Planning for Stronger Local Democracy

A new guide can help citizens and local leaders decide how to make their communities more engaging, inclusive, participatory, and powerful. Planning for Stronger Local Democracy is built around two lists: the questions to ask about your community in order to take stock of local democracy; and the building blocks you might consider as part of a comprehensive, sustainable strategy for vitalizing civic engagement in your town. This is a publication of the National League of Cities and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, and can be downloaded free of charge.

The above description is from Matt Leighninger, the primary author. Below is the description of the guide from the website, which also allows dozens of sections of the guide to be downloaded separately, and encourages you to distribute the various elements of this guide to the city leaders, city staff and community leaders who are working to strengthen local democracy in your community….

As a culmination of NLC’s work over the last decade responding to the challenges of governing democratically, NLC’s democratic governance project presents Planning for Stronger Local Democracy: A Field Guide for Local Officials.

This tool kit is designed to assist city leaders in strengthening local democracy by cultivating a culture with their citizens and key allies that is transparent and inclusive with shared responsibilities and mutual accountability for addressing and solving problems.

Learn practical strategies that lead to a stronger local democracy. Part 1, Key Questions to Ask About How to Engage the Public, guides you through an examination of the strengths, weaknesses and history of the citizen-government relationship in cities. It includes models of practices from pioneering city leaders, their staff and democratic governance practitioners from around the country. Part 2, Developing Shared Civic Infrastructure, lays out a collaborative process for constructing a better framework for public engagement.

Resource Link: http://www.nlc.org/find-city-solutions/research-innovation/governance-civic-engagement/planning-for-stronger-local-democracy

(short link: http://bit.ly/rWeHaU)

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