Principles

• Partnership for Regional Livability is based on several principles:

- Regional-driven

- Federal-regional partnership

- Multi-stakeholder regional agreements

Some Alternative Approaches

• Intergovernmental Negotiation

- Negotiated Investment Strategy

- Oregon Option

• Multi-Sector Negotiation

- Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development

• Regional Collaboration

- Joint Venture: Silicon Valley

Negotiated Investment Strategy

• Kettering and Ford Foundation in 1978
• Test a mediation model in urban policy
• Three pilots: St. Paul, Columbus, Gary
• Local government teams developed projects
• Federal regional teams developed policies
• Outside mediators led the negotiation
• NIS agreements signed by federal and local leaders around specific projects

Oregon Option

• Partnership between federal government and state created in 1994
• Used Oregon's benchmark-driven planning process
• High-level federal and state agency executives oversaw effort
• Task forces developed programs in workforce, child health, nutrition
• Federal waivers granted

Bay Area Alliance on Sustainable Development

• Regional follow-up to the President's Council on Sustainable Development
• Based on the 3 Es-economy, environment and equity
• Each E organized around a caucus to define issues and strategies
• Bay Area Compact for Sustainable Development negotiated by the 3 E groups

Collaborative Regional Initiatives

• Bottom-up civic movement in California's regions (14 examples)
• Collaborative model involving business, government, community leaders around regional issues
• Federal and state government invited into regional teams (e.g., Joint Venture: Silicon Valley had EDA, DOD and California Trade and Commerce participation)

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley

• Business, government, education and community leadership alliance
• Collaborative approaches to community issues: education, economic development, smart growth
• EDA, DOD and California Trade and Commerce participated in specific project teams
• Community business plan model led by "civic entrepreneurs"

Contrasting Approaches

• NIS and Oregon Option focus on intergovernmental agreements around implementing urban policy
• Bay Area Alliance focuses on negotiating a compact agreement among the three sectors
• Collaborative regional initiatives (e.g., Joint Venture: Silicon Valley) focus on regional business plans among key players

Some Lessons

• NIS is good for negotiating vertical relationships among governments
• BAA and CRI is good for negotiating horizontal relationships among sectors
• PRL needs both:

- Strong horizontal relationship within a region

- Strong vertical relationship between a region and federal agencies

Implications

• Step 1: Use collaboration and multi-sector negotiation to create regional projects-this could be facilitated with foundation support
• Step 2: Use mediation if necessary to achieve federal-regional agreements around specific regional projects
• Step 3: Include federal agency representatives on collaborative regional teams

Bottom Up/Top Down Approaches

• PRL could test a variety of approaches that blend alternatives:

- Bottom-up: Regional collaboration and multi-sector bargaining

- Top-down: Mediated federal-regional agreements

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Last updated July 28, 1999.