declining public schools, and deteriorating housing conditions in

declining public schools, and deteriorating housing conditions in
older suburbs surrounding the urban core. To tackle these
p ressing issues, elected officials from cities and suburbs, corporate
leaders, minority and low-income community advocates, and
religious leaders are coming together to form powerful re g i o n a l
political coalitions. They seek to revitalize struggling communities
and to improve the quality of life for urban children and families
by promoting urban reinvestment, creating aff o rdable housing,
and improving access to transportation in order to link inner- c i t y
residents with rapidly growing suburban jobs. Their work is
based on the premise that a metropolitan region is an interre l a t e d
system and that cities and suburbs cannot solve their social and
economic problems in isolation.
Serving as a bridge between the academic re s e a rch community
and practitioners, the two-day seminar hosted at Harvard
University convened nationally known re s e a rchers, practitioners,
and policy makers who shared their expertise and lessons fro m
the field about how to build successful regional coalitions. The
discussion focused on several themes including: What are the
most effective strategies for building successful coalitions? What
issues are important to consider in building cross-class and
multiracial collaborations? What can current re s e a rch tell us about
the roles collaboration builders play in creating the most enduring
coalitions? Notable re s e a rch findings and discussion themes
a d d ressing these issues are summarized in this brief.
The Urban Seminar Series
ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND SAFETY
Building Coalitions
to Bring About
C h a n g e
e t ropolitan areas across the country are facing common problems, including concentrated poverty in central cities,
The seminar, "Building Coalitions to
Bring About Change," part of the
Urban Seminar Series on Childre n ’s
Health and Safety, was held
December 6-7, 2001 at Harvard
U n i v e r s i t y. For more information
please visit our website at
w w w. k s g . h a r v a r d . e d u / u r b a n p o v e r t y.
M
Sponsored by
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Directed by
William Julius Wilson
Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Research Findings and
Lessons from the Field
Successful coalitions use four crucial strategies
These strategies include building relationships; defining
common interests; analyzing complex data; and operating on
multiple political levels.
Skillful relationship building is essential to the formation of
e ffective coalitions. In fact, members of successful and
durable coalitions tend to have links to influential parties that
can help move their agenda (1). Such ties can be particularly
useful in providing knowledge, re s o u rces, or political support
at critical moments. More o v e r, it is vital for regional coalitions
to identify and build relationships with local members fro m
the health care, religious, and labor communities. These
leaders can prove to be useful allies in forwarding the goals
of the collaborative.
Successful coalitions also have the ability to unite disparate
g roups around a common agenda. By highlighting issues of
mutual interest, alliances can begin to develop a common
mission and achieve successful integration. Acase in point is
the Smart Growth movement, which succeeded in uniting the
d i v e rgent interests of developers and enviro n m e n t a l i s t s
a round the theme of environmentally friendly urban re v i t a lization.
This strategy allowed both sides to support policies
that improved the housing options and quality of life of
urban neighborhoods while at the same time preserving the
distinctive and historical infrastru c t u re of US cities.
Access to detailed information germane to regional issues,
including economic indicators, socioeconomic characteristics
and needs assessments of residents as well as public
spending data, offers coalition builders an invaluable
re s o u rce to better define a problem and assess what measure s
may be applied to its solution. However, having data re a d i l y
available does not mean that consensus builders have the
means to interpret it. Intermediaries that specialize in data
analysis are often critical to successful regional coalitions (see
the section "Sustaining the Coalition" for further elaboration
of this point).
Coalition Building for Political
Leverage
Even if advocates are focused on local issues, the importance
of regional collaborations cannot be underestimated. For
instance, the support of key policy makers in other parts of
the state is often crucial to moving the agenda of the
coalition. Consequently, many scholars advocate a re g i o n a l
perspective, even if entities are locally focused (1). Access to
state politics is also particularly important for coalitions, since
most key regional decisions are made at the state level (1).
But state politics can be a difficult arena for regional collaborators
due to partisan division and entrenched localism in
decision making. To succeed in state level politics, it might be
a more effective strategy to create statewide campaigns
supported by a variety of local groups united by "thin agre ement"
rather than deep common intere s t .
Several significant demographic and market trends have been
shaping metropolitan areas, and seminar participants
e x p l o red how these trends affect the potential for coalition
building. Some of the most notable themes of the discussion
a re summarized below.
Suburbs are growing faster than cities
During the 1990s, the 100 largest U.S. cities grew 8.1 perc e n t
in population, compared to 6 percent growth during the
1980s. In fact, some cities, such as Chicago, Atlanta, and
Memphis, experienced population growth after decades of
losses. However, a closer examination of the data reveals that
the population expansion experienced by cities was larg e l y
due to an increase in Hispanic and Asian immigrant populations
(2). More o v e r, during the 1990s, an estimated 2.3 million
middle-income white residents moved from the central city to
outlying metropolitan areas. Consequently, the rate of population
growth for the suburbs was approximately twice that
of the central cities—17 percent compared to 8.1 percent (2).
Employment is decentralizing
The movement of middle-income white residents from the
city to outlying suburbs in the 1990s has had significant
implications for metropolitan regions. For instance, as middle
income white residents moved to the suburbs, suburban job
g rowth began to outpace that of cities. A c c o rding to some
observers, the American economy is rapidly becoming an
"exit ramp economy" with office, commercial and retail facilities
located along suburban freeways (2). This is particularly
t rue in leading technology regions like Washington, DC,
Austin, and Boston, where high-tech firms have located in
suburbs far from the city.
Recent statistics indicate a consistent pattern of economic
decentralization across the 100 largest U. S. metro p o l i t a n
a reas. On average, only 22 percent of people work within a
t h ree-mile radius of a city’s center. In cities like Chicago,
Atlanta, and Detroit more than 60 percent of the re g i o n a l
employment is located more than 10 miles from the
city center.
While opportunity is decentralizing, poverty
remains concentrated
Outlying suburbs are strong employment centers in their
regions (2). In fact, they are the predominant source of new
jobs in metropolitan areas. In the 1990s, for instance, 87
p e rcent of new entry-level jobs in the service and re t a i l
sectors were created in the outlying suburbs. However, as job
g rowth in the U.S. moves from central business districts in
cities, new areas of opportunities are re t reating further fro m
a reas of concentrated poverty and the working poor.
A c c o rding to recent reports, metropolitan areas continue to be
highly stratified by race, class, and income with the highest
concentrations of poverty among minority populations in the
central city (2, 5). Although entry-level jobs in manufacturing,
The Urban Seminar Series
ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND SAFETY
2
wholesale trade, and retail are available in the suburbs, the
lack of aff o rdable housing, low rates of car ownership, inadequate
public transit, and persistent residential racial discrimination
tend to prevent inner-city workers from obtaining
these jobs. Furthermore, inner-city workers constrained by
poor information networks often may not even know that
these jobs exist. This leads to a spatial mismatch between
w h e re jobs are increasingly located and where low-wage
workers live.
Decentralization has also led to negative consequences
for suburban re s i d e n t s
Urban sprawl has led to problems such as longer commute
times, traffic congestion, increased air pollution, and loss of
open space for middle-income residents of outlying suburbs.
Potential for Coalition Building
Between City and Suburb
Given the disturbing trends in metropolitan growth outlined
above, it may seem unlikely that larger alliances can be
formed to address all the associated problems. However,
many of these problems are shared and this becomes evident
in a closer examination of the development of suburbs.
A Typology of Suburbs
Decentralization is transforming the suburban
political landscape
The suburbs are often thought of as an undiff e rentiated band
of stable, affluent middle class white communities. But
re s e a rch indicates that urban sprawl gives rise to thre e
d i ff e rent categories of suburbs in the United States—at-risk
suburbs, bedroom development suburbs, and affluent
job centers.
The at-risk suburbs are located in the inner ring, immediately
outside the central city, and often resemble the central cities
f rom the perspective of their socioeconomic indicators,
declining schools, poor housing conditions, and unpro d u c t i v e
c o m m e rcial areas. Most often, they lack the fiscal capacity to
sustain economic viability.
B e d room development suburbs are located about 40 miles
f rom the central business district, and are characterized by
a ff o rdable housing for mostly white, moderate-income families
with high percentages of school-age childre n . H o w e v e r,
g rowing middle-income communities such as these are developing
without a sufficient property tax base to support
schools and other public services, and thus these communities
are at risk of becoming tomorrow's troubled suburbs.
The affluent job centers are often seen as the places that are
winning in the new economy and are considered the most
attractive places to live, with a steady flow of jobs, high-end
housing, and large retail outlets. However, these suburbs
s t ruggle with congestion, a lack of open space, and
e n v i ronmental degradation.
Urban/Suburban Commonalities
The typology of suburbs just outlined is based on a study of
the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the United States (2), and
clearly indicates that suburban communities are not a monolith
with common needs and experiences. Rather than re i n f o rc i n g
divisions between central cities and suburbs, the delineation of
these distinct residential patterns highlights the commonalties
s h a red by central cities and the inner ring suburbs which range
f rom fiscal constraints and deteriorating infrastru c t u re to
inadequate transportation and housing. In fact, by underscoring
such commonalities and shared fiscal interests, visionary
leaders have successfully forged metro-majority political coalitions
between the central city, and at-risk and low-tax-base
development suburbs (6). In Minnesota, for instance, such a
regional coalition helped pass significant state legislation
between 1993 and 1998 involving regional tax base sharing,
fair housing, transportation and transit reform, and land use
planning. Given the history of political fragmentation and
competition in metropolitan areas, regional coalition building
e fforts such as these re p resent innovative alliances among
g roups that might historically have found little in common.
New regional alliances are attempting to reverse tre n d s
toward concentrated urban poverty and sprawl
In metropolitan areas across the country, new coalitions are
forming to promote a regional agenda that addresses issues
such as concentrated urban poverty and sprawl. Many of these
coalitions are advocating smart growth strategies to curb uncont
rolled development outside urban centers and to pro m o t e
urban reinvestment. For instance, in Cleveland, a coalition of
inner ring suburban and city officials has been advocating
changes in public investment priorities so that state and federal
funds for transportation, housing, and schools are directed to
existing downtowns and neighborhoods instead of outward to
the urban fringe. In Boston, Portland, and Chattanooga, metropolitan
leaders have targeted urban sprawl by choosing
i n f r a s t ru c t u re re p a i r, mass transit, and anti-congestion strategies
over road expansion and consumption of open space.
Acoalition of city, inner ring, and bedroom development
suburbs in the Twin Cities has been successful at cre a t i n g
a ff o rdable housing options for urban children and families (6).
By creating low cost housing in suburban areas, they hope to
e n s u re that poor families have access to rapidly gro w i n g
suburban jobs and good schools. Furthermore, policymakers
contend that as aff o rdable housing becomes available at the
region’s periphery, the growth of concentrated poverty in
central cities will be reduced (2, 6). The Twin Cities coalition
also advocated regional tax sharing in order to spread the cost
of concentrated poverty among wealthy and struggling
jurisdictions. Such tax sharing has allowed the revitalization of
declining urban and older suburban areas by pro v i d i n g
re s o u rces to rebuild aging infrastru c t u re and re h a b i l i t a t e
housing. Other regional collaboration efforts have also focused
on linking inner-city residents to job opportunities t h ro u g h o u t
the region by investing in public transportation (7).
The Urban Seminar Series
ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND SAFETY
3
Multi-Racial Coalitions
Coalition builders must consider how local histories
of race relations in diff e rent U.S. cities affects the
collaboration building pro c e s s
Although coalitions can form around mutual interests such as
economic development, they are often fragile. The tenuous
n a t u re of such alliances is rooted in a history of racial tension
and present-day diff e rences between potential partners. Thus,
coalition builders need to recognize the important role of race
and help constituents find a common ground for alliance
forming that takes the local history of racial division and
antagonism into consideration.
C reative solutions to multiracial coalition building
include an appreciation of class-based solutions
Some consensus builders have found creative solutions to
multiracial political coalition building (3). For instance, by
making the case for a class-based solution to problems,
advocates of the Texas Ten Percent Plan were able to achieve
consensus on college enrollment quotas for historically
u n d e r re p resented minority groups. By framing the pro b l e m
a round the issue of class and economic inequality, advocates
w e re able to garner the endorsement of multiple groups that
a re often at odds. The initiative was led by Latino and black
activists who argued for class-based affirmative action, which
also appealed to low-income, working-class white families
f rom rural West Texas with limited access to flagship state
universities. The plan attracted Latino and black families
since minorities tend to be disproportionately poor and theref
o re likely to benefit from economic pre f e re n c e s .
In contrast to often divisive race-based affirmative action, the
Texas Ten Percent Plan brought the interests of working class
white families and minorities together. Because of the plan's
w i d e s p read appeal, activists were able to forge a political
coalition among Latino, black, and white state legislators. The
bill was passed by the legislature and was signed into law in
1997. The implementation of the Texas Ten Percent Plan has
significantly increased the number of Latino, black, and
low-income white students enrolled at the University of Te x a s .
Commonly held religious beliefs or lifestyle choices can
serve as the social glue that holds a cross-class
coalition together
E fforts to organize across lines of education, income, and
occupational status are difficult to sustain. As a result,
c ross-class political movements rarely endure unless they are
g rounded in a strongly held ideology, such as re l i g i o u s
conviction or a core lifestyle choice. Common re l i g i o u s
values, for instance, ease communication and facilitate
cooperation among gro u p s .
Sustaining the Coalition
In today's information age, public attention is an
i n c reasingly precious commodity, and coalitions must keep
their issues visible on the public agenda
Advocates need to recognize how issues can be transformed
f rom mere social conditions to problems that influential
players recognize and are willing to help solve. Three
strategies are essential in accomplishing this task. First, it is
critical to present an issue in concrete terms, as a clearly
defined problem whose solution seems feasible. Second,
advocates must carefully choose indicators—numbers, word s ,
images—to grab and hold public attention, whenever
possible emphasizing comparisons to other countries, states,
or cities. Third, advocates need to continually connect
important coalition issues with other topical issues re c e i v i n g
public attention. By helping policy makers and constituents
make these connections, coalitions are able to gain gre a t e r
e x p o s u re and support for their initiatives.
Important intermediaries can serve as trusted mediators
between all sectors of the city and re g i o n
Intermediaries can serve as brokers of relationships between
diverse stakeholders and as agents promoting collective
action and collective change. Examples of intermediaries
discussed during the seminar include the Rheedlen Center for
C h i l d ren and Families in their work with the Harlem
C h i l d ren’s Zone, the Urban Strategies Council, and the D. C.
Agenda. It is crucial for intermediaries to be seen as
nonpartisan and motivated only by the desire to eradicate a
particular social or economic problem. In this way, intermediaries
can be re g a rded with trust by the majority of the
stakeholders in a particular issue and help to bring disparate
g roups together without alienating any particular entity
or perspective.
Depending on the specific local conditions they encounter,
intermediaries can perform a variety of functions to achieve
their goal of building alliances between multiple stakeholders.
For instance, they can be compelled to act as "facilitators" or
"knowledge managers" when conflicts in real or perc e i v e d
i n t e rests ("turf") arise among collaborators. In these
situations, intermediaries perform the task of educating
parties about each other and can work to mend fractured or
tenuous relationships.
Intermediaries can also function as "performance investors"
whose work is to create a sense of a common mission for
diverse and multiple collaborators and to define consequences
for nonperformance by major players. Performance investors
can help groups or organizations define and achieve cre d i b l e
t a rgets, especially when established partnerships become
unfocused or underperforming. Intermediaries may also
serve as "organizers" and help stakeholders identify
important entities missing from the coalition and find ways to
engage them. Most often, intermediaries act as org a n i z e r s
when members of a collaborative lack the capacity to make
p ro g ress or achieve consensus.
The Urban Seminar Series
ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND SAFETY
4
The Urban Seminar Series
General Conclusions
N o n p rofit independent intermediaries can play a critical
role in engaging residents, civic groups, political leaders,
g r a s s roots organizations, public and private sector l
eadership, and faith-based organizations in a compre h e n s i v e
e ffort to achieve positive outcomes for poor children
and families
Intermediaries perform the vital role of coordinating a
sustainable effort by diverse stakeholders to revitalize
impoverished communities and expand healthy youth
development programs for low-income children. Their work is
often multifaceted and includes gathering and analyzing state
and regional data, strengthening the capacity of communitybased
organizations, and overhauling the systems that serve
low-income families. They create strategic partnerships among
public and private sectors, conduct evaluations to impro v e
p rograms for poor families, and support community
leadership. Presenters at the seminar agreed that an
intermediary is crucial to orchestrating and sustaining
c o m p rehensive change in communities that are often neglected
and suffer from the effects of persistent poverty.
Coalition builders must identify and build re l a t i o n s h i p s
with the political elites
The political elites, defined as a small group of local opinion
leaders typically from the business, health care, religious, and
labor communities, can prove to be powerful allies to re g i o n a l
coalition builders, given their ability to influence state
legislators on major issues.
To create effective multiracial political coalitions, one needs
to be aware of the unique histories of racial conflict in
d i ff e rent U.S. cities and the diversity within racial gro u p s
Asuccessful alliance must consider the unique circ u m s t a n c e s
of race relations in diff e rent U.S. cities and not attempt to
institute a "one size fits all" strategy across diff e rent re g i o n s .
Advocating for more central city and inner suburban re p re -
sentation on regional governing bodies could lead to better
outcomes for urban children and families
Regional governing bodies do not sufficiently re p resent the
central city or the diversity of suburbs. Increasing central city
and inner suburb re p resentation on appointed commissions
will aid in balancing agendas between decentralization and
urban reinvestment.
Establish regional forums for elected leaders
Many seminar participants agreed that in general, the suburbs
a re under- o rganized, and that we must strive to establish new
political institutions that reflect the growth of the suburbs.
Regional forums for elected leaders have been effective in
identifying common regional problems and potential solutions.
For instance, Mayors Daley (Chicago) and Webb (Denver)
o rganized suburban mayors around issues such as air quality,
s h a red utility purchase agreements, economic development,
a ff o rdable housing, and balanced growth. Seminar participants
p redicted that these regional forums would help facilitate
policy debates and changes beneficial to working class families.
References
The first four papers were commissioned for this seminar.
Other re f e rences were cited during the seminar discussion.
1. Marg a ret We i r. “Metropolitan Coalition-Building
S t r a t e g i e s . ”
2. Bruce Katz. “Bridging the Regional Divide.”
3. J. Phillip Thompson. “The Politics of Building Regional
Multi-racial Political Coalitions.”
4. Xavier de Souza Briggs. “The Will and the Way: Local
Partnerships, Political Strategy, and the Well-Being of
America’s Children and Yo u t h . ”
5. William Julius Wilson. The Bridge over the Racial Divide:
Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999.
6. Myron Orfield. M e t ropolitics: A Regional Agenda for
Community and Stability. Washington, DC: Bro o k i n g s
Institution Press, 1998.
7. Peter Dre i e r, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom. P l a c e
Matters: Metropolitcs for the Twenty-First Century. L a w re n c e ,
Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2001.
M a rg a ret Blood, President of Strategies for Children; Hillary
Pennington, President of Jobs for the Future; and A n g e l a
Glover Blackwell, President and CEO of Policy Link were
invited discussants for the seminar.
ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND SAFETY
5
The Urban Seminar Series
ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND SAFETY
6
The Urban Seminar Series on Childre n ’s Health and Safety
brings together re s e a rchers, practitioners, and policy makers who
have a common interest in improving the health and well being of
urban children. The series is sponsored by The Robert Wo o d
Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and directed by William Julius Wi l s o n
at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The
seminars highlight the latest re s e a rch on selected topics related to
c h i l d re n ’s health and safety, and are designed to complement
RW J F ’s Urban Health Initiative.
The mission of the Urban Health Initiative (UHI) is to impro v e
the health and safety of children and youth. Local campaigns in
B a l t i m o re, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Richmond
participate in the UHI. Each campaign seeks to change the major
systems that serve children in order to improve youth health and
safety statistics throughout the entire city or metropolitan area. The
UHI National Program Office is located at the University of
Washington and is headed by former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer.
C o re Group participants include the following:
Advisory Panel Members
Melissa Berman, President and CEO, The Philanthro p i c
Collaborative; Douglas Besharo v, Resident Scholar, American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; Geoffrey Canada,
P resident, Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families; Lindsay
Chase-Lansdale Professor and Chair, School of Education and Social
P o l i c y, Northwestern University; Ronald Ferguson, Lecturer in
Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government and Senior
R e s e a rch Associate at the Wiener Center for Social Policy; Robert
G r a n g e r, Senior Vice President, William T. Grant Foundation;
G e o rge Latimer, Distinguished Professor of Urban Studies,
Macalester College and Former Mayor of St. Paul; Nicholas
Lemann, Staff Wr i t e r, The New Yorker; Sara McLanahan, Pro f e s s o r,
Department of Sociology and Public Affairs and Director of the
Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child We l l b e i n g ,
Princeton University; Lawrence M. Mead, Pro f e s s o r, Department of
Politics Princeton University; Melvin Oliver, Vice President, Asset
Building and Community Development, Ford Foundation; Manuel
P a s t o r, Jr., Professor and Chair, Latin American and Latino Studies
Department, University of California at Santa Cruz; Robert J.
Sampson, Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology, Department of
S o c i o l o g y, University of Chicago; Kurt Schmoke, Partner, Law Firm
of Wi l m e r, Cutler & Pickering and Former Mayor of Baltimore ;
Marta Tienda, Dire c t o r, Office of Population Research, Princeton
University; Beth Weitzman, Associate Professor of Health Policy &
Management, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New Yo r k
University; Barry Zuckerman, Chairman, Department of
Pediatrics, Boston University
Urban Health Initiative
Julie Cooper, Research Director; Cynthia Curreri, Deputy Dire c t o r ;
Charles Royer, National Program Dire c t o r, Urban Health Initiative,
and Senior Lecture r, University of Wa s h i n g t o n
Site Dire c t o r s
G renae Dudley, Executive Dire c t o r, Youth Connection; Hathaway
F e rebee, Executive Dire c t o r, Baltimore Safe and Sound; Laura
P i n k n e y, Executive Dire c t o r, Safe Passages; Naomi Post-Stre e t ,
Executive Dire c t o r, Philadelphia Safe and Sound; Ve ro n i c a
Templeton, Executive Dire c t o r, Youth Matters
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Paul Jellinek, Vice President; James Knickman, Vice Pre s i d e n t ;
Katherine Kraft, Program Officer; Paul Tarini, Communications
O f f i c e r
Harvard University
Susan Chang, Research Associate; James Quane, Associate Dire c t o r
of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program, Kennedy
School of Government; William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda
L. Geyser University Professor and Director of the Joblessness and
Urban Poverty Research Program, Kennedy School of Government
For more information on the Urban Seminar Series, please visit our
website at www. k s g . h a r v a r d . e d u / u r b a n p o v e r t y. For more
information on the Urban Health Initiative, please visit its website
at www. u r b a n h e a l t h . o rg .
H a r v a rd University
John F. Kennedy School of Government
79 John F. Kennedy Stre e t
Cambridge, MA 0 2 1 3 8
Phone: 617.496.4514
Fax: 617.495.5834
w w w. k s g . h a r v a rd . e d u / u r b a n p o v e r t y