1. Recognize the indivisibility
of the citistate – the intricately interrelated
region the visitor from outer space would see.
The inescapable oneness of each citistate covers
a breath-taking range. Environmental protection,
economic promotion, work force preparedness, health
care, social services, advanced scientific research
and development, philanthropy – success or
failure on any one of those fronts ricochets among
all the communities of a metropolitan region.
2. Plan the regional
economy to marshal internal strength –
find a profitable niche in the new world economy.
Citistates that hope to prosper in the international
economy need to plan as carefully as the smartest
corporations. Developing strong business-government-academic
partnerships, they need to decide what they’re
good at and seize their cooperative advantage.
3. Reaffirm the critical
importance of the citistate’s heart –
its historic center city and neighborhoods. Center
cities continue to define a citistate to the world...
This means urban design, waterfront planning,
streetscapes, and historic preservation are powerfully
important issues for a citistate’s entire presentation
to the world.
4. Focus on the growing
link between social deprivation and work force
preparedness – go to work to fix the
problem. Virtually all the world’s citistates
face serious social problems.
5. Build a sense of regional
citizenship – no mean task. Already Americans
are encouraged to have some loyalty to their nation,
their state, their local community. Add another,
the citistate, seems a daunting challenge. But
regionalism has risen dramatically in peoples’
consciousness during the ‘90s.
6. Remember quality of
life issues – especially the environment.
Once upon a time, quality of life may have been
thought of solely as an aesthetic or social issue.
No longer. Today it is a crucial economic issue
profoundly affecting the future prospects of a
citistate.
7. Make governance work.
Governments at sixes and sevens, unable to reach
the most fundamental cooperative agreements, fighting
over economic scraps, pushing environmental or
social problems off to their neighbors, create
the image (and too often the reality) of a malfunctioning,
divisive citistate.
8. Undergird governance
with a strong citizen organization –
work consciously to build new leadership cadres.
The logic of some form of region-wide citizen
organization, pressing for the shared and common
good over special interest pressures and the parochial
positions of fragmented local governments, strikes
one in region after region across the U.S.
