Thinking Out the How

By itself neither deploring the problem nor reaffirming the goal makes anything happen. To solve a problem and to reach a goal, to get a system restructured or a new idea passed into law, there has to be a How. This book is about how one American state successfully reinvented its regional governance . . . revised its public finance . . . reorganized its hospital system . . . is re-forming its public education and reconceiving its system of urban transportation. It is hopeful about our public sector. But the story it tells is clear: Politics can't do it alone. Government needs a strong civic sector to push elected officials to think about the causes of problems, and to provide them radical but implementable strategies for policy action. Unhappily, our civic infrastructure today might not be up to the job at the state and local level where that has to happen. This description of its essentials, this analysis of its successes, shows what will be needed to revive that essential civic dimension of public life.