Our goals:

• Teach you about your government, in actual useful detail.

• Research and point to novel, regional solutions you can pursue with that knowledge, your friends, and fellow citizens.

Our philosophy:

Before asking what ought to be, ask what is. You’ll realize that reality is often surprising in the best way.

The Bay Area needs better governance, on this many people can agree. But many of them immediately jump to theoretical solutions without stopping to examine what legal and cultural tools they already have.

The Bay Area Governance Project researches and advocates for Bay Area governance solutions, and we legally improvise on well-mastered basics. The scope is wide, and the vision is ambitious (a new regional governance model, anyone?).

But we recognize the vital importance of bringing people along with us. Do you know what a county government is? What it can do? How it can be creatively changed? We do, and we know that that knowledge—along with much else—must be promulgated widely to achieve durable, desirable change.

We need a culture of citizens who actually understand government and the law, and we need more action-oriented researchers aimed at the state and local level. Together, they can move Bay Area governance forward.