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This paper examines the tension between regionalism and progressive goals, focusing on the effort to ensure that the benefits of growth are widely shared and that the concerns of low-income neighborhoods and the residents are a regional priority. Drawing on our research about transportation politics in the Los Angeles and Chicago regions over the past fifteen years, we argue that although decisions about how regions grow are critical to low-income communities, it does not follow that engagement at the regional level will yield benefits to low-income communities. Like the critics of regionalism, we contend that engaging in regional collaboration is unlikely to benefit low-income people. Moreover, we argue, the widely used image of the regional table is misleading: There are in fact, very few authoritative regional forums, and the more informal and collaborative the forum, the less likely it is that participation will yield tangible benefits for low-income people. Instead, we argue that progressive regionalism must be viewed as a process of building multilevel power, not participation in regional venues per se. This perspective recognizes that, without the backing of a legal threat or strong regulatory policy levers, low-income communities lack the power to influence regional decisions, even when they participate in regional venues. It also underscores the fact that many regional decisions of critical importance to low-income communities are made in multiple political venues - federal, state, and local, rather than in a single regional venue. Because the region is not a coherent political entity, regional outcomes are likely to represent the intersection of decisions taken at multiple levels of government. As a result, participation in the regional venues that do exist may actually be little more than a diversion, leading low-income advocates to expend effort in an arena that has little real influence over decision making.

From 1997 to 2004, The James Irvine Foundation (Irvine) invested more than $20 million in grants to support Collaborative Regional Initiatives (CRIs), partnerships that engaged Californians from public, private, and nonprofit sectors in most of the state's major regions. These CRIs all emerged from collaborative processes involving diverse stakeholders. They varied in their origins, focus, and outcomes —- each emerged from its region's unique challenges, and each addressed these in different ways. Across the group, they dealt with at least three of four major types of issues: (1) natural resource protection, (2) workforce and economic development, (3) regional infrastructure development, and (4) civic engagement. The overarching goals of Irvine's CRI program were to enhance economic vitality, increase social equity, and protect the natural environment of California regions over the long term through strategic, collaborative action by business, community, and government leadership. The effort was part of Irvine's Sustainable Communities program, the purpose of which was to help California accommodate growth in a way that benefited the economy, the environment, and all levels of its diverse population. In 2003, Irvine restructured its strategic approach to grantmaking and no longer has a separate Sustainable Communities program. However, some of its goals are now a part of Irvine's California Perspectives program, which seeks to inform public understanding, engage Californians, and improve decision-making on significant issues of long-term consequence to the state. The theory of change behind the CRI program was that collaborative efforts, which engage participants from multiple sectors, are more likely to produce workable solutions to California's challenges than a business-as-usual approach. To move toward sustainable regions, participants must start from the premise that all three E's (environment, equity, and economy) are fundamentally entwined and must be addressed jointly. Many of the sustainability challenges can only be understood and addressed in regional contexts and not simply through sectoral agencies or interests and local jurisdictions. Moreover, successful change requires informed and engaged citizens who understand what is at stake, what the choices are, and how to contribute to better decisions. Irvine therefore supported organizations that crossed sectoral and jurisdictional boundaries, addressed complex regional issues related to sustainability, and worked with and mobilized diverse participants to improve regional performance. In addition, Irvine and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation created the California Center for Regional Leadership (CCRL), to help build knowledge and networks among the CRIs. CCRL held annual Civic Entrepreneur Summits, where leaders from the CRIs met and learned from experts and from one another. The assessment team's research began with a survey and review of the goals, structure, and activities of 17 CRIs. The team soon concluded that in order to understand what had happened, why, and how, it would need to conduct in-depth case studies of selected CRIs. The team chose the oldest, most complex, and best developed of the CRIs with the greatest diversity of activities: Sierra Business Council (SBC), Joint Venture: Silicon Valley (JV:SV), San Diego Dialogue (SDD), and Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities (BAASC). These CRIs differed in their approaches and purposes and offered a range of strategies and outcomes to compare. They had all been in place long enough to have had accomplishments and produced changes in their regions. The assessment team looked at each of these CRIs as a whole rather than focusing solely on activities funded by Irvine. Irvine funding served as seed, project, and general support money, but all CRIs supplemented it with other grants and funding sources. This assessment was originally designed to compare successes and failures of projects completed by the CRIs. Accordingly, the team began with hypotheses about the resources needed for success, the mix of stakeholders, processes and information, and how the origins of a CRI and its framing of the issues were factors. After a year of interviews and analysis, the team realized, however, that contexts and strategies for each CRI were so different, projects so diverse, and the degree of success for any one project so ambiguous that this analytic strategy was not going to be fruitful. The team prepared an in-depth report on each of the four cases, laying out its strategies and organization, activities, successes, and failures, and the way each adapted to its region's strengths and needs. Each offered a different model for regional collaboration, and each offered different insights about what CRIs can accomplish, what works well, and what can go wrong. The purpose of this paper is to describe the themes and lessons from a comparison of these cases and to highlight what is important and new about these experiments in regional action and governance.

Since 1995, the James Irvine Foundation has invested more than $11 million to support the growth and development of CRIs throughout the state nonprofit organizations that engage key players from business, environmental, and a variety of other advocacy groups with players from local governments and public agencies to create improvements in their regions. CRIs work on issues ranging across transportation, land use, housing, and economic development. They work in a variety of ways from developing legislation to media campaigns to practical work on particular projects. All are directed at building civic capacity and filling in gaps where government does not or cannot act. Some CRIs have been in place for years; others are more recently formed. They represent experiments in regional governance. The Irvine Foundation tapped a team of Berkeley faculty to perform an assessment of the CRIs so the foundation could target its resources in order to make them effective and sustainable over time and assist them in producing valuable outcomes for their regions. Together the team published case studies of four major CRIs the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities, Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, the San Diego Dialogue and the Sierra Business Council as well as an analysis of regional workforce development collaboratives in California. Professor Christensen's analysis of the San Diego Dialogue an organization that promotes civic discussion on the San Diego region's future revealed that a major element of its success was its former executive director, whose oneon-one political skills bridged the ideas and the elite networks that ultimately amplified the discourse, generating new civic knowledge and shaping the regional agenda. The Dialogue is best known for its cross-border research, which led to the installation of a rapid commuter lane for frequent border crossers. Their key finding that 96% of border crossings are made by frequent crossers demonstrated that the region is a bi-national economy and changed the way the US/Mexico border was perceived. The new outlook also provided a framework for talking about other bi-national issues such as water, energy, healthcare, manufacturing and ports of entry. Nevertheless, because the model is networkdriven and depended heavily on one person facilitating the agenda, the question remains whether the fruitful connections and successful outcomes for the region can be sustained.

Since 1995, the James Irvine Foundation has invested more than $11 million to support the growth and development of CRIs throughout the state -- nonprofit organizations that engage key players from business, environmental, and a variety of other advocacy groups with players from local governments and public agencies to create improvements in their regions. CRIs work on issues ranging across transportation, land use, housing, and economic development. They work in a variety of ways from developing legislation to media campaigns to practical work on particular projects. All are directed at building civic capacity and filling in gaps where government does not or cannot act. Some CRIs have been in place for years; others are more recently formed. They represent experiments in regional governance. The Irvine Foundation tapped a team of Berkeley faculty to perform an assessment of the CRIs so the foundation could target its resources in order to make them effective and sustainable over time and assist them in producing valuable outcomes for their regions. Together the team published case studies of four major CRIs -- the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities, Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, the San Diego Dialogue and the Sierra Business Council -- as well as an analysis of regional workforce development collaboratives in California. Professor Christensen's analysis of the San Diego Dialogue -- an organization that promotes civic discussion on the San Diego region's future -- revealed that a major element of its success was its former executive director, whose one-on-one political skills bridged the ideas and the elite networks that ultimately amplified the discourse, generating new civic knowledge and shaping the regional agenda. The Dialogue is best known for its cross-border research, which led to the installation of a rapid commuter lane for frequent border crossers. Their key finding -- that 96% of border crossings are made by frequent crossers -- demonstrated that the region is a bi-national economy and changed the way the US/Mexico border was perceived. The new outlook also provided a framework for talking about other bi-national issues such as water, energy, healthcare, manufacturing and ports of entry. Nevertheless, because the model is network-driven and depended heavily on one person facilitating the agenda, the question remains whether the fruitful connections and successful outcomes for the region can be sustained.

Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has touted the promise of regional collaboration to address a wide range of issues. This article challenges the premise that horizontal collaboration alone can empower regional decisionmaking venues. By analyzing efforts to create regional venues for transportation policy making in Chicago and Los Angeles, the authors show that vertical power is essential to building regional capacities. Only by exercising power at multiple levels of the political system can local reformers launch a virtuous cycle of reform that begins to build enduring regional capacities.

Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has touted the promise of regional collaboration to address a wide range of issues. This article challenges the premise that horizontal collaboration alone can empower regional decision-making venues. By analyzing efforts to create regional venues for transportation policy making in Chicago and Los Angeles, the authors show that vertical power is essential to building regional capacities. Only by exercising power at multiple levels of the political system can local reformers launch a virtuous cycle of reform that begins to build enduring regional capacities.

Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has touted the promise of regional collaboration to address a wide range of issues. This article challenges the premise that horizontal collaboration alone can empower regional decision- making venues. By analyzing efforts to create regional venues for transportation policy making in Chicago and Los Angeles, the authors show that vertical power is essential to building regional capacities. Only by exercising power at multiple levels of the political system can local reformers launch a virtuous cycle of reform that begins to build enduring regional capacities.

Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has touted the promise of regional collaboration to address a wide range of issues. This article challenges the premise that horizontal collaboration alone can empower regional decision-making venues. By analyzing efforts to create regional venues for transportation policy making in Chicago and Los Angeles, the authors show that vertical power is essential to building regional capacities. Only by exercising power at multiple levels of the political system can local reformers launch a virtuous cycle of reform that begins to build enduring regional capacities.

For more than half a century, critics have pointed to the baleful effects of transportation policy on American metropolitan areas. For example, in 1960, with the interstate highway program operating at full bore, future Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan sharply criticized the outsized promises of the highway builders. Three decades later, as a Senate subcommittee chair, Moynihan reentered the same debate, spearheading the passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), legislation that aimed to reverse the harmful impact of transportation on cities. Despite the hopes that the initial legislation roused and the passage of two subsequent reauthorizations in 1998 and 2005 reinforcing and extending the novel thrust of the 1991 law, most assessments concur in labeling the results of transportation reform disappointing. How can the disappointing assessments of the legislation be reconciled with the range of new activity that it inspired? This paper examines that question by comparing the fate of transportation reform in the Los Angeles and Chicago regions since the passage of ISTEA in 1991. In both regions, we show, the transportation field saw the emergence of new actors and regional networks dedicated to changing the processes and outcomes of policymaking in transportation.