New paper finds that vertical ties among organizations needed for economic reform

In “Collaboration Is Not Enough: Virtuous Cycles of Reform in
Transportation Policy,” Margaret Weir, Jane Rongerude, and Christopher K. Ansell analyze the vertical and horizontal networks of development organizations in Chicago and Atlanta. From the abstract: “Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has touted the promise of regional collaboration to address a wide range of issues ranging from economic development to poverty and sustainability. This article challenges the premise that horizontal collaboration alone can empower regional decisionmaking venues. By analyzing the organizational networks that emerged in Chicago and Los Angeles in the wake of federal transportation policy reforms in the early 1990s, we show that vertical power is essential to building regional capacities. Only by exercising power at multiple levels of the political system can local reformers launch a virtuous cycle of reform that begins to build enduring regional capacities.” Forthcoming in Urban Affairs Review.