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100 Nat'l Civic Rev. 3 (2011)

handle is hein.journals/natmnr100 and id is 1 raw text is: Since 1912, the National Civic Review has been publishing thought-provoking articles on the pressing challenges facing America's communities. Over time, the focus of the journal has evolved from an emphasis on fighting corruption and govern- ment inefficiency to topics such as community governance, civic engagement, and inclusiveness but the editorial objective has been the same: to make grassroots democracy work better at the local level. We are celebrating our centennial year, however, by looking for- ward, not back. We are asking our colleagues, board members, and leaders of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to give us their ideas on what seems to be working in America's com- munities. Admittedly, that is a very general question, but the authors in this issue have risen to the occasion with a variety of perspectives and angles. NCL President Gloria Rubio-Cortes writes about the things that give people hope, finding vivid examples from the stories of past winners of the All-America City Award. Sandra Freedman, the chair of our board of directors, reflects on the years when she was mayor of Tampa, Florida, and the myriad ways she found to directly engage city dwellers in improving their own com- munity, everything from home improvements to tree trimming to landscaping. One of these programs was later written up in David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's seminal book, Reinventing Government. It was an odd experience to be assigning and editing all of these hopeful articles about communities in late 2010, when political and economic trends seemed to be anything but hopeful. The country is more deeply divided politically and economically than at any other period of my lifetime, with the possible exception of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A Publication of the National Civic League There have also been dramatic changes in media and technol- ogy, sure to lead in directions we can only imagine. Some of the authors and interview subjects in this issue talk about the future of media and technology and what it may mean for democracy and for nonprofit organizations. Others have narrowed their focus to particular programs and organizations, illuminating specific ideas about what they see as working in communities. Political divisions, dissatisfaction with government, dramatic changes driven by technology and economic trends these con- ditions resemble a little the crisis that was facing cities a hun- dred years ago, when this journal was founded to replace the annual proceedings of the National Conference on Good City Government. Many of the proposals, ideas, and models explored in the journal were ignored by the public, but others were tried, tested, and adopted and are now taken for granted, things such as home rule charters, professional city managers, and merit systems for public employees. We can only hope that the ideas put forward by authors in this issue and others during the centennial year of NCR will take root and prove as durable as the municipal reforms of the early twen- tieth century, which the journal played a historic and important role in promoting. Through programs such as the All-America City Award, we are reminded every day that even under the most adverse conditions people are working together and finding new and innovative ways to address the needs of their communities. We intend to tell you a lot more about those ideas in the coming years. Note: We would like to thank Philanthropy for Active Civic En- gagement for support in publishing this issue of NCR. Michael McGrath Editor 0 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) I National Civic Review * DOI: 10.1002/ncr.20040 * Spring 2011 E 3

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