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88 Nat'l Civic Rev. 1 (1999)

handle is hein.journals/natmnr88 and id is 1 raw text is: NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT F OR half a century the All-America City Award has recognized exemplary civic accomplishments in communities of all shapes and sizes. The AAC award celebrates the spirit of grassroots citizen involvement, creative com- munity effort, and collaborative problem solving. The achievements of these communities speak volumes about the success that can be achieved when people in communities join together and cooperatively work to tackle a wide variety of challenges. Winning the award gives communities a renewed sense of self-confidence, publicizes their achievements to the outside world, and celebrates the can-do spirit of community problem solving. All-America City Award winners and finalists teach and inspire other communities that may be struggling with chal- lenges very similar to those faced by the cities, counties, towns, and regions that are recognized by the award. The award has never been about being a perfect community Rather, it is an award for communities that have faced difficult challenges and worked together to find solutions. As pollster and longtime All-America City jury fore- man George Gallup once said, A city without any problems is like a church without a deficit. It probably is in a lot deeper trouble than anyone could ever imagine. We occasionally recognize communities that surprise people. For exam- ple, Buffalo, Newark, Toledo, and New Orleans have all been winners. I was in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a 1998 AAC winner, to celebrate its award last sum- mer. Chelsea has struggled hard to come back from its challenges. Does Chelsea still have problems? Of course it does, but the community has come so far from where it was just a few short years ago that it meant the world to have an organization like the National Civic League recognize the struggle to overcome adversity. One feature that makes this award so unique is that we are not saying these are the best cities in America. We are saying that these are the cities where citizen democracy seems to be working. The dramatic nature of these turnaround stories gives some communities the idea that the award is for being the most improved or for coming back from a disaster, but that is not what the award is about, either. For every big city that has rebounded from tough times, we may have three medium-sized or small communities that frankly did all the right things to ensure that they would never have tough times. It is very important for communities to be proactive, and the award recognizes that kind of civic achievement as well. There have been substantial changes since the program was first begun. Today there are ten winners instead of the original All-American eleven. In the first three decades of the award the All-America Cities program was held at the same time as our National Conference on Governance. The delegations NATIONAL Civic REVIEW, vol. 88, no. 1, Spring 1999 © Jossey-Bass Publishers 1

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