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© 2006 Wi ley Per iodicals , Inc .Publ ished onl ine in Wi ley InterScience (www.interscience.wi ley.com)Nat ional Civ ic Review • DOI : 10.1002/ncr.143 • Fal l 2006

In 1925, the National Municipal League conducted a pio-neering study on the subject of intergovernmental cooperationand consolidation. Writing that year in the National MunicipalReview, University of Michigan professor Thomas H. Reedenvisioned the creation of “large areas of local government”capable of handling planning, transportation, traffic, watersupply, police, public health, and social services. “Such aunit can be effectively governed by a council,” Reed suggest-ed, “say, of nine, elected at large by proportional representa-tion, thus avoiding the evil of multiplied local elections.”

The league’s Model County Charter and Model State andRegional Planning Law provided guidance for civic leadersseeking to consolidate or coordinate government services inregions. But league leaders decided not to publish a modelmetropolitan governmental structure because there had notbeen enough experience in the area of consolidations.

Many decades later, the issue of regional governance and met-ropolitan consolidation continues to be a source of discussionand debate. Realizing the original idea of a structural fix, themetropolitan area becoming the new unit of government, hasproved elusive, but the challenges that elicited the firstleague study on metro regions continue to nag advocates ofsmart growth, efficiency, and equity.

The late John Gardner believed that every community had itsown set of civic leaders who answered the call in time of need.He labeled these citizens “the Responsibles.”

Gardner recognized, as the early leaders of the MunicipalLeague did, that increasingly these Responsibles would becalled on to deal with regional challenges such as traffic con-gestion, pollution, and infrastructure development. “As theimportance of regions grows,” he wrote, “the Responsibles areemerging in leadership roles. We call them RegionalStewards.”

In this issue of the National Civic Review, Daniel Yankelovichand Isabella Furth give us an excellent example of regionalstewardship. In San Mateo County, “a small group of civic andcommunity leaders has sparked an evolving conversation withthe public on thoughtful solutions to that region’s housing cri-sis.” Known as the “Nachos,” this group of regional civic lead-ers started a dialogue on a range of growth, transportation,and housing issues facing the region.

“The Nachos set themselves the mission of building a con-sensus that would address the housing supply crisis,” writeYankelovich and Furth. “They were advocates of housing sup-ply, but they did not endorse particular solutions or agendas.Instead, their aim was pragmatic in a way that most citizenswould recognize: to put a process in place that addressed theissue, not to dictate what the process or the technical speci-fications of the outcome should be.”

Across the continent in Erie County, New York, a more con-crete experiment in regional cooperation has proved to be amodest but encouraging success. “Over the years, local lead-ers have attempted to address the problem of too many gov-ernments,” writes Kevin Hardwick. “Occasionally, voterswould be asked whether or not they wanted to consolidate gov-ernments, or at least certain services. For years, the answerwas the same: No! Referenda were defeated, for a variety ofreasons. Regardless of reason, one thing remains clear: ErieCounty residents enjoy their autonomy.”

So instead of continuing to lecture towns and villages on thebenefits of cooperation, county officials decided to set asidefunds for small-scale consolidation projects. Such a projectconvinced the small city of Tonawanda to abandon its anti-quated water system in favor of merger with the county waterauthority. The decision, writes Hardwick, “benefited both theresidents of the city and the Erie County Water Authority’sother 150,000 customers. . . . By priming the pump, ErieCounty accomplished its objective of promoting intermunici-pal cooperation and consolidation.”

As John Gardner wrote in a monograph for the Alliance ofRegional Stewardship in 2000, informed Americans arebeginning to acknowledge that complex problems such as traf-fic congestion and pollution simply cannot be solved withoutcooperation among municipalities and other governmentagencies. “They have become familiar with words and phras-es such as urban sprawl and infill. And this new awareness isimmensely important,” he wrote. “Until a subject is on theagenda of informed America, nothing. When it does get on theagenda, all kinds of construction change are possible.”

Michael McGrath

Editor

Note from the Editor