Regional Citizenship
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Session:The Regional Community in the New Economy (March 11, 1:15pm)
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Regional Citizenship
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Session:The Regional Community in the New Economy (March 11, 1:15pm) |
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Abstract: Regional communities need citizens, networks, and compacts to be successful in the new century. First, and foremost, they need an abundance of excellent regional citizens committed to building regional communities. Second, they need effective regional decision-making networks that bring public, private and civic sectors together to address the toughest regional challenges. Third, they need equitable regional growth compacts that benefit rich and poor neighborhoods regionwide. The article presents seven steps that budding regional citizens can pursue, with the assistance of community planners, to build successful regional communities.
Region communities need citizens, networks, and compacts to be successful. Most regional cooperation efforts focus on creating the public, private, and civic mechanisms to address the tough regional challenges. As those mechanisms become more numerous, the focus shifts to weaving them together into a regional decision-making network that can effectively tackle the next generation of even tougher challenges. Success is usually measured by the ability of the network in each region to convince key stakeholders to participate in designing, and implementing, collaborative strategies for addressing priority regional challenges. All too often these networks have not been as successful as desired because they lacked two complementary components -- the regional citizens to guide them and the regional growth compacts to set the rules for regional cooperation. Real regional success is especially measured by how many regional residents have made a commitment to regional citizenship. If a substantial percentage of regional residents have declared their regional citizenship, almost any regional challenge can be tackled successfully. If only a small percentage is committed to regional cooperation, few challenges can be tackled successfully. If we forget the "individual" regional citizen side of regional cooperation, we all too often experience the unraveling of the "wholesale" regional decision-making network. Regional residents have gotten the message; they need to engage in addressing the tough crosscutting challenges if they are to successfully compete in the global economy and have a high quality of life at home. They realize that they need to develop their individual regional citizenship skills, as well as their capacity to work with other regional citizens, to shape balanced growth, overcome intercommunity disparities, or build regional community. Bottom-up -- building citizens -- is as critical as top-down -- building mechanisms -- to addressing tough regional challenges and building regional community. Finally, efforts to address the toughest regional challenges will continue to be thwarted until the rules of the regional cooperation game are defined. Even the most dedicated of regional citizens can not make regional networks succeed if there is lack of agreement on the future growth of the region and the impact of that growth on rich and poor neighborhoods. A regional equitable growth compact presenting the protocols, policies, processes, and practices shaping future growth is the third key component of successful regional communities. In sum, regional cooperation has become a necessity and it requires individual commitments and a collective capacity to achieve regional excellence. Citizens -- excellent regional citizens -- plus networks -- effective regional decision-making networks -- and compacts -- equitable neighborhood growth regionwide -- results in community -- successful regional communities. Based on what I have learned from you, I would like to suggest seven steps that budding regional citizens can pursue in building successful regional communities. All of the steps require consideration, but not necessarily in the order suggested. Moreover, it is not necessary to complete an earlier step before moving on to a new one. The first three steps especially focus on what individuals can do to get started in becoming excellent regional citizens. Steps 4 and 5 focus on building regional networks and regional compacts and are probably the most demanding. The last two steps are probably the most fun. As you read through the seven steps, test your regional citizenship. Give yourself a score of one to ten depending how far you have come -- from fledgling to seasoned regional citizen -- in pursuing each of the steps. #1 -- Declare your regional citizenship First, and maybe most critically, become an "open" regional citizen and declare your regional citizenship. Everyone is already a "closet" regional citizen. Each regional resident knows how to use the region -- where to live, recreate, work, shop, worship and go to school -- and doesn’t give a moment’s consideration to crossing jurisdictional boundaries. However, most residents don’t yet think of themselves as regional citizens. Become smart on your region -- follow regional challenges in the local media, read a book on regional cooperation, attend a regional dialogue, visit another region, or participate in a regional leadership/citizenship program. Then, based on these investigations, declare yourself a regional citizen, such as by signing a regional pledge, possibly along the following lines. As a citizen of the ______ region, I recognize that my future is interwoven with that of my neighbors and that we must work together to address crosscutting challenges. I, therefore, pledge to (here add particular commitments, such as support and participate in open processes for addressing regional challenges) and generally work for the overall good of the region. Together, I believe that we can successfully address crosscutting challenges, be economically competitive in the global economy, and provide a high quality of life to all of our citizens. Then, start wearing a "Regional Citizen" or "The Region is My Community" button. Finally, recruit another regional resident to declare his or her regional citizenship. And then, recruit another one next year. (Score ____) #2 -- Advance new regional initiatives Second, develop your regional citizenship by becoming a regional "environmental scanner" and developing new regional initiatives. Remove the blinders that limit your vision, identify the common challenges -- opportunities and threats -- that affect you and your neighbors and can only be addressed cooperatively, across the neighborhoods of the region. Meet with your regional neighbors, the "unlikelies", discuss the tough regional challenges, the "unmentionables", and advance a new regional initiative, a "unheardof". In sum, design, dialogue on, defend, modify, and build support for your regional initiative and work for its implementation. And then, come up with a new regional initiative next year. (Score _____) #3 -- Regionalize your organizations Third, help one of the organizations that you participate in to develop a regional agenda. Encourage your employer to participate in a regional economic development program or your mosque, synagogue, or church to launch a regional affordable housing initiative. Encourage your neighborhood group to develop joint activities with neighborhood groups in other jurisdictions, or your choral group or sports team to sing with or compete against other groups regionwide. Find regional initiatives that meet the common needs of organization members. Don’t force a regional agenda, but don’t hesitate to plant "seeds" for regional initiatives. In sum, advance a regional agenda in one of your organizations and work for its adoption and implementation. And then, turn to a new organization next year. (Score _____) #4 -- Help build a region decision-making network Scattershot approaches don’t address tough challenges effectively. Rather, we need an effective network of public, private, civic, and other mechanisms, and individual regional citizens, working together to address tough regional challenges. A region that is not addressing its tough challenges today is a region that will be in trouble tomorrow, not only with its citizens but with federal and state governments. We can’t ad hoc our way to regional excellence. Assess how well your regional decision-making network in addressing the tough regional challenges. Is priority consideration being given to addressing the challenges that will make your region remembered proudly, one, two, or even seven generations into the future? Become familiar with the tough challenges, think about and analyze them, and dialogue with others on how well the challenges are being addressed. Join with other regional citizens and suggest ways to make the regional decision-making network work better. Build the regional capacity to address tough challenges -- train regional experts, strengthen the regional information clearinghouses, provide regional meeting places, or create a regional edifice to co-house regional mechanisms. Assess recent efforts to foster regional cooperation and apply the lessons learned to the next efforts. Better yet, call for developing a strategy for achieving regional governance excellence, a "SARGE", and participate in at least one event annually related to its design and implementation. Monitor progress in addressing tough challenges; call for or participate in preparing an annual state of the region report on progress in addressing the tough challenges. (Score _____) #5 -- Help negotiate a Regional Equitable Growth Compact Regional growth is almost by definition inequitable -- favoring the haves over the have nots, condemning some neighborhoods and even entire jurisdictions to lower quality services and lives, and offering unappealing choices for the haves and have nots. We can not foster regional cooperation, much less build successful regions, if our neighborhoods are unequal and becoming more unequal over time. Work with fellow regional citizens, and the regional decision-making network, to negotiate a regional equitable growth compact. Secure support for balanced growth; protecting access to the natural environment, directing new development into bypassed or distressed neighborhoods, and responding to neighborhood-based strategies for regional excellence. Prod colleges and universities to develop new tools and models for fostering regional equity, ones that favor the carrots of market forces over the sticks of regulatory moratoria. Back or become a political candidate that supports regional equity. Work with foundations and others to create regional equity funds that balance the playing field for all neighborhoods. Contribute to a regional equity fund, participate in a regional inequity protest, or help in negotiating a key piece of a regional equitable growth compact, annually. (Score _____) #6 -- Celebrate regional successes Rarely are the individuals and organizations that overcome the odds and achieve a regional success commended for their efforts. Recognize a regional success with a phone call, letter, article or editorial, or recommendation for an award. Create a regional recognition award. Become a candidate for regional recognition. Publicly thank a regional success annually. (Score _____) #7 -- Connect with regions globally Regions are the new communities of the 21st century. They drive the local, state, national, and global economies; they provide the quality of life to raise the next generation. Other regions offer a global laboratory, experimenting with an incredible array of approaches for developing regional citizens, building regional networks, and negotiating regional compacts. Take advantage of this experimentation -- visit other regions and develop contacts with their regional citizens, follow their regional initiatives in the media and on their websites, and attend national/international conferences on regional cooperation. Beg, borrow, or steal the best regional cooperation initiatives and share them in the regional websites and state of the region reports. Promote gatherings of regions, such as through a national/international Committee of the Regions. Connect with regional citizens in another region. And then, connect with regional citizens in another new region next year. (Score_____) How far have you come in becoming a regional citizen? I suggest that you focus on improving your score on the steps for which you received the lowest scores. I welcome your thoughts on these and other steps for building regional citizenship. It will be the focus of a new book that I will be writing over the coming months. The tentative title is Regional Citizens, Networks, and Compacts: Seven Steps to Regional Community Excellence. Also, please send me information on your latest regional initiatives and add me to your mailing list for newsletters and reports. I hope that our paths cross frequently in the future.
Author and Copyright InformationCopyright 2001 by Author William R. (Bill) Dodge has been assisting community leaders and citizens to address regional challenges for the past three decades. Recently, as Executive Director of the National Association of Regional Councils, he offered assistance on the latest regional tools and techniques and shared information on emerging regional developments with regional councils of governments and other public, private, and civic regional organizations. Mr. Dodge is the author of Shaping a Region’s Future, a manual to guide regional strategic planning processes, and Regional Excellence: Governing Together to Compete Globally and Flourish Locally, a book to guide building regional communities. William R. Dodge |