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California’s key to successful economic development is regional leadership. In a state of this size, each region must determine for itself how to tackle key issues and meet overarching state goals. California contains 58 counties and hundreds of incorporated cities–not to mention school boards, water districts, and myriad other governance structures. Meanwhile, most issues that people confront on a daily basis— availability of jobs, transportation, housing costs, access to open space, air or water quality—are regional. Local governments on their own are not able to manage these inherently cross-jurisdictional issues. Regional, cross-sector collaboration is best suited to manage these issues.
At CA FWD, we work with key partners, including the California Stewardship Network (CSN), to provide the interconnective tissue between the state and its regions, building shared capacity on the ground, convening diverse stakeholders for shared learning and engagement, and catalyzing structural change.
Together, we’ve long been at the forefront of regionalism. We helped the Governor’s Office launch “Regions Rise Together” in 2019, and were instrumental in advocating for and shaping the Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF), now part of the larger California Jobs First initiative. Today, 9 of the 13 California Jobs First economic regions are led by a CSN member organization and all regions have CSN members at the table.
Looking ahead, we want to build on the renewed interest in regionalism—specifically on recent efforts to direct funding towards regions to develop unique plans and strategies to tackle climate change, prepare for a more resilient economy, and accelerate housing construction. We call this work—where each region determines on its own how to tackle key issues and meet state goals—a “regions-up” agenda.
While working regionally is key to tackling many issues, the regions-up system faces key challenges:
- California Jobs First will end in 2026 unless there is ongoing funding or a decision to institutionalize an enduring state and regional economic development structure. This will require regions, state agencies, and key partners to work together to create a solution.
- Regional planning agencies have called for a pause and a comprehensive reevaluation of the implementation of the state’s landmark regional planning law, SB 375, and its requirement for planning agencies to produce Sustainable Communities Strategies to meet climate goals.
- California’s regions face increasing climate risk, but climate resilience is not sufficiently incorporated into existing regional economic and land use planning structures.
- The federal government is undergoing significant restructuring and will likely shrink place-based investments, including in climate and economic development activities. This will require not only the state, but also every region, to consider filling the gap.
CA FWD believes these challenges create the opportunity to move toward more coordinated action on a regions-up agenda, especially given recent important work from the state to recognize regional strengths and better coordinate across state agencies:
- The state just released its Economic Blueprint, which reinforces the importance of regions-up work as it highlights the industry growth priorities across the 13 economic regions.
- The state last year launched a California Jobs First Council to coordinate the implementation of the Economic Blueprint as well as a workforce development strategy.
- The Governor’s budget in January proposed the creation of a new Housing and Homelessness agency. This proposal recognizes the need to break down silos across agencies and the Governor’s openness to create new enduring agency structures around key state priorities.
CA FWD’s Regions-Up Policy Agenda
To address these opportunities, CA FWD is building an agenda toward policy advocacy that supports regional economic action. The agenda includes:
- Institutionalizing and establishing a permanent funding mechanism for regional planning and implementation, including continuing California Jobs First regional collaboratives beyond 2026.
- Formalizing the link between California Jobs First and other regional collaboratives and planning processes (including Sustainable Communities Strategies, K-16 Collaboratives, and the Master Plan for Career Education).
- Identifying funding for Metropolitan Planning Organizations and other regional entities to implement adopted plans and accelerate their plans’ climate goals.
- Exploring the creation of a State Economic Development and Planning Agency with distinct regional arms–something that exists in many other states across the country.
- Establishing a statewide data platform for regions to share data, best practices, and monitor progress.
CA FWD is committed to catalyzing a policy agenda that supports a durable and sustainable regions-up planning and economic development system for the state of California. We look forward to doing this work with our partners across every region, culminating in a set of recommendations we’ll release at our annual California Economic Summit October 21-23 in Stockton.
To design an enduring regions-up system, we must build from the expertise of the people on the ground doing the work within the regions—and that’s precisely what we’re doing.
