Enlightened Self-Interest: The Role of Regionalism in Indianapolis
I’m honored to be asked by the Indy Chamber to contribute to Indy Forward over the course of 2020. I’m looking, ahem, forward to writing about a range of metro Indy topics, including its potential to become a national talent magnet, infrastructure, and more.
But I want to start off the year talking about regionalism — what it is, and why it is important for communities in this region.
The regionalism I’m writing about is made up of two big things:
1. A shared recognition by people, businesses, governments, and institutions who share an economic geography — that is, a region — that their fates are linked with each other and the overall success of their regional economy.
2. Collaboration among those local people, businesses, governments, and institutions across jurisdictional boundaries to improve the overall success of the region, as well as on specific problems or opportunities of mutual interest.
There are other ways to define regionalism. For some people, it refers to some form of regional government. But our discussion will not be about regional government, but rather regional consciousness and regional collaboration.
In his book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville made the point that in America, society was not some kind of “war of all against all” like that depicted in Thomas Hobbs’ Leviathan, but rather that Americans practiced enlightened self-interest (sometimes translated as self interest rightly understood). He wrote:
Americans are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state….I do not think, on the whole, that there is more selfishness among us than in America; the only difference is that there it is enlightened, here it is not. Each American knows when to sacrifice some of his private interests to save the rest.
Regionalism is in its essence a form of enlightened self-interest. Every part of the region — each person, each business, each government, each institution — has its own unique interests and its own area of responsibility to which it must give first priority. But the long-term success of everyone is dependent on the success of everyone. As with a family, everyone has a stake in everyone else’s success.
It’s true that not every part of the Indianapolis region will ever have exactly the same level of success. Some places will do better, others not as well. Regionalism recognizes this while working for more success for all and recognizing that overall regional levels of personal and economic success profoundly affect the ability to each part of the region to individually succeed. A rising tide does lift all boats; conversely, a stagnant or sinking one makes it more difficult for everybody.
Perhaps the first expression of regionalism in Indianapolis came when Mayor Hudnut said, “You can’t be a suburb of nowhere.” He said this in an era when downtowns and urban neighborhoods were in what seemed like hopeless decline across America. It was a reminder that the suburbs would be badly hit if the central city collapsed. So the city and region built up downtown Indianapolis to the showplace it is today.
The world has changed since Hudnut said that. The urban landscape is much more complex. Poverty, for example, can be a suburban as well as an urban problem. And America has moved to a post-industrial economy that’s rewarding some but leaving others behind. Yet the idea that the fates of every part of the Indianapolis region — city and suburban — are linked remains as true as ever.
In future posts I will describe the landscape of today’s world that makes regional thinking and acting an imperative for Indianapolis. I will discuss:
- Why the true definition of Indianapolis as an economic entity is a regional one.
- The “Great Divergence” that is dividing America into winners and losers. And how Indianapolis, as a city performing in the middle, needs to work with great urgency to ensure it ends up as a winner.
- Why urban regions, and especially larger urban regions with more than one to two million people, are especially advantaged in the modern economy. And how that means Indianapolis needs a regional approach to generate the scale necessary to compete.
- Why regional thinking by not just Indianapolis, but the state’s other metropolitan regions is important for the overall success of the state. And why the success of the state as a whole is important to Indianapolis.
- How we should define the Indianapolis region.
- Examples of how regional collaborations are already producing results.
In the future, I also hope to share stories about the great things that are happening in communities and neighborhoods across the region, showing how they boost the overall regional appeal.
For now, I’ll close with an image of greater Indianapolis as a football team. Not everybody on the team is a quarterback. Not everybody is a linebacker. But everybody has a critically important role to play. For the team to win, everybody on the team has to know their role and bring an “A game” to the field.
It’s like that for Indianapolis as well. Not every part of the region is downtown. Not every part is an industrial park. Not every part is a single-family subdivision. Some places are closer to the urban center, some farther away. Some are larger and some are smaller. Some are high income and others are middle income. But every part of the region needs to be the best that it can be to create the most success for everybody in an ever more globalized, competitive 21st century world.
