Metropolitan Initiative
Detroit/Southeast Michigan Region
July 21, 1997
Meeting Summary

A broadly representative set of participants addressed the Metropolitan Initiative issues at the Detroit/Southeast Michigan forum. There were 32 participants, including local government elected officials and administrators and representatives from neighborhood organizations, education, business, foundations, areawide social service agencies, regional organizations and the federal government. The forum was hosted by SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition and the Warren-Conner Development Coalition.

Opening remarks by hosts pointed out that the federal government:

• often facilitates fairness in policy and funding activities between and among state, regional and local government organizations, with ISTEA a prime example
• noted that the federal government often sends mixed messages, such as an emphasis on regional problem solving that sees welfare reform supported while funding for public transit, a critical element of welfare-to-work, steadily diminishes
• and cautioned that while regional cooperation is important, so, too, is local cooperation.

Participants were encouraged by the national convening organizations to learn how to be better partners with federal support, in the process teaching federal agencies how to organize nationally to provide regional support . . . and how federal agencies can use "smart rules, smart money and smart citizens" in changing federal rules to make cooperating at the regional level worthwhile.

Several over-riding themes emerged from the three discussion segments:

• race and class are determining dynamics in addressing many public policy activities, in a region often characterized as the most polarized region in America along race, class, political, geographic, cultural and governmental lines;
• this same regional cooperation discussion has happened in metropolitan Detroit for the past 35 years, raising a concern about "what changes have occurred in the landscape to make anyone believe these results will be any different " than past non-results;
• while there is a long list of cooperative efforts and activities in the region, most have happened despite the federal government, not because of it;
• while neighborhood participation in regional cooperation is an admirable goal, neighborhood activists are too overwhelmingly busy "in the trenches" to have time and energy for regional action, let alone deliberation;
• non-governmental activity is critical to long-term success because government's horizon is the next election — Southeast Michigan has found government most responsive when private initiatives have "forced" government to action, rather than finding leadership within the government sector;
• "smart citizens" at a regional scale is an appropriate target because the region has many smart citizens at neighborhood, community, county and regional levels, but they lack the opportunity to be smart about the problems and opportunities at the other levels.

The forum focused on three discussion topics: recent experiences in regional cooperation, toward more effective regional cooperation and the federal role in metropolitan cooperation.

Session 1: Recent Experience in Regional Cooperation

Effective and satisfying recent experiences:

1. Regional cooperation on transportation issues
   • local officials rallied (through SEMCOG, the MPO) against attempted state recapture of local federal road funding,
   • the region's business community successfully supported a millage to save regional public transit provider from shutting down.
2. Strong local community cooperation on manufactured housing issues.
3. Redevelopment issues:
   • state's brownfield redevelopment initiative, stimulated by a regional constituency, focused on Detroit's Empowerment Zone model.
   • Detroit/Wayne County Roundtable on Sustainable Development.
4. "Smart people" anti-race track coalition built up from local opposition to areawide coalition (two counties, numerous communities).
5. Improved chemistry and quality of public sector leadership around regional issues, including stronger regional commitment by Detroit Mayor Archer.
6. Detroit Chamber of Commerce's Regional Development Partnership of public and private partners in eight counties.
7. Rouge River Remedial Action Plan:
   • involved three counties, 28 communities,
   • a federal wet weather demonstration project changed focus from end-of-pipe pollution control to broader preventative strategies.
8. An effort by nine communities along the Detroit River to secure an American Heritage Rivers designation as the basis for cooperative efforts at improving public access more of the 31 miles of riverfront in those communities.

Frustrating experiences, barriers to cooperation

1. Education is designed to support students in upscale communities, including an emphasis on college-bound students, while the workers come from less affluent communities, with less commitment to the non-college bound.
2. Difficult to tap representative regional leadership for the future because of a continuing Detroit/Wayne county centrex; the geographical distribution of power works against regional cooperation.
3. Public transportation has been the region's biggest unsolved problem for 50-70 years, including an inability 30 years ago to raise needed matching funds that would have generated $600 million in federal funds.
4. A common regional vision is missing, rooted in a lack of information; many oppose urban sprawl but few understand that urban problems fuel the outward sprawl.
5. Coalitions tend to grow among the "haves" while the "have nots" who are experiencing the pain are never at the table, thus others make decisions for the victims.
6. A region is only as strong as its weakest link and homelessness, unemployment, kids without educational futures and other elements of urban decay remain unaddressed.
7. Regional thinking and cooperation are good, but not really meaningful until they touch daily lives, i.e., housing is being destroyed in urban centers, but focus is on building new housing in suburban areas rather than rebuilding, renewing urban housing.
8. Southeast Michigan has less foundation-based endowment than any metropolitan area in the nation.
9. Education and jobs connection:
   • economy is good and growing, but the pool of qualified workers not growing,
   • a sea change is needed: dirty hands are okay, rather than the ethic that only brain work is worthy of someone's training and development,
   • pre-employment "hoops" are barriers to job filling because tests and interviews too easily screen out potential workers.

Session 2: Toward more effective regional cooperation

1. Need to identify organizations/agencies that are cooperating, e.g., the Healthy Communities initiative.
2. Need to strengthen and sustain regional intergovernmental cooperation:
   • elected officials do have an impact,
   • SEMCOG is a regional teacher, an opportunity for local officials to have a dialogue about regional issues and problems,
   • when non-elected organizations coalesce, they get attention of elected officials,
   • focus needs to be on reality building, rather than image building.
3. Techniques are needed to find common agendas:
   • doesn't generally happen among elected officials because getting re-elected is their priority,
   • recently, urban sprawl has been a catalyst, driven by non-government organizations, which have gotten the attention of local and state officials,
   • at the same time, sprawl is driven by policies which sustain it — it is important to understand the economics and true costs of policies, moving the "relative risk" concept from environmental issues to economic policies.
   • SEMCOG's sprawl analysis, the Regional Development Initiative, was watered down by elected officials, rather than being the basis for sprawl-fighting initiatives.
4. Mechanisms needed for coalition-building around common cause:
   • means of identifying issues that can be cooperation catalysts,
   • means of identifying who can implement solutions, with what authority,
   • channels of communication must be created that provide direct and full communication, rather than depending on media's sound bite journalism.

Session 3: Federal role in metropolitan cooperation

1. Establish regional training centers, with federal government waiving prohibition against AFDC mothers, and other welfare-dependent persons, eligible.
2. Make a "continuum of care" concept mandatory for federal programs in the region.
3. Establish a federally-sponsored (per President Clinton's initiative) regional dialogue on racial and segregation issues.
4. Create a Cabinet-level coordinator for regional cooperation, charged with stimulating and monitoring federal agencies and their programs.
   • federal government should be the enabler of regional cooperation, not the director;
   • federal enabler/coordinator with regional review is critical in tackling issues and problems at the regional scale.
5. Continue and even expand the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) role in transportation planning.
6. Organizations "love everyone we can partner with because federal government gives extra points for that" in funding programs and decisions.