Collaboration Is Not Enough

Abstract

Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has touted the promise of regional collaboration to address a wide range of issues. This article challenges the premise that horizontal collaboration alone can empower regional decision-making venues. By analyzing efforts to create regional venues for transportation policy making in Chicago and Los Angeles, the authors show that vertical power is essential to building regional capacities. Only by exercising power at multiple levels of the political system can local reformers launch a virtuous cycle of reform that begins to build enduring regional capacities.

Designing and Implementing Cross‐Sector Collaborations: NeededandChallenging

“…Very little such research has been done because it is hard, expensive, and typically takes a team. Quite a few case studies, even comparative case studies, focus on some part of the more comprehensive frameworks and offer valuable insights in particular areas (e.g., Agranoff ; Bryson et al ; Clarke and Fuller ; Herranz ; Innes and Booher ; Weir, Rongerude, and Ansell ). More work of this kind is needed to trace causality among antecedents, process, structure, and outcomes; compare cross‐sector collaborations focused on similar problems but in very different contexts and on different problems in similar contexts; trace the effects of power dynamics and differing governance structures on outputs and outcomes; and incorporate the multiple dimensions of outcomes—including public value outcomes—and accountabilities.…”

“…Purdy () suggests ways of increasing the “discursive legitimacy” of partners who may be at a disadvantage—for example, by organizing separate forums for those partners. Sometimes increasing the power of a government partner may be necessary, as Weir, Rongerude, and Ansell () found. In a study of Swiss cross‐sector networks focusing on climate change, Ingold and Fischer () found that government partners with formal decision power were more active than other actors in the networks—that is, they had a greater number of intranetwork ties.…”

‘Ain't nothin' here in Buffalo’: Residents' perceptions about living in a racially isolated, high-poverty neighborhood

“…Historically, blacks were prevented from moving into the suburbs for socioeconomic reasons as well as discriminatory housing practices and white hostility (Squires 2003;Wilson 1987Wilson , 1996. Moreover, the creation of the interstate and highway system, an individualistic culture favoring automobiles coupled with decreased funding for reliable public transportation, and the movement of retail and other businesses to the suburbs and exurbs further isolated already poor inner-city residents (Moynihan 1960;Weir, Rongerude, and Ansell 2009). In these ways, and notwithstanding current gentrification -which has its own problems, such as displacement (see, e.g., Freeman 2006) -deindustrialization and decentralization led to the increased crystallization of racialized urban ghettos that continue to influence the life chances of their residents.…”

Reassessing “City Limits” in Urban Public Policy

“…Nelles argues collaboration between local governments in order to draw federal funding was insufficient to produce success. Following on the work of Weir, Rongerude, and Ansell (), Nelles concludes stronger “horizontal” and “vertical” governance capacity is required for Detroit to overcome its past failures, and points to indicators such as federal mentorship and a more activist civic class offering to pay local matching funds as potential factors which could change the city's mass transit course.…”