Building Community Infrastructure: The Foundation Stone of Economic Regeneration – Transatlantic Virtual Discussion

Today, the rules-based liberal order and the stable democracies that built and sustain it, are at risk. Polarizing, nationalist, populist movements threaten our democracies from within as well as the international alliances that have preserved the peace and brought prosperity to citizens and countries around the world since WWII. As we have seen in recent years, as once stable democracies are tested and threatened by internal anti-democratic leaders, momentum can build that will threaten the whole transatlantic and international alliance of nations.

While fears of cultural dislocation, national decline, and migration animate anti-democratic populist movements, a principal driver is the real and perceived decline in living standards, living conditions, and future opportunities experienced by residents of once proud and mighty economic regions. Where these communities continue to decline, residents feel disconnected and alienated from a rapidly changing world.

Countries and their leaders are waking up to the fact that residents of ignored and 'left-behind' regions are angry and alienated, and are moving to ameliorate the economic, social, and political divides undermining our polities from within. Today, there is a convergence of interest and effort on both sides of the Atlantic, to learn from each other, and identify and enact the policies, programs, and practices that are effective in closing these geographic economic divides. Where communities recover, it returns community pride and optimism about the future, diminishes the appeal of polarizing, political movements and the demagogues who stoke them.

An essential foundation stone for successful community economic regeneration is to build up Community Infrastructure: leadership; social capital and capacity-building; re-knitting social networks; effective citizen engagement and community empowerment; and restoring pride in place. These so-called "soft infrastructures" are as important, perhaps the most important