(Neal Peirce is a syndicated columnist who writes about local government issues. His columns do not reflect the opinions of County News or the National Association of Counties.)
For years now, America's community-watchers have agonized about the loss of strong local leadership - an "absentocracy," or revolving door of in-and-out leadership that's left many communities adrift.
Governing magazine Publisher Peter Harkness summed it up at a National Academy of Public Administration conference:
"The local newspaper used to be owned by local people. The owners of the local TV station, the bank, the major retail stores, the major industries, lived in the community."
But no longer. More often these days, Harkness suggested, "Gannett owns the local paper, Capital Cities the TV station, WalMart the biggest retail store. Banks are owned by Charlotte or Chicago, local factories by people from some other country."
Managers of these enterprises are often on temporary assignment, itching for advancement elsewhere. There's not much chance they'll invest much of their time or effort, or corporate funds, in the community. The result: the loss of folks who care for the long haul, an important pillar of American communities' civic order.
Not so fast, write three principals of a Silicon Valley firm, Collaborative Economics, in a book just published. They agree the old order has faded. But they see a new breed of what they call "civic entrepreneurs" rising. These new leaders, they claim, are consciously and smartly hooked into the very global economy that many believe has undercut Main Street America.
The leadership ideas advanced by Douglas Henton, John Melville and Kimberly Walesh in their new book, Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy, (Jossey-Bass) offer the most positive connection between globalism and a bright future for U.S. communities.
The civic entrepreneurs, they write, are already at work in virtually all our regions. They're in entrepreneurial businesses, global corporations, economic development agencies, foundations, environmental groups, government, even, on occasion, the media. They mediate between sometimes antagonistic groups, "walking between the raindrops" to create consensus and forward momentum.
Grassroots Leaders is replete with examples of savvy regions. Cleveland, the "comeback city," makes these authors' list. So does the Phoenix-Tucson corridor because it effectively recovered from the savings and loan scandal and real estate bust of the late '80s by way of technology development, export development and improved math and science education.
The writers' ultimate example is California's Silicon Valley, which took an economic dive after 1986 - even though it had scores of large and small, high- and low-tech firms improving products, cutting time to market, paring costs.
But if the companies were competitive, Silicon Valley as a whole wasn't. Schools were dragging in quality, the roads were in frequent gridlock, and most problems were being addressed by a culture of blame and litigation instead of negotiation and cooperation.
But in a 1992 report, Silicon Valley leaders began a collaborative strategy based on best practices learned from other regions. Some 1,000 people took part in forums on new approaches. Seven industry clusters - from semiconductors to bioscience to environmental technology - were identified. Regulatory hurdles were cleared, including a unified building code across 29 jurisdictions.
The fundamental shift, we're told, is "from the centralized, vertically integrated model of business and government dominant in the New Deal and Cold War eras toward a more decentralized, horizontal and networked regional model."
Making regions economically attractive through collaborations and partnerships, these authors assert, will lead to a "rebuilt civil society."
One has to worry: Will social equity really be served? Where's the accountability if government is only one of many players?
On the other hand, a strategy of wealth creation, pushing incessantly to engage the community's full strengths, public and private, sounds infinitely superior to dividing pieces of a shrinking pie.
(c) 1997, Washington Post Writers Group