July, 2009 - Around here, towns don't usually work together. They tend to compete -- for the Wal-Mart, for highway interchanges, for federal dollars. You name it, they fight over it.
Towns working together? That is the kind of thing you would expect out in California -- a bunch of free spirits holding hands and working together -- maybe singing that old Coca-Cola song about teaching the world to sing.
But the fact is, collaboration may be the way of the future. And one of the earliest and most remarkable examples of such integration is happening right here in the Heartland.
In an amazing display of togetherness that has earned national attention, 17 towns in southern Cook County recently decided not to compete with each other. Instead they have joined forces to seek millions in federal dollars from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program to combat the foreclosures that are devastating their neighborhoods.
"It's huge," said Robin Snyderman, vice president of community development for the Metropolitan Planning Council, which helped out on the South Suburban Mayors and Managers project. "It's incredibly historic."
A couple of places out on the Left Coast have done similar things, but those areas were affluent. The south suburban venture, collaboration between cash-strapped communities, may be the first of its kind.
The south suburban towns, including Blue Island, Robbins, Harvey, Dolton, Riverdale and others, have been crippled by high unemployment, a lack of jobs and a foreclosure rate three times the national average. Problems don't stop at town borders, so it made sense to work together.
One of their first joint efforts was to go after some federal funds. When the federal government first announced its Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which would hand out money to communities with foreclosure problems, the guidelines made it more likely that communities would have to compete with each other for money.
But the South Suburban Mayors and Managers had already been meeting with each other and talking about the problem. They started to believe there was strength in numbers.
"It was all easier said than done," said Snyderman, "But there was enough incentive that the municipalities could do the right thing."
The south suburban group hopes to focus their efforts on communities that are also near transit and the Calumet River. Since there won't be enough funds to help the whole region, putting dollars where people can live near work or transit integrates a lot of good ideas.
The group has been told they made the first cut and are semi-finalists for some Neighborhood Stabilization Program cash, said Janice L. Morrissy, the south suburban housing collaborative's new director of housing initiatives. They should find out by the end of July funds are coming their way.
If everything goes well, Morrissy said, the group hopes to "create or preserve 297 homes while demolishing or land-banking an additional 183 sites throughout the 12 towns." Those additional sites will be near transit stops, anticipating redevelopment that would be transit-oriented.
While it is very difficult for different towns to work together after a lifetime of competition, it makes some things easier, Snyderman said. The application process is very difficult for small towns with small staffs.
"It's monumental to do this alone," she said. "I think it might even get easier as we develop a multi-jurisdictional approach."
Since the south suburbs banded together, several other groups and agencies have pushed for making it easier for cities to work together to seek funds.
It can get complicated, but here's all you need to know: the south suburbs of Chicago not only made history by working together to improve their economy, but also they influenced the way government agencies do business with our money.
Take that, California.
