Regionalism: The next wave of public-service delivery

Whatever one thinks of President Donald Trump’s second term, there’s no question that its first months have shredded American federalism.

For almost a century, our governing model enabled Washington to leverage its financial strength and technical know-how to support state and local efforts to advance significant policies and priorities identified by Congress. This compact lies in tatters, and the public consensus supporting it is roadkill.

For America’s career federal service — once the envy of the world — the effects have been severe. For the states, it’s brought an expectation of widening burdens, shorn of the national support they once counted on. And because state budgets are invariably tight and legally mandated to balance, municipal, county and other district authorities foresee more demands bounding down toward them like a landslide.

Local and regional officials charged with delivering services for their constituents (who also are their neighbors), are under no illusions. This was evident at the summer gathering I attended in Seattle of the National Association of Regional Councils, representing councils of government and metropolitan and rural planning organizations from across the US.

Delegates from blue, red, purple and “color-free” nonpartisan jurisdictions uniformly expressed despair that the cuts, eliminations, rescissions and uncertainties from Washington are untenable. Yet, surprisingly there was scant appetite for the status quo ante. Said one COG executive director from North Carolina, reflecting on the path forward: “Things will not go back to being the same as they were.”

Anxieties notwithstanding, the mood of these officials (comprising a mix of elected leaders and career public servants) was more that of determined hope, spiced with a bracing dash of optimism. In fact, there was the kind of excitement one feels when a page is turning, and an opportunity for meaningful change is at hand.

With federal support in eclipse and service demands poised to grow, state and local governments will be compelled to both manage resources ferociously and innovate boldly to give taxpayers more bang out of fewer bucks. The laboratories of self-government are about to blossom in wholly new ways.

Regional organizations such as COGs and M/RPOs are particularly well suited to rise to this emerging challenge. They can be sized for critical mass equal to or greater than all but the largest cities, enabling them to achieve economies of scale that small and mid-sized municipalities can’t hope to attain. They can expand and adjust flexibly by having surrounding communities opt in (or out) of programs, in alignment with emerging development, commercial and transportation patterns. Their size advantage enables them to overcome parochialism and the proliferation of local jurisdictions that can impede consensus and stall decision-making.

Critically, however, regional jurisdictions remain close enough to voters, businesses and other stakeholders to be responsive and accountable to their needs and sentiments, often in marked contrast to state government.

For one thing, the geographic structure of many COGs and MPOs enable them to transcend the problems of majority capture of state and municipal politics, where one dominant party can disregard public opinion beyond their electoral base, leaving most citizens disenchanted and alienated.

Regional districts frequently span cities, towns, suburbs and rural communities — a mix that demands the collaboration, consensus and common ground craved by so many who have long found themselves turned off by the unrelenting partisan warfare of American politics.

The opportunities of regional governance can even extend beyond state borders, such as the Port of NY & NJ, which was created more than a century ago to bring order to the chaos of interstate competition in maritime commerce that President Wilson feared was hindering the war effort. 

In the Great Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority, created by FDR and encompassing a mega-region touching seven states, became the nation’s largest single power supplier and drove the economic rebirth of the South. The first councils of government were formed after World War II in metropolitan Atlanta and Northern Virginia. Then, after the 1956 creation of the Interstate system, MPOs were mandated by Congress to coordinate transportation planning and allocation of federal highway funds.

Today, regional agencies are increasingly the platform where officials turn to address complex issues and intractable problems that spill over municipal boundaries or are worsened by NIMBYism and excessive local provincialism. A vast galaxy of programs — aimed at housing, mobility, aging and veterans services, public safety, emergency response, workforce, recreation, sustainability, economic development and citizen engagement — shone brightly at the Seattle meetings.

Can MPOs, COGs and other regional formations continue to expand the scope and impact of their activities and responsibilities, particularly as the imperative for comprehensive governmental reinvention presses down from the Trump administration? Much will depend on state and local authorities who guard their powers jealously and may be skeptical of new centers of influence.

Moreover, regions are intrinsically disadvantaged in that they are not always clearly delineated, nor familiar or identifiable, even to engaged, civic-minded citizens. Sometimes their official designations are out of sync with their living geography. Regional identity generally follows commercial flows, housing patterns and transportation networks. Yet, this is also a great strength, animated by the natural, mutually beneficial routine interactions and relationships that nourish common ground and shared visions.

Unsurprisingly, generating the fiscal resources necessary to grow their breadth and service offerings will always be a steep hill for America’s regions. The existing funding model is outdated – based on flow-through revenues from state and federal programs and member dues from constituent local jurisdictions. A recent Brookings Institution proposal for a new US regional block grant program is an important contribution to the conversation.

Certainly, regionalized public-service delivery is no cure-all. But with growing demands pressing in on states and localities, there is surely room to better leverage this under-utilized tier of government that is so well positioned to reconcile the need for efficiency with the public expectation of responsiveness.Paramount for a society that has changed beyond the imagination of FDR’s New Deal and even Nixon’s New Federalism, a wave of new regionalism may be a pathway to the next stage of American innovation and civic renewal that too many Americans have despaired of seeing again. Let the reinvention begin.

Roger J. Cohen is a former policy and planning executive at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation and Port Authority of NY & NJ. He can be reached at rogercohen@renselconsulting.com.