Regionalism in Metropolitan Chicago: A Work in Progress

✍ Scribed by David K. Hamilton

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Weight: 119 KB
• Volume: 91
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0027-9013
• DOI: 10.1002/ncr.91106

✦ Synopsis

Local governments have struggled to maintain their autonomy and simultaneously deal with the increasing interconnectedness of public issues. To provide specific regional services, special districts have been established. Governments, particularly in the suburbs, have established councils of governments (COGs) to discuss issues that transcend their individual boundaries, and in many instances they have joined together to offer a specific service to member governments.

Business leaders in many metropolitan areas, recognizing the obstacles that local political leaders encounter in addressing regional policy issues, have also played a role in developing regional governance initiatives. Business leaders in Chicago started a regional governance initiative in 1999 called Chicago Metropolis 2020. This is not the first organization in Chicago to become involved in regional issues. Indeed, many other business-funded civic organizations have been involved in studying regional issues, producing reports, and advocating regional action on specific issues for many years. Metropolis 2020 takes regionalism to a new level. Its agenda is not narrowly focused on one or two regional governance issues but on a much broader goal of a comprehensive regional governance system. This initiative is an example of new regionalism.

New regionalism involves collaboration among the public and private sectors on issues dealing with metropolitan governance. These efforts may include a decision-making process on regional issues, brokering a cooperative arrangement among governments in the region, and inducing state legislation, when necessary, to implement a regional solution. In contrast to previous approaches to regional governance, new regionalism does not involve restructuring government boundaries or altering authority relationships among local municipal governments. There is strong involvement by the private sector, which for the purposes of this article includes civic agencies that are involved in regional activity and dependent upon the private sector or private foundations for financial and leadership resources.

New regionalism is a collaborative, nonhierarchical process where each party comes to the table as a relatively equal participant in decision making.