Executive Summary

Cities have a unique opportunity to redesign democracy around principles of meaningful civic participation and civic power through collaborative governance models. Defined as procedures that incorporate civic perspectives, participation, and power into all stages the traditional governing process, collaborative governance models can amplify civic engagement to both expand the participatory promise of democracy, and to provide improved public services for constituents. With their smaller scale, flexibility, hyper-local focus, and higher levels of trust from residents, municipal governments can often experiment with these forms of democracy better than other levels of government. In doing so, cities can also offer important lessons to the broader democracy reform community.

Countries across the globe are currently grappling with increasing populism and decreasing satisfaction with democracy. In contrast, cities are in an unusual position to build better relationships between residents and government. Like other levels of government, cities face increasingly challenging public policy problems, but they also have the opportunity to reimagine democracy by bringing residents of all backgrounds into the local governing process and helping forge local community. Crucially, supporting more inclusive civic engagement can ultimately lead to better policy by helping policymakers identify gaps in programs or address challenges experienced by voices that often aren’t heard through traditional political participation avenues.

Bringing residents into the governing process can be difficult, however. Doing so requires implementing equity, opening doors within bureaucracy, and being open to rethinking traditional infrastructure and processes, while also respecting the political process. Inherently, there is a tension between grand visions of an engaged citizenry and setting up processes that are realistic to the political process and honor people’s time, resources, and commitment. Pure idealism can drive unrealistic processes, goals, and engagement, as well as misunderstand the inner workings of bureaucracy and the demands placed upon public sector leaders and residents alike. Conversely, cynicism misses a powerful opportunity that can benefit all parties.

But even though it can be challenging to find the appropriate balance between respecting both bureaucratic expertise and lived experience, many cities have done so.

Therefore, studying cities that have successfully applied new, innovative, collaborative governance models of civic engagement is critical for other cities, as well as any efforts to revitalize democracy at any scale. The Engaged Cities Award, coordinated by the nonprofit Cities of Service, provides a helpful sample.

In the fall of 2019, we analyzed 50 different case studies from 46 finalists and semi-finalists from the Engaged Cities Award (ECA), all initially vetted by Cities of Service (COS), including site visits to about 20 of these finalists. In October 2019, we co-hosted a workshop alongside the 2019 CityLab conference in Washington, D.C., where we gathered approximately 20 city officials, each representing a different city, to discuss the lessons they learned from building new government structures at home. The officials present at the workshop represented most of the finalist cities, as well as cities that have long worked with COS using their citizen engagement model but were not ECA finalists.

From analyzing the individual case studies and discussing these issues at the workshop, these cities’ experiences suggest that applying new models of collaborative government requires addressing six challenges:

• Balancing long-term versus short-term engagement
• Leveraging multi-sector engagement
• Building new infrastructure
• Ensuring diversity and equity
• Including intergenerational perspectives
• Overcoming obstacles and managing expectations

Finally, we have five recommendations for practitioners and future research:

• Give people real power
• Leverage hybrid technology for accessibility and diversity
• Empower diverse leadership
• Track resources for other practitioners
• Encourage creativity