In 1776, a small group of men initiated the possibility of a new nation and future for a group of 13 divided colonies with a Declaration of Independence.

Today, as we in the United States approach the 250th anniversary of our Independence Day, I would suggest that we as local government managers and residents in a deeply polarized country join together in a declaration of possibility, calling for the future transformation of community relationships in our municipalities and metro areas. This need for a declaration of possibility came to me during a recent re-read of Peter Block’s exceptional 2018 book, Community: The Structure of Belonging (2nd ed.), and many of the ideas in this article are based on Block’s book.

Obviously, the original Declaration of Independence was written by and for white, male landowners, but it included certain foundational truths that allowed our country to “grow into” a land that could embrace all of its residents. It was the fundamental commitment to self-evident truths that helped us as a country grow into a prosperous future. All are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Just as the founders found it necessary to declare independence from an oppressive form of government, it seems today that we need to declare independence from an oppressive mindset of cynicism, fear, retribution, and blame that has infected our community and national conversations. I suggest that our statement of independence and freedom take the form of a Declaration of Possibility for a positive future that our communities can live and grow into, defined by collaborative, open, and trusting relationships; an acceptance of different ways of thinking; and a willingness to go beyond political party lines when seeking solutions.

What might be some of the key elements in our declaration of possibility if we hope to create our desired future? Again, with Block’s help, I would suggest that we as local government managers, together with our elected officials and residents:

• Understand the seriousness and urgency of our declaration of possibility as much more than simple optimism but a passionate public choice to take accountability for our divided communities and bring a renewed sense of hopefulness, tolerance, and acceptance into our community relationships and dialogue.

• Recognize that our communities are built by stories of success and undermined by constantly finding fault. If we dwell too much on fear, anger, and blame, we will be building that reality as our future.

• Not allow cynics to paint our efforts to see positive possibilities as only marginal, cute, or naïve, but struggle every day to shift the current divisive narrative with “possibility conversations” in our communities, asking the question, “what can we create together?”

• Are keenly aware that our declaration of possibility may not reflect the current reality, but see this proclamation as a first step toward community transformation that can drive us toward a new future as we allow it to grow and resonate within our communities.

We realize, especially as local government managers making this declaration of possibility, our great influence over how our community might shift the narrative toward conversations of possibility and belonging away from conversations that divide and denigrate. Block reminds us of some of our greatest challenges, which many of us are brutally aware of:

How can we improve the ways that people come together in public meetings? 

How do we ensure our meeting spaces serve as welcoming venues for residents? How do we find creative ways for public meetings to avoid getting caught up in an endless cycle of people sharing opinions, positions, arguments, and explanations without really hearing each other or answering the important core questions for which the meeting was organized?

How can we do a better job of framing our debates and conflicts? 

Are we using powerful questions or just defending a position? Are we creating the conditions for a sense of belonging in our residents? Are we able to de-emphasize our leadership role in order to value the quality of ideas that each resident brings to the table? When necessary, can we recognize when it is important for us to serve more as a convenor or social architect—one who has the capacity to invite new solutions into the world? Are we able to design gathering experiences that provide an example of what our desired community future might look like?

Are we able to recognize that a critical task of our leadership is to protect space for dissent, disagreement, and expressions of doubt from residents? 

Authentic and sincere dissent can be life-giving and open new ways of looking at issues and seeking solutions.

Are we willing to pursue the possibility of shifting the current narrative to a strong resident approach? 

Are we emphasizing community gifts, generosity, abundance, social fabric, accountability, associational life, and resident engagement? Are we constantly looking for new ways to get residents involved in the community as participants not just spectators, co-creators of solutions, and producers rather than only consumers of public services?

Do we understand the importance of defining community in its broadest sense? 

Are we consistently building partnerships and planning projects with other community stakeholders—like nonprofits, schools, service organizations, churches, and the business community—to ensure a healthy ecosystem of open and trusting relationships?

To Move Forward, Remember What Success Looks Like

In order to move forward from our declaration of possibility, transform our community conversations, and maintain our ecosystem of relationships, I suggest we look back at the community rebuilding successes that many of our older metro areas have had in restoring their economic balance following the loss of a major manufacturing industry in the early 2000s.

After leaving work as a full-time administrator in 2018, and having a little more time for reading about local government issues, I noticed the appearance of a group of strongly researched books, all declaring the same message: the road to the future goes through the community and metro area.

There are three books from this period that I highly recommend:

• The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation by Antoine Van Agtmael and Fred Bakker.
• Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman.
• The New Localism by Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak.

Bruce Katz went so far as to state in his PM article, “Power is drifting downward from the nation-state to metropolitan areas; horizontally from governments to networks of public, private, and civic actors. This power shift is driving a governing philosophy I call the New Localism.”

Despite the federal government’s current trends to slow financial support for communities and metro areas, I believe the underlying foundation of local relationships in our nation’s communities and metro areas can allow us to prosper in the future if we take the right steps now.

Katz and Nowak in The New Localism gleaned seven key lessons we might learn from both large and small metro areas that have successfully created their own economic transformations in the last couple of decades:

1. Strengthen collaboration across universities, community colleges, workers, companies, entrepreneurs, and investors.
2. Success requires radical ambition that is forward looking: to be on the ground floor of new innovative technologies that can reshape nations, markets, and lives.
3. Successful revival reflects the fortitude of investors focused on the long term.
4. Public and philanthropic investments must be part of a broader political, business, civic, and university alliance.
5. An entrepreneurial culture is crucial to success.
6. Build on, rather than discard, the historical legacy of the region.
7. Make innovations visible to the world through place-making and connection to innovations that are taking place in the labs, companies, and universities of the region.

Van Agtmael and Bakker emphasized the role of the “connector” in all the communities they researched that had built their own version of a “brain belt” after economic stagnation. “At last, when it becomes clear that no solution is going to appear from out of the blue, a connector resolves to take matters into his or her own hands, and when that happens, people are ready to respond. The connector brings people together—politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, executives—to identify strengths and resources, find common ground, and collectively set ambitious goals.”

Friedman observes, “More and more it is becoming clear the basic architecture of a resilient and prosperous twenty-first century must be a network of healthy communities.” In his opinion, all healthy communities have created complex, collaborative, and adaptive coalitions based on trust to help foster resilience and propulsion for their residents.

What’s Next After Our Declaration of Possibility

So based on our past collective experience and economic successes at the metro level that we’ve discussed, what might be some of the urgent and necessary community building responses needed from us as local government managers today following our declaration of possibility:

1. Commit to being connectors with a radical ambition to create our unique community. 

Be the leaders who have the ability to work courageously across sectors to bring people together for the sake of a common cause. Success will only come through consistently developing relationships of openness and trust.

2. Start small and work hard at changing what you have the power to impact. 

I am in agreement with Peter Block that the small group and small community will be the energizing power and source of authentic change for our democratic republic, where decisions must be made face to face, not by executive order. Small communities can be units of transformation. Each time we enter a room or a meeting, the possibility for something new to emerge enters with us.

In my 32 years of local government management, I have never served in a municipality over 15,000 in population. I think this may be the reality for many local managers. It is interesting to note the Wisconsin Department of Administration website (doa.wi.gov) lists population estimates for approximately 1,852 towns, cities, and villages, making the average population size for a state of almost six million about 3,200 per community. Only 62 communities in the state are estimated to have populations over 15,000—or only about 3.4% of the total number of municipalities.

3. Change can occur organically. 

My small community may be only one of 20 in a metro area of 300,000 but we can attempt to influence our entire region by supporting “conversations of possibility.” We are in constant relationships with neighboring municipalities dealing with economic development, public safety, regional planning, utility sharing, joint infrastructure development, etc. It is not too far-fetched to imagine how impactful a focus on possibilities, cooperation, sharing, and collaboration might be in such an interconnected metro area. Keep planting seeds of possibility no matter the size of your community!

Another Quick Example of What Success Can Look Like

I would like to mention a historical example from my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, of how cross-sector connection, collaboration, and innovation possibly changed the economic course of the Fox Cities, Wisconsin region and beyond.

In 1929, 20 of the local papermaking mills joined together to help found and fund the Institute of Paper Chemistry at Lawrence University. The paper companies realized the importance and need for new talent, and despite being competitors, jointly invested in a high-level graduate program to supply the area with well-educated paper chemists. The many patents and innovations that emerged from the institute between 1940 and 1990, supporting the development of new paper products (think Kimberly-Clark), validated the difficult 1929 investment and ensured that the Fox Cities papermakers would be at the cutting edge of their market’s technologies.

The fortitude and long-term vision of these home-grown paper companies can be appreciated even more when you think about what was going on in the world in 1929: The Great Depression began mid-year and the Wall Street Crash occurred in October 1929. Not the best time for a large-scale investment in a graduate program, but still the institute survived and prospered at Lawrence until moving south in the late 1980s.

DAVE TEBO, ICMA-CM, (RETIRED), is an associate with Public Administration Associates, LLC.