Regional Charters
Prologue
Bill Dodge
“When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Civil Rights Saying
“With righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.”
Psalm 98
“We need to keep reinventing and refining government,
to keep up with changes in society and technology
and to keep it from being too easy for elites with resources to exploit.
And tis worth fighting for. Not because of the founders,
or because it sounds good, but because
while democracy might be far from perfect,
it is still the best system we’ve got.”
Malka Ann Older, Author
I am completing Regional Charters as the COVID-19 pandemic still wreaks havoc across regions, globally. It makes me wish that I had completed this book years ago and regions had adopted Regional Charters to address this catastrophic disaster.
If regions had already empowered themselves to bring all community sectors together to address common challenges, as well as prepared an abundance of practicing regional citizens, would they be better prepared to respond to an unexpected challenge of this magnitude? Given humanity’s historic resistance to addressing similar threats early enough, I suspect that their initial responses might also be somewhat tardy. However, once their capacities were unleashed, I believe that Charter regions would outperform their non-Charter cousins, support struggling families and businesses and, most importantly, save lives.
First, Charter regions would know how to create the venues, tap the expertise, assemble the equipment, and raise the funding to address tough common challenges. In fact, many of them would have already developed regional emergency preparedness strategies for bringing experts and organizations together to coordinate what would be otherwise fragmented responses, such as tracking the regional spread of infections; targeting testing on vulnerable medical staff, the elderly, and unsheltered; redirecting resources to sustain overwhelmed hospitals and essential services and coordinating vaccination efforts.
Some Charter regions would even have taken actions to make their regions more self-sufficient in producing medical supplies, retrofitting temporary housing, and growing local food. Moreover, I hope that some of the larger regions would be helping their smaller region neighbors to develop the capacity to fight the pandemic, and together prodding state and national governments to support their coordinated responses.
There is already evidence of how Regional Charters might function. The Mid-America Regional Council, together with other regional organizations, has created the Kansas City Regional Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund to support non-profit organizations. (marc.org) The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is providing real time projections of potential hospitalized COVID-19 patients to help hospitals plan for and share patients, regionally. (National Association of Regional Councils, 5/5/20) Both of these organizations already have many of the characteristics of a Regional Charter Full-Service/Turn-To Regional Connector.
Second, Regional Charter All-Sector Committees of the Region (CORes) would have already tested the Regional Grand Bargains negotiated with their state and national governments in preparing Regional Charters and quickly become the “on-the-ground” partners to breathe life into new initiatives, such as the multi-trillion dollar CARES America Rescue Plan legislation. All disasters have to be dealt with locally and regions are the new local, especially for addressing pandemics that have no respect for local government boundaries. CORes would bring all regional interests together, ante up complementary Regional Charter REChart and REGrow funding, and address the pandemic, effectively and equitably.
And, probably more. Regional Charter CitizensShips would be helping health providers to educate the public on pandemic protocols and bringing community organizations together to provide meals and housing for the unemployed and unsheltered. Regional Charter Governance Innovation Institutes would be testing new ways to conduct cooperative decision-making online and sharing new pandemic tools with local and health officials as well as with the general public regionwide. The National League of Regions, created by Charter regions, would be assisting regions nationwide to share staff and supplies with pandemic hotspot regions.
I would like to believe that we will never have to face another pandemic, but we already are, triggered once again by the violent death of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white police officer. Unlike COVID-19, the racial pandemic has been wreaking havoc for over four centuries. Millions of protesters are already dedicated to addressing this second pandemic, and yet a third one, climate disruption, is threatening to make millions more refugees in our lifetimes. I suspect that neither of these pandemics will be successfully addressed until regions are pursuing Renewable Equitable Growth (REG) Compacts.
* * *
I have labored in regional trenches for over half a century, working with an amazing array of committed individuals and organizations.
During this time, the term region has been applied to addressing challenges that do not conveniently fit within local governmental boundaries and either demand or benefit from cooperative responses. Some regional challenges offer common opportunities — such as an economic innovation or a new source of government funding. Some offer common threats — such as the lack of affordable housing or a natural disaster. Responding to regional challenges usually requires designing a strategy of coordinated actions, almost always calling for modifying existing services and providing new funding and enabling legislation.
Regions vary in geographic scope, depending upon the challenges being addressed, from a handful of neighboring municipalities to dozens of local governments, cutting across state and national boundaries. Sometimes the challenges being addressed fit within the boundaries of the affected jurisdictions; all too often they don’t, such as those that follow natural watersheds or airsheds. The geographic scope of regions also varies over time, as the challenges being addressed morph into new areas and affect new populations. There is no single, much less perfect, definition of region, even for a particular point in time.
This book focuses on two particular types of regions. First, in the more urban, often called, metropolitan areas, it focuses on the larger human settlements that have physically evolved over time — and usually include a central core city; already contiguous, often called suburban, counties; and emerging, often called exurban growth areas. Second, in more rural areas, it focuses on the neighboring groups of smaller human settlements that have forged a national/even global identity based on common histories, economic activities, and natural resources — and usually include smaller cities, towns, and counties, dealing with the same cross-cutting challenges.
For example, I once called a more urban region — Southwestern Pennsylvania — home. It encompasses ten counties, including the City of Pittsburgh and hundreds of municipalities, called cities, towns, and boroughs. It is defined by a common economy — historically manufacturing and now higher education, high tech, and health services — and is tied together by the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers which meet to form the Ohio river.
I now call a more rural region — Durango and Southwestern Colorado — one of my homes. It covers five counties, including ten municipalities and two Native American reservations. It is defined by a common economy — historically mining and now tourism — and is tied together, as well as separated from other regions, by the San Juan Mountains range. And, my other current home is in the greater Los Angeles region, which has more people and covers more land than many nation states, and has a history of denying its regionalness.
Some regions can be driven across in a couple of hours and have populations in the tens of thousands. Some take from dawn to dusk to traverse and have populations in the millions. All regions are connected by a sense of common regional community, resulting from reading the same newspapers, attending the same festivals, following the same sports teams, sharing the same roads and transit systems, and competing together in the global farmer’s market.
Making matters confusing, the term region is also applied to groups of adjoining urban and rural regions — more often called “super” or “mega” regions — such as those that cover most of New England or the Southeastern United States. Moreover, the term region is also applied to groups of nations, such as the members of the African or European Union. Both of these concepts of region are important, but outside the scope of this book. However, if we build the governance capacity in more urban and more rural areas, simply called regions in this book, effectively and equitably, we will be better prepared to address the challenges faced by these other definitions of regions.
* * *
The original purpose of the book was simple, to be a sequel to Regional Excellence: Governing Together to Compete Globally and Flourish Locally, which shared the latest tools for fostering regional cooperation at the turn of the century.
I quickly realized that I was confronting a conundrum. Domestic regions were rarely taking advantage of the innovations that I shared in Regional Excellence. Their local government and other community leaders were too often incurious about the regional initiatives being taken overseas, from the European Community to South Africa. They also tended to be suspicious of ideas that appeared to threaten the sacred turf of cities and counties, even if some of these ideas would not only enable their local governments to better address current common challenges but also give them more control over addressing future ones.
That is not to say that regional cooperation has stood still during my career. Quite the opposite. Extraordinary individuals had designed dynamic tools and founded impressive organizations to address the growing array of increasingly complex common challenges, some since the mid-20th century.
But the conversations began changing at the dawn of the 21st century.
Individuals who were serving on regional organization boards or participating in their problem-solving and service-delivery processes became more reluctant to share their thoughts, much less excitement, about being able to strengthen their capacity to address existing regional challenges. Even their successes all too often felt like “one step forward and two steps back”, answering a few old questions, but raising even more new ones. Moreover, they shared their frustrations about having to keep reinventing the wheel — designing new processes, finding new funds, recruiting new participants, etc. — to attack new common challenges.
All too often, these individuals would blame some of their frustrations on the explosion of tougher new challenges. The old regional challenges — such as maintaining and building transportation systems, protecting vulnerable air and water sources, and providing affordable worker housing — kept changing and growing. The new regional challenges — such as shaping sustainable growth, providing living wage jobs, overcoming institutional/interjurisdictional inequities, and slowing down climate disruption — became more numerous and demanding.
I prefer to use the term regional challenges, as opposed to problems or even issues, to convey the positive thought that even the most difficult topics offer opportunities as well as threats. Definitions for other terms used in the book are found in the Glossary at the end of the Background chapter.
Worst of all, these individuals would become angry and blame increasingly dysfunctional national and state governments. They complained that the “so-called” higher levels of government were keeping regional cooperation mechanisms weakly empowered. And chronically underfunded, especially for transportation. They wondered why our competitors, such as European nations and China, can build state-of-the-art high speed rail and transit systems, and we can’t even maintain the dated ones serving us. They argued that their local governments were left “holding the bag” for funding regional as well as their own local initiatives from the same regressive sales and property taxes. And, facing unrelenting pushback from increasingly angry voters.
These conversations often ended on a somber note, especially the ones with the battle-weary individuals, whom I call regional citizens, and the more-trained professionals, whom I call regionalists. As the emotional “scar tissue” from their regional experiences “began to itch”, they shared their sadness about having to bury any thoughts they might still have about pursuing the big regional ideas. Instead of showcasing the American Exceptionalism they experienced in the last century, they were afraid that they were behaving like a lower order of species, passing little on to those addressing the next round of challenges. And, even raised doubts about whether their regions would be the best places for their children and grandchildren to raise a business or grow a family.
Since the chaotic 2016 Presidential election, these conversations have become even more disturbing. Budding regional citizens and regionalists express fears that false leaders and fake news have rigged the whole American system. They are afraid that the “powers that be”, which are necessary to “weave society into an intricate fiber of power and relationships”, have become the “source of unmitigated evils” — bigotry, greed, pollution, sexism, and other forms of bullying — as eloquently analyzed by the theologian Walter Wink. Or, even worse, “find themselves caught (‘trapped’ might be Wink’s choice now) in structures (‘at the national level’ might be Wink’s addition now) that, despite all individual attentions of good will, persist in doing things that actually work against the common good”. (Wink, R. Brown) They fear that these evils have unleashed a resentful tribalism that threatens to destroy even the most revered leaders and institutions required to bring us together.
Now, I am finishing up this book in the midst of lockdowns triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and curfews triggered by the death of George Floyd, both of which not only threaten any thoughts about being exceptional but raise fears about the very survival of our democratic governance system.
Talk about casting doubt on my ability to write a simple guide for regional citizens and regionalists on the future of regional cooperation.
* * *
However, these difficult conversations raised one ray of hope. Participants are no longer viewing regional cooperation as just a nice process for addressing common challenges, but a necessity for future governance.
In spite of their frustrations, the participants confirmed that more and more of their families, friends, co-workers, and neighbors are becoming aware of and learning about regional challenges. Some of them are expressing interest in developing their skills to participate in resolving these challenges. Some already seem to be starting down the path of becoming practicing regional citizens. A few of the especially younger ones are considering becoming trained regionalists.
Maybe, most importantly, some participants were beginning to see that their regions are evolving ecological settlements — a regional commons — not inanimate, rigid lines on maps defined by local government boundaries. They understand that they are suffering the consequences of myopically concentrating too much time and resources on competing with neighbors and losing economic development opportunities to other regions. And turning a blind eye to helping the jurisdictions, and threatened habitats that are critical to making their regional community competitive in the global economy.
All too often, these budding regional citizens and regionalists have seen their community leaders accept “muddling through”, resisting developing the tools required to bring people together to address common challenges and deliver common services, effectively or equitably, which tools I call regional governance. Much less lobby state and national governments for the authority and funding to make regional governance succeed. They have concluded that their regions have been struggling to make “pick-up” regional cooperation work, but need to play “championship” regional governance.
In this book, governance is a broader term than government, referring not just to the national, state, and local government institutions that often have the primarily responsibility for delivering services, but also to the private, non-profit, academic, labor, faith-based, civic, and other sector individuals and organizations that are affected by and need to be involved in planning and carrying out the actions for addressing regional challenges. Collectively, all of these interests are called the community sectors in this book.
Most importantly, however, regional governance is not a new ideology, or even worse an “ism”, and the term regionalism is not used in this book.
Some budding regional citizens and regionalists have now concluded that they have met the enemy and it is themselves. They know that they have to tone down their parochial national and local biases and start practicing a new type of regional citizenship. And are beginning to raise a couple of new questions — How can I become a practicing regional citizen and help develop the governance capacity to address common challenges, effectively, and shape equitable, eco-friendly, sustainable growth? And once I declare my regional citizenship, how can I withstand the “slings and arrows” thrown at me by neighbors and coworkers who are not ready to accept their regional citizenship?
Thank goodness, more and more individuals are willing to be called forth to become practicing regional citizens, as John Gardner so wisely wished in the Foreword. It is this ray of hope that has shaped the purpose of Regional Charters — to help us all become budding regional citizens and institutionalize the capacity to make our regions succeed in addressing tough challenges. And, we are all potential regional citizens, from the industrious factory worker struggling to keep food on the family table, to the ambitious student looking for an exciting career, to the eager immigrant finally able to pursue her American Dream. And even, it is hoped, the business leaders who calls themselves global citizens, yet refuse to be accountable for their behavior in the regions they should be calling home. If chimpanzees can practice consensus building and form tactical coalitions governed by intellect not instinct, why not we humans? (de Wall)
To do this, Regional Charters has had to become more audacious, maybe even bodacious and a bit idealistic, and call for shaking up the status quo, whether rigged or not. And more personal — the ruminations of a recovering, reforming, and it is hoped, renewable, regionalist on a pilgrimage not unlike the one that I took in the middle of the writing process with my sons on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.
Time is no longer on the side of regions that address their challenges, ineffectively and inequitably. The regions that continue to squander their scarce seed-capital on duplicative, fragmented services; refuse to fund the region-wide infrastructure and “big ideas” required to be competitive; condemn needy neighbors to a lower quality of life; and keep polluting their natural environments are already hearing a “giant sucking sound” from the global farmer’s market. Their populations and wealth could easily become part of the great migration, not just domestically, but across a globe, to the regions that strengthen their capacity to thrive.
Finally, I believe we will have little impact on building our capacity to address regional challenges until an abundance of us is driven by a moral imperative to change. Witness the difficulty in changing attitudes on gay marriage until our children started demonstrating their tolerance and declaring their sexual identities. Witness the difficulty in changing attitudes on climate disruption until now, as our grandchildren start demanding full lives on a still living planet.
Similarly, we will not change the way we govern regions until we are driven by the moral imperative to treat each jurisdiction and its inhabitants, equitably.