Introduction

Civic leadership is place-based, meaning that those exercising decision-making power have a concern for the communities living in a particular place. But what does place-based leadership involve? How can it be conceptualised? Can we have too much place-based leadership? In this chapter I address these questions.

Wise civic leadership cultivates a public sense of place. Civic leaders, by standing up for local communities against place-less power, can energise collective action at the local level that would not otherwise happen. However, a word of caution is needed. It is possible to take the argument for strengthening place-based power too far. As explained in the previous chapter, gated communities – areas within cities that have been privatised – are on the rise. Some may feel that these zones are clear examples of place-based leadership in action. This is not what I am advocating. No doubt the residents of these enclaves identify with the place where they live, but these are private spaces. They are designed to exclude people and, as such, they destroy the public realm. Place-based leadership, in the sense I am using it, expands the public space in the city – in both the physical and the political sense.

The discussion in this chapter moves through four main stages. First, we discuss the changing context for place-based leadership. Powerful forces, some of them global in reach, impact localities. These drivers of change can be strong, but they do not neuter civic leadership. It is helpful to think of them as shaping the context within which place-based leadership is exercised. Successful civic leaders pay attention to these forces, in a way that resembles how a successful sports coach assesses the strengths and weaknesses of opposing teams. Second, I provide a graphic visualisation of the way these external forces ‘frame’, or place constraints on, local leadership. This approach is intended to advance understanding of the flows of influence and power that shape the prospects for particular places.

Third, we step away from the world of local governance to examine debates about the changing nature of leadership in modern societies.