Civic networks for sustainable regions - Innovative practices and emergent theory

This article presents an alternative way of thinking about how regional sustainability might be accomplished. It starts from the premise that metropolitan regions can be understood as self-organizing complex systems if they have certain characteristics. When observed through this framework, sustainability shifts from being an end state to being a continuing process of adaptation that maintains the system or even improves its performance through learning and innovation. This article explores these ideas by investigating four Collaborative Regional Initiatives (CRIs), voluntary networks of civic leaders in California. We compare them across six themes: fit to region, theory of change, role of research, leadership, network structure, and activity. We use these elements as a conceptual framework to tell each CRI's unique and interesting story, while at the same time comparing them along common dimensions. Drawing on complexity science, we use the stories of these CRIs to develop theory about how such networks can be designed and operated to play useful roles in advancing the sustainability of a region.