Addressing your Local Community

An Interview with Chattanooga Civics

David W. Cooney
2 February, 2023

O ne thing that distributists are often asked is how we can begin to move toward a more
distributist society. What are things that we can do now, in our current political and economic
environment, to at least nudge society in what we consider to be a better direction. A lot of our
response has been about how to do this economically; like supporting local businesses and using a
credit union rather than a bank. That is good as far as it goes, but we must also address these questions
politically. What steps can we take to help society as a whole to become more localist, to encourage our
local government to address local issues and hold them accountable for doing so, and to encourage
people in our local community to be engaged in the local political government and its activities?

Enter Nathan Bird and Chattanooga Civics. Chattanooga Civics is a local resource created to help the
citizens of Chattanooga know what is going on in their city and county governments so they can be
informed about what their local governments are doing and what they can do about it. As it says on the
About section of the web site, “When you hear someone talk about local government what comes to
mind? You might think about taxes, schools, policing, roads, or even something as mundane as trash
collection. But do you wonder how these aspects of government are managed? How are tax rates set?
Who exactly oversees the police? Who determines the school budget? How can we, as citizens, stay
informed and make our voice heard? If you've been looking for answers to these questions you’re in the
right place.” I reached out to Nathan and he took the time to answer some questions about this effort.

Q: In our society, it seems to be assumed that local government is not effective and incompetent. As a
result, people look to the federal government or the state government to address problems. What made
you decide to try and address things at the local level?

This project started in 2020, and there were a couple things that really made it clear to me how
important local government can be. The first was COVID. We had all this information being handed
out at the national level, but all the implementation was at the local level. Was your county issuing
mask mandates? How successful was the vaccine rollout in your city? Did you ever experience an
actual “lockdown”? COVID was a national issue that played out very differently depending not just on
which state you lived in, but which city or town. Similarly, the murder of George Floyd in the summer
of 2020 sparked a national conversation about policing. But again, this is a national issue that plays
itself out locally. Police budgets and policy are set at the city or county level. There are more issues like
this that we often talk about nationally but require local action: affordable housing, sustainability,

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transportation policy, I could go on. But what I saw in my hometown (and I think this is pretty typical)
was a lack of easily accessible and digestible information about local government. I didn’t even know
who was in charge of making some of these decisions, much less what steps were being taken to
address them. So I set out to create a platform that provided easier access to this information. It started
as a podcast and has evolved to include a newsletter which summarizes local government issues each
week.

Q: What kinds of things that impact daily life can local government address?

For most people you start interacting with local government as soon as you leave your house. Do you
walk? Then you depend on local government to keep the sidewalks maintained. Do you ride your bike?
Then you depend on local government to provide safe biking paths. Do you drive? Then you depend on
local government to keep the roads paved and the traffic signals timed. But there are more complex
issues too. Zoning is, in my opinion, one of the most important issues a city can manage. It has all sorts
of impacts on housing affordability, traffic patterns, what kinds of businesses you have in a given area,
and ultimately what kind of density you have and what kind of property taxes are required to sustain
maintenance.

Q: What were your biggest setbacks or frustrations in getting Chattanooga Civics going and what did
you find the most helpful in overcoming them?

Honestly, getting the podcast started was the easiest part. I did everything on a shoestring budget. I
bought a used digital microphone, downloaded Audacity for editing, and built my website on Google
Sites. It’s all very “home brew”, but it’s gone pretty well. The barrier to entry for podcasting is just so
low. I expected it would be harder to get guests, but actually nearly everyone is super excited to come
on the show and talk about what they do. Now that might vary depending on the size and culture of a
given city, but in Chattanooga I’ve had no problem getting guests and the list of people I still need to
interview just keeps getting longer.

The hardest part has really been making people aware of the podcast and interested in the material. I
still haven’t figured out the best way around that. Local government just isn’t a priority for most
people. I try and make the case every chance I get, but it only really happens a few people at a time.
Really the most helpful thing is to find out where people are already talking about local government
and building off that and reacting to those conversations. Chattanooga has a very active subreddit, so I
go there to let people know about the show, get ideas for future episodes, and get feedback. It’s
definitely the most engaged community I’ve found so far.

Q: How effective is local citizen involvement in changing things through local government?

It’s more effective than doing nothing. There are a lot of road blocks to effecting change, especially at a
grass roots level, but it’s no different than advocating at the state or federal level. It takes a lot of
sustained work. It takes organization and patience. And in a lot of ways it’s more fun, more interesting,
and easier, because you can organize with neighbors, you can meet your local representatives in person
or even go address them on the record at a city council meeting.

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Q: What are the realistic expectations people should have regarding making changes?

Change is going to be slow. Everything has to go through committees, public comment sessions, legal
review, etc. So be patient, be willing to compromise, but don’t let up. You have to keep the pressure up,
sometimes for years, so it helps to prioritize and figure out which issues are most important to you. If
you try and tackle everything at once you’ll get burned out pretty quickly.

Q: What ways can members of the local community get more involved outside of running for office?

I got started by joining my neighborhood association. It’s not an HOA, we don’t have any legal power.
It’s just a bunch of neighbors getting together once a month to discuss problems and solutions in the
area, announce events, and learn more about what’s going on in the city. Our city council representative
comes to the meetings as often as she can, and other city officials will drop by occasionally to
announce things that are happening in their departments that might affect us. These meetings don’t
have to be super formal, you just need a handful of people who care. I recommend everyone try and
join an existing association or start your own.

Q: What have you found to be effective ways to get members of the local community more involved?

That’s the big question! It’s really hard to get people involved. Having more accessible information
certainly helps, and that’s the goal of Chattanooga Civics, but ultimately it comes down to convincing
people that local government is important and that every voice has the capacity to create change. So
there’s no single answer that I’ve found, but I think the most helpful thing is to find an issue people
care about and then connect it to the local level. And I’ve found that nearly every issue is influenced by
local policies in some form or fashion.

Q: What recommendations to you have for anyone who wants to start doing something similar to what
you do?

There’s a bit of baseline knowledge required. You have to learn the structure of your local government.
Every city and town is slightly different in how powers are distributed, so read your “founding
document” (usually a charter) to understand how your local government works in the broadest sense.
Find out who sits in your local legislative body, start reading local news, and see if you can access
meeting minutes or recordings. Just familiarize yourself with the process. That’s really the foundation.
Do that for a couple weeks and you’ll have a good understanding of who to talk to and what questions
to ask. From there it’s really up to you what direction you want to go in and what issues you want to
focus on.

2023, Practical Distributism

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