“Portland‘s pioneering approach to regional governance has gone from being a good idea to being an imperative. In every community, regional cooperation has become a necessity to address the challenges of the present and future. In every community, regional cooperation has become a necessity to address challenges of the present and future. ‘Regional Charters’ looks at a new way to help community leaders and citizens make regional cooperation succeed.
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Regionalist Reviews
“Bill Dodge has authored a book that encompasses the history of regional governance and presents the arguments and a grassroots strategy for continuing to strengthen it. This is a book that should be in every college, university, and graduate school to offer this generation of citizens and leaders, and the ones to follow, a roadmap of the future role of regions.”
— Buddy Villines / Former Pulaski County Judge/CEO / Former President, National Association of Regional Councils (NARC) / Little Rock Arkansas region
“Bill Dodge blends his deep practical insight into the complex dynamics of cities and regions with boundless optimism for the future of American democracy and a frank assessment of the urgency of renewing our approach as regional leaders. Regional Charters provides a way for leaders and activists alike to organize civic affairs that can bridge the gap between conflicting interests and forces to help American regions move forward.”
— David Warm / Executive Director, Mid-America Regional Council Kansas City / Kansas/Missouri Region
“At a time when so many of our institutions of self-government seem to have become terminally dysfunctional, Bill Dodge draws on a lifelong career of regional community-building to map a practical, proven path out of this quagmire.”
— Daniel Kemmis / Author of Community and the Politics of Place / and Citizens Uniting to Restore Our Democracy / Missoula Montana Region
“Bill Dodge is probably the most knowledgeable person in the United States on the topic of regional governance. He has now assembled that knowledge and presented it in a well-organized and carefully written book that will be an enormous asset to practitioners and citizens engaged in contemporary challenges and opportunities posed by regional issues.”
— Scott Fosler / Former Mayor, Town of Chevy Chase, Montgomery County, Maryland / Former President, Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments (MWCOG) / Former President, National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) / Former Chairman, National Civic League (NCL) / National Capital Region
“Regional Charters is a timely reminder that the geography of the institutions we've created to govern ourselves rarely match the geography of the challenges they're asked to address. Dodge's book offers a vision for a way out and forward, through the creation of citizen-led "regional charters", to reconstruct the basis for governance and collective action.”
— Ethan Seltzer / Emeritus Professor, Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University / Co-editor of Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect / Portland Oregon Region
“Regions are no longer an “extra” added to a fixed governance system, in most cases they have evolved into an organic community of communities.”
— John B. Cobb, Jr. / Founder, The Cobb Institute / Los Angeles California Region
“Bill Dodge’s Regional Charters is a masterful and encyclopedic memoir that unabashedly advocates for the rational notion that people with geographic connectivity should organize at whatever scale they can to promote their regions’ wellbeing.”
— Jim DeAngelis / Former Director, Urban and Regional Planning Program, University of Pittsburgh / Former Board Member, American Institute of Planners / Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Region
Bill Dodge uniquely and thoughtfully combines an examination of theory, underlying values, and best practices in how regional citizens and institutions can advance equity and sustainability in their communities.
— dick flemming / CEO, Community Development Ventures, Inc. CORTEX Innovation Community / St. Louis Missouri Region
Using knowledge accumulated during his lifelong commitment to regional communities, Dodge has written Regional Charters both as a step-by-step citizen guidebook to regional community coordination and as a how-to book for regional charter adoption. Anyone with concerns or curiosity about public tasks that are planned or provisioned regionally - or ones that could benefit from that - will find this book to be essential reading.