Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak’s third highlighted feature of New Localism in their book The New Localism is that it, “reflects a commitment to a new kind of problem solving that is distinct from the uniformity of policymaking.” American cities and metropolitan regions are leaders in innovation, diffusion, and development in the United States. The networks formed between university researchers, students, business and industry, government agencies, and local non/not-for-profits or charities help new research translate into real-world applications and eventually into new innovations. Crucially, this is not just true of new technological innovations. In medicine, material science, and communications technology we see new devices entering the market to change the ways we live, but outside these areas we are also seeing cities and metropolitan regions innovate thanks to dynamic networks and united stakeholders. New Localism is helping to drive new forms of governance, new forms of funding for local projects, and even new ways of engaging communities.
Katz and Nowak continue, “It adapts the risk-taking and attitude of individual entrepreneurs and investors to the collective sphere. It is experimental and tolerant of failure. It is the twenty-first century embodiment of Franklin Roosevelt’s words in his famous 1932 speech: It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another, but by all means, try something.”
Government is frequently criticized for being slow and unresponsive. Rules and regulations take over, and creativity, customer service, and improvements seem to disappear. Without a profit motive, it is hard to see why governments should feel a pressure to move quickly and why they should feel a pressure to be highly responsive to the public. Free markets on the other hand (and especially tech start-ups), seem to operate on a model of, “move fast and break things.” They feel pressured to always up the design and innovate, although they also face a pressure to provide gimmicks and overstate their level of innovation and fast-breakiness. New Localism helps by finding a way to establish more of a common ground between these two extremes.
New forms of social and civic organization can help create quasi-governmental structures that provide the regulation and oversight necessary to protect citizens, but businesses can find profit and reward from working closely with those structures to innovate in a way that actually solves the local problem. Funding from associations and foundations help reduce the risk that government agencies would otherwise face, again providing a new avenue to help encourage innovation and development while avoiding typical roadblocks in a standard policy making process. These new ways to solve problems are a direct result of new networks and local action to address challenges in a cohesive manner.
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