Peter Plastrik Presentation

The PRL portfolio

1. varying civic capacity
2. non-attainment lever
3. coalitions & organizations
4. a sliver of the regionalism action
5. existing authority only

• What does regionalism look like?

1. devolving and transcending at same time
2. variant generation
3. web of linkages & drivers (e.g., smart growth & WFD)
4. organizing civic capacity & markets - keeping score in new ways
5. community-based planning
6. new aggregations
7. information decision-making tools
8. suburban poverty
9. incentives, not just crisis driven solutions
10. what is "national"?
11. steering institutions (governance)

• What is the Partnership value added?

1. access to multiple feds (no monolith)
2. regional network (buttons & threads)
3. strategic collaborations (link to national smart growth coalition)
4. foundations as regional leaders
5. learning for feds: innovations & "horizontal" strategic management
6. selection, design of, investment in regional actions
7. investing in core competencies (information)
8. access to new ideas (dislocation rights) & best practice info
9. goals and standards for regionalism & federal participation
10. incentive to integrate & prioritize efforts in a region

• What is the partnering process teaching us?

1. managing disorderly change (leading edges)
2. planning template vs. on-ground realities
3. building partners' expectations & confidence
4. coordination of feds is not fundamental change of fed system
5. fed team: mix appointees & career people
6. align with existing fed initiatives (EPA smart growth)
7. figure out what's in it for the agencies
8. manage disturbance of local political equilibrium
9. feds need shared understanding, principles?
10. value of facilitation
11. manage vertical & horizontal relationships
12. getting people in region to "yes"

• What about...

1. work?
2. federal capacity building?
3. a "push" strategy (power & policy)
4. the states? - carrying the equity issue?

• Memorable phrases

1. kitchen or dining room?
2. oyster
3. constant irritant;
4. who's got the steelies?
5. 2 way learning
6. 3 E's are our religion
7. carrots big enough to be sticks
8. amnesia caused by affluence
9. a recovering fed
10. reinvent the mission statement of the federal govt
11. the great oyster bed of philanthropy
12. there's no handbook for this revolution
13. there's no hope, but we may be wrong
14. Highlander Center: "We make the road by walking."

What Are We Learning?

(Group discussion)

* The projects address the most important issues of our day. Trying to solve big problems. Wht are the policy implications?

* Are there common principles for the fed team? A federal "song sheet with different bars"? An agreed upon tonal scale? Improv jazz not orchestral

* How do you search for entrepreneurs in the federal system?

* This meeting affirms PRL and a larger movement. How do movements proceed?

* The socially responsible investment field - perhaps a leading edge of financial services - a financial infrastructure is in place.

* Some are committed to this because of the equity issue - but equity is not enough. This must be multi-dimensional; look for a confluence of interests.

* There's a tension between equity and community. Have to focus on changing disparities. An urgency for dealing with economic and racial disparities.

* Is there an opportunity for a devolution "bounce back" to the regional level?

* What does success look like? The more we broaden the goals, the harder it is.

* Work undone: 1) social equity - who's at the table, who's in leadership. 2) role of private markets: opportunities, needs, tools

* A sense now of the richness of the regions' work. More there than most expected.

* Place-based v. people based - acknowledge both

* What is the region's self interest. Know more now about the clear agendas back home.

* Need to deepen our conversation to strengthen our connections.

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Last updated July 29, 1999.