In recent years, questions regarding civility have come up repeatedly in conversations among America’s city leaders. Because the National League of Cities (NLC) aims to ensure broad civic involvement in and ownership of a city’s democratic governance work, it has responded by providing resources and training in how to engage local residents more effectively in that sphere.

NLC starts by defining ‘democratic governance’ as “the art of governing a community in participatory, deliberative, inclusive, and collaborative ways.” In other words, the government does not bear the sole responsibility for doing this work. The term “governance” itself is meant to affirm an active role for residents, community organizations, business, the media, and others. The best examples of democratic governance are those that engage a diversity of people and institutions in learning more about community issues and working together to arrive at solutions.

In the course of its research and other work on this topic, NLC has identified a number of roles and responsibilities for city leaders in promoting democratic governance. They have also found numerous examples of cities and towns where local communities have found ways to engage people in their communities through constructive discussions and positive action.

In order to maintain engagement and proactivity of the people in their respective communities, NLC offers seven principles to help local city leaders build a culture of democratic governance in their communities:
1. Model Civility
2. Sharpen Skills
3. Create Opportunities For Informed Engagement
4. Support A Culture Of Community Involvement
5. Make The Most Of Technology
6. Include Everybody
7. Make It Last

None of these principles stands on its own. They crisscross to achieve functional democratic governance across the nation under which city leaders can work to ensure that local and regional decision making is conducted in a civil and responsible manner. It will help build residents’ confidence in government’s ability to address problems effectively and set the tone for civil discourse throughout the community and provide a model for other levels of government.

City leaders can bring their skills and work with professional facilitators, mediators, communications consultants, academics, and others with experience structuring effective programs to convene people and promote meaningful engagement on issues. They can also take steps to help ensure that training and resources are available for local government staff members, residents, and leaders of other local organizations so they can develop key skills that will contribute to community problem solving.

City leaders across the nation are implementing public engagement processes to mobilize residents to provide input and make decisions about important issues facing their communities. This gives residents a first-hand look at how government and governance work. In recent decades, a growing number of cities have been creative about their engagement, some created neighborhood councils (also known as “planning districts” and “priority boards”), and others convened in other ways to debate issues and propose policies and strategies for addressing community needs.

Civic engagement simply starts by showing people the wealth of opportunities for them to get involved by finding ways to foster a strong culture of civic responsibility through volunteering with city agencies and community organizations. Since the internet is the new town hall and mostly youth’s main tool of communication, city leaders can work with residents and particularly young people who are the future voters and rising local leaders, so that the government can gain added insight into their interests and priorities, develop more effective and creative strategies for addressing local needs and lay the groundwork for long-term community success.

City leaders should work with their partners inside and outside of government to make public engagement ongoing community priority. As they may want to build new and more constructive relationships with media representatives to help spread success stories and propose solutions for communities issues through a national dialogue.