Public engagement can help bring us back from the brink
Local governments have a unique opportunity to strengthen our democracy every single day by involving citizenry in a meaningful way.
By Susan Charland, AICP
I remember the moment I saw the headlines on January 6, 2021 and read that thousands of Americans were attacking the US Capitol. As I stared at the screen, my stomach dropped and my heart started racing. Was this the death of democracy in America — happening in real time? How did we get here? But more importantly, how would we ever come back from this and heal our democracy?
The decline of democracy over the past decade has many causes, but one of the major ones is political polarization. By some measures, polarization in the United States is worse than it has ever been. It has become “pernicious,” spreading beyond ideological divides and spilling into our identities — religious, racial, urban/rural, and more. It’s the kind of polarization that can tear at the fabric of a society and pave the way for events like the attack on the US Capitol.
There is, however, evidence suggesting that this polarization is not as universal as it first seems. When it comes to local issues and local government decisions, we are not as divided as we are about national issues.
It seems that pragmatism is alive and well in local government decision-making. Local issues tend to get ignored by major national parties, which turns out to be a good thing. This makes the local sphere a perfect place to cultivate dialogue and compromise, the foundations of our democracy.
In that way, local leaders and citizens have a role to play in strengthening and rebuilding our democracy. They can do this by working to integrate authentic public outreach and engagement into local decisions — providing a space for citizens to weigh in on decisions big and small, and see that democracy can actually work. Participatory democracy can help us rebuild some of the bonds that have been broken over the past few years — and perhaps even bring us back from the brink.
But it will only work if local leaders commit to integrating quality public engagement into their decisions.
A Cure for Polarization?
According to the Pew Research Center, political polarization in the US has reached record levels. Party affiliation now represents a bigger dividing line than anything else, including demographic differences, such as age, race, or religious affiliation.
The 2020 presidential election exposed these divides even further. A month before the election, roughly nine out of ten registered voters in both parties said they feared a victory by the other party would result in “lasting harm” to the United States. Trust in the federal government has fallen to all-time lows, with just 22% of Americans saying they trust the government today compared to 73% in 1958. The storming of the Capitol has been described as an inevitable culmination of these partisan divides.
But something interesting happens when you start to get closer to the local level: the mistrust and political dividing lines tend to break down.
Almost all of the US population is governed by a local (municipal, county and regional) government of some sort. In 2017, there were just over 90,000 local government entities and special districts in the US. Local elected officials make up most of the 500,000+ elected officials in the US. This includes mayors, supervisors, town board members, city councilors, village trustees, school districts, special district members, economic development agencies, and many more. (And that list is incomplete: it doesn’t include appointed officials and volunteer decision-makers who serve on planning boards, historic preservation boards, zoning boards, and others.)
Collectively, these local leaders decide how to spend over $2 trillion every year, making thousands of decisions that have a direct impact on the public. That includes decisions about all kinds of things that affect our daily lives, including safety, land use, sanitation, recreation and open space, and many others.
These decisions have an immediate and direct impact on people’s lives — often more than state or federal policy. Still, recent research has shown that partisanship is much lower on the level of local politics. A 2019 study found that most Democrats and Republicans see very little difference on local issues. Political partisans tend to think alike when it comes to local concerns like taxes (i.e school and property taxes), local services (such as plowing snow, treating water, and maintaining landscaping), infrastructure (like roads and sewers), and education. The authors state that these low levels of local polarization “contrast to the partisan divides seen on national policy issues — even among the same set of respondents.”
This absence of partisan divides presents a major opportunity. Local leaders who are concerned about the direction of democracy in America can play an active role in strengthening democracy on the local level. But in order to do this, they need to authentically engage the people they represent.
Beyond Town Hall Meetings
In some ways, local government leaders are more responsive to the public than federal or state leaders. Local government is the most accessible sphere of government — Tina Nabatchi and Lisa Amsler call it the most “permeable” region. It is more likely that you have a neighbor on the city council than in Congress.
But in other ways, there is still a big day-to-day disconnect between local leaders and their constituents. It’s true that we live in a representative democracy where we elect people to make decisions for us. But it is an imperfect system. Just because elected officials ascribe to a certain political platform doesn’t mean those officials will also know how residents feel about specific decisions, such as where to put a playground or whether to build affordable housing. Even the best-intentioned officials have to fill in the gaps of their knowledge by interacting regularly with members of the community.
Not all interactions are pleasant. Public outrage and opposition often serve as the ultimate veto: local residents don’t sign away the ability to influence all future decisions after election day. But the most effective communities are run by local leaders who provide real venues and opportunities for citizens to weigh in on public decisions. This does not mean entirely ceding responsibility and decision-making over to the public; rather, it entails finding a balance between political authority and citizen influence.
Most of us recognize the most ubiquitous forms of public engagement, which unfortunately also tend to be the least effective: public hearings and town hall meetings. You may remember the raucous health care town halls held throughout the US in 2009. Or maybe you’ve watched the fictional citizens of Pawnee in Parks and Rec complaining about local parks. These meetings are often portrayed (fairly) as acrimonious, ineffective, and scary.
The good news is that implementing quality public engagement is not rocket science. There are hundreds of methods and techniques available to local officials that are more effective than one-size-fits-all town hall meetings. These alternative methods can be tailored to each type of initiative/project and the capacity of the municipality.
For example, town officials seeking input on a proposed new bike lane along a busy commuter corridor would likely get wider and deeper participation by going door-to-door at the initial stages of the project, followed by an online survey and small group meetings with business owners and residents — all before hosting a public meeting.
Quality public participation helps resolve conflict, heal divisions, build trust among citizens, and build accountability. When local leaders engage the public to identify critical issues early and bring multiple perspectives to the table, those leaders are actively building buy-in for local decisions. Such decisions become inherently more durable and sustainable in the long-term because the people most affected by the decision were involved in making it.
Public participation done well can also engender greater trust and better relationships between stakeholders and government, less outrage and opposition, less risk of delay or reversal, and ultimately, better projects.
Where to start? To see the benefits of quality public engagement, local officials need the resources, skill and capacity to plan and implement outreach programs. A good place to start is the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2), which advocates for effective public engagement and provides hands-on training that local officials can immediately adapt to their projects or initiatives. The Environmental Protection Agency offers a helpful regulatory guide designed for public agencies that are required to do public engagement (and is available in multiple languages). Practitioners of public engagement also provide resources and advice (check out Bang the Table and Highland Planning.)
There are also tech tools like Instant Input, a mobile app that helps local officials engage with citizens they care about.
As humans, we have an innate desire to participate in decisions that affect us. That desire is also the root of our democracy, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The process of making decisions together not only makes our government better, it fosters connections between us and brings meaning to our lives. It makes us more human.
Susan Charland, AICP is Planning Director and Chief Operating Officer at Highland Planning LLC, Western New York’s premier public engagement firm, founded on the idea that better dialogue leads to better decisions. Charland writes about public engagement at her blog, The Comment Period.
