California's Regions Have a New Champion

Advocates for everything from environmental to economic development issues have increasingly focused on the importance of regions. Yet State policies often fail to acknowledge regional differences and local governments all to often engage in competition or isolationism. To help spur regionalism, Nick Bollman, former Sr. Program Director for the Irvine Foundation, recently founded the California Center for Regional Leadership (CCRL). Supported by a grant from the Irvine Foundation, CCRL is devoted to building the capacity of "collaborative regional initiatives." TPR talked to Nick about the importance of regions in CA and the promising efforts currently under way to find cross-jurisdictional solutions to cross-jurisdictional problems.