Local communities are no longer competing with each other as much as they are competing with other regions in the national and international marketplace. Individual communities need to cooperate with each other in planning for their shared future and addressing regional needs. Such problems clearly cross jurisdictional boundaries and so must the solutions. The approaches that communities can take toward fostering inter-community or regional cooperation range from informal agreements to formal political restructuring. David Walker, writing in the National Civic Review describes the two polls of regional associations.
Informal cooperation is the easiest and probably the most widely practiced approach to regionalism.
It generally involves collaboration and reciprocal activities, but not fiscal transactions. The hardest approaches to metro regionalism are complex consolidations and restructurings, which create new area-wide levels of government, reallocate local government powers and functions, and disrupt the political and institutional status quo. First, a proactive approach to regional problem solving needs to be embraced. Regional challenges, and also opportunities, need to be identified in the early stages. Too often, regional leaders wait to take action, or to even gather, until problems have become full blown crises.