenges.

Correlatively, a key to functioning well as a region is to focus on issues where common ground can be found. Certainly, some conflict will always be present among the communities which make up a region and, at some point, the issues underlying this conflict may need to be addressed; however, at any given time, a vast number of issues exist within a region which need attention and which will not lead to a dysfunctional regional problem solving environment. When possible, regions should pull potentially disruptive issues off the table.

Neal Peirce, of the Washington Post Writers Group, describes in his December 12, 1998 column how the Chicago area is becoming a model for successful regional cooperation. Pierce writes that Chicago, its suburbs and neighboring cities have historically been embroiled in fierce political fights. But, beginning in December of 1997 a group of 269 municipalities from six counties began meeting to discuss regional problems and solutions.

A primary reason this process has been successful is that potentially divisive issues-issues which could dissolve the cooperative gathering-are kept off limits. For example, the "hotly contested issue" of whether the region needs a second major airport has not been debated. Contrarily, regional issues about which participants could potentially find common ground, such as crime, transit, and area compliance with the Clean Air Act, are considered.

The Civic Index lists a number of questions communities can ask themselves to help gauge the quality of their regional problem solving capacities, including:

• How do local governments relate to each other?
• Do leaders in the region have a common forum to discuss issues?
• How do region-wide policy challenges get resolved?
• Is economic development addressed on a region-wide basis?
• Are any services provided on a regional basis?
• Are any planning activities carried out on a regular basis?

Creating more effective regional problem solving structures and routines will be challenging in nature because they require each participating community to alter its standard way of doing business. Fortunately, many local leaders and citizens appear to be concluding that the vitality of their own communities is directly related to the capacities of their regional problem solving processes. By recognizing that local challenges transcend municipal limits and recognizing the need to work with neighboring jurisdictions, these communities, in the long run, end up advancing their own communities' best interests.

For information on how the concepts and techniques presented in this column can be applied in your community, or to order the 1999 Revised Civic Index, contact the National Civic League by e-mail at ncl@ncl.org; on the world wide web at www.ncl.org; or by phone at (303) 571-4343.

<< Back to Community Services Articles