Bruce Adams, founder and president of A Greater Washington, an alliance of business and community leaders working to strengthen the national capital region, once served as a council member in Montgomery County, Maryland. In this thought-provoking essay on how local government in the United States has evolved over the last two centuries, he looks ahead and gives suggestions for communities everywhere to follow in the new millennium.

In his book, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville summed up Americans in the following way: "In a local community, a citizen may conceive of some need that is not being met. What does he do? He goes across the street and discusses it with his neighbor. A committee begins functioning on behalf of that need.... All of this is done by private citizens on their own initiative."

One hundred sixty-four years later, this ability that Tocqueville heralded, the distinctive American way of "rolling up our sleeves," and solving the problem, is still the most admirable aspect of our American experiment with democracy. And it still serves as a tremendous incentive at the grassroots level.

Despite the tendency toward negativism by the media and the public, the American "can-do" spirit has survived and flourishes today in many communities across the United States. One might take issue with Tocqueville's assessment, however, when reading the newspaper or watching the nightly news. In those instances, an observer might conclude that nobody in the United States cares and few are even trying to make a difference.

"But you'd be wrong," says John W. Gardner, the founder of Common Cause, a nonprofit, nonpartisan citizen's lobbying organization that promotes open, honest and accountable government. "There are new signs of vitality all across America. There are many people working hard for the public good in every community in this nation," he continues. "And in some places, there are enough of these people to have reached a critical mass and changed the political culture of their communities."

Rethinking Citizen Participation

With certain limited exceptions, U.S. citizens have access to public documents and a right to testify at public hearings on significant legislative and budget decisions. Public officials call for public hearings on a regular basis -- with citizen participation encouraged -- in order to conduct meetings on the business of the community. Many local government legislative sessions are covered live on cable television. These formal aspects of local government guarantee the access and openness that are at the core of our democratic system, yet, in some ways, they have become problematic.

Public hearings promote an oversimplification and polarization of issues by interest groups, media and elected officials. There is usually a solution put on the table -- for instance, a bill or a budget proposal. The people who care most deeply about the issues show up at the hearing, ready to promote their beliefs. That is often the problem. Public hearings in the United States all too often have become battlegrounds for adversaries fighting over their preferred solutions. And in a lot of cases, rather than look at what's best for the public good, each participant thinks that only his solution will work.

Over and over, I have found that the best way to solve a problem is to brainstorm, that is, to gather a group of people with differing opinions and set them down to come up with a solution with which everyone can agree. Unfortunately, this does not happen often in citizen-government interaction. In a world where the public and media tear into any controversial statement, few elected or appointed officials, as well as citizens themselves, are willing to sit down and talk things over.

And with the advent of such things as television, public opinion polls and the ability to get information around the world instantaneously, our ability to frustrate each other has increased dramatically. We seem to be running too fast, talking too loud, listening too selectively and thinking too little. As public policy issues have become more complicated, our politics have become simplistic, our problems more intransigent.

The negative aspects of the positive forces that have served the United States well -- an open and participatory government, a free press and a skeptical public -- suggest the need to rethink our notions of citizen participation.

Rebuilding Relationships

The goal of democracy is to improve the quality of lives of the people. Building healthy communities is less about government structure and more about building relationships. This crossover of relationship building between boundaries or barriers that previously have been set is the key to breaking political gridlock and thus being able to take action in the public interest.

Our natural tendency is to spend time with people who think and act pretty much the way we do. Relationship building across traditional boundaries is by definition an unnatural act. It has to be learned. It requires constant, hard work. Success occurs in communities where there is communication, coordination and collaborative action by many entities, among them, institutions, organizations, agencies and individuals. On specific issues, successful communities have the ability to see the connections and act on them.

To be able to bring people together on an issue, a leader must make the effort to build trust and credibility with representatives from all factions and interests. This contrasts with the traditional idea of "heroic leadership." We want our leaders to be forceful and decisive, and to be in charge. Yet, these traits are at odds with the skills needed by a new type of collaborative leader.

In my days as a councilman, I found myself constantly trying to bring people together outside of the formal public hearing process. Those who disagreed in an open forum, often would find they had more in common in a neutral setting. Instead of conflict, they crafted a win-win solution. These informal efforts provided me with hope that we might be able to refashion our democratic processes to fit the needs of our times.

The challenge for the next century, then, is to reinvent democracy for modern times while honoring the essential elements of an informed and involved citizenry. The question that should be asked is: Can we fashion a process where we talk through issues with each other rather than at each other?

Illustrations of Leadership

In Boundary Crossers: Community Leadership for a Global Age, Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson describe the complex leadership challenges that face communities as they enter the 21st century. From their study of successful regions around the United States, Peirce and Johnson found illustrations of leadership from outside of government. An examination of the regions studied provides glimpses into how communities will need to operate in order to be successful in the next century.

In 1969, for example, the federal government announced that Chattanooga, Tennessee, had the foulest air in America. Fast-forward to 1996, when the United Nations recognized Chattanooga as one of the worlds' dozen most sustainable cities. In that 33-year interim, the city created "Vision 2000," involving 1,700 citizens helping to shape a new future. The clean-up of air pollution was just one aspect of the Vision 2000 program.

In Cleveland, Ohio, talented professionals working in intermediary roles in NGOs, foundations, community development corporations and city planning agencies have built networks of trusting relationships across the barriers of sector and race.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, the newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, in partnership with three local radio stations serving African American neighborhoods, launched a community journalism initiative called "Taking Back Our Neighborhoods." Community journalism seeks to report the news in ways that help engage the public in community life.

Ten Lessons for Community Builders

From Peirce and Johnson's study, we can determine that it is unrealistic to expect elected officials to take the lead in reinventing democracy. The burden for taking the lead toward a new, citizen-based collaborative effort must rest largely with private citizens. Taking that into consideration, Peirce and Johnson have developed 10 important lessons for 21st-century community builders:

Lesson 1: The table gets larger -- and rounder. The old-style top-down management style doesn't work anymore. We are in a transition to a new leadership culture where citizens insist on having a place at the table. Thus, the table gets larger and rounder, with enough space for everyone who wants to participate.

Lesson 2: The only thing more challenging than a crisis may be its absence. Complacency may lead to unattended problems. Smart regions solve problems before they loom large.

Lesson 3: The agenda gets tougher. Revitalization of downtown areas is easy compared to such issues as improving the lives of people caught in cycles of poverty and hopelessness.

Lesson 4: There is no magical leadership structure -- just people and relationships. More than governance structure, it is relationships between people that get things done.

Lesson 5: No one's excused. Universities, professionals, religious communities and the media are top candidates to enrich the community-leadership mix.

Lesson 6: Sometimes the old ways still work. Individual leaders still can make things happen. Respect and welcome civic-minded leaders who can make a difference.

Lesson 7: Collaboration is messy, frustrating and indispensable. Today, cities and regions are fumbling toward collaboration, making mistakes, but beginning to form new, inclusive institutions that can solve problems and strengthen communities.

Lesson 8: Government always needs reforming, but all the reforms need government. Governments are playing new roles as civic bridge-builders. In all its myriad forms and despite all its inefficiencies and shortcomings, government is still an essential partner for real, lasting, long-term change.

Lesson 9: Communities matter. Despite the rapid development and acceptance of the Internet, communities still matter. Those communities that matter the most are regions, center cities and neighborhoods.

Lesson 10: It's never over. No success is ever final. No community, no matter how successful, can ever rest on its accomplishments.

Learning to Work Together

Restoring hope and building stronger communities takes a lot more than talk. Traditional public hearings won't take us where we need to go. Rather, it will take civic will and hard work. Learning to work together across the boundaries and barriers that divide us is the essential leadership task of the 21st century.

Community building is not a passive activity. The democratic process guarantees that we all will have the capacity to make a contribution to the leadership of our communities. The challenges before us necessitate that individual citizens get involved and make that contribution.