by Graham Bodie, Ph.D.
At a recent OLinc-sponsored event, an audience member asked a question that has stayed with me: What is this group going to do to regain public trust? One response was to draw a boundary. A panelist from outside the community suggested that responsibility for lost trust belongs primarily with elected officials and others who have a direct obligation to public representation. OLinc, the panelist argued, is chiefly responsible to its members, who expect economic-development leaders to focus on “economic-development success.”
There is truth in that distinction. Membership organizations, elected bodies, public agencies, and civic institutions do not all carry the same responsibilities. At the same time, economic development that protects only growth will eventually lose the community it claims to serve. Fortunately, this broader view is reflected in OLinc’s Strategic Plan, which describes Oxford and Lafayette County as “one of the most beloved locations in the country,” shaped by generations of people who have called this place home. It then names the task ahead: to “protect the qualities of this amazing community while allowing it to grow for future generations.”
That tension is at the heart of local economic development. Growth must be managed in ways that preserve belonging and build trust. But trust cannot be rebuilt, as is often thought by governments across the world, with better messaging after decisions are made. It is not restored by catchy slogans or campaigns designed to convince the public that “everything is alright.” Trust must, instead, be built through better processes before decisions harden into policy, budgets, zoning, and concrete.
Housing affordability is one place we might usefully begin. The issue touches nearly everyone, though not in the same way. Renters feel it in monthly payments. Workers feel it in commute times. Employers feel it in recruitment and retention. Students feel it in rising debt load. Homeowners feel it in concerns about density, traffic, neighborhood character, and property values. Developers feel it in land costs, financing, regulation, and uncertainty. Public officials feel it in the difficult task of balancing growth, infrastructure, revenue, and community identity.
Oxford has no shortage of concern about housing. We have reports, commissions, public meetings, proposed ordinances, advocates, researchers, developers, elected officials, and residents with lived experience. What we lack is durable civic infrastructure for bringing those perspectives together in a way that produces shared judgment. Too often, what passes as public engagement is a single a meeting or invitation to speak (for no longer than 3 minutes). I help organize events like that, and they have value. People deserve the chance to express frustration, ask questions, and put concerns on the public record. But public comment is not the same thing as public deliberation.
At a typical event, those who attend are often people who already follow the issue closely, have transportation, can arrange childcare, feel comfortable speaking in public, and are available at the scheduled time. Officials, positioned at the front of the room, listen quietly and move on to the next speaker. Opinions are collected, but what did we learn together?
Like many of our most pressing issues, housing is too complicated for us to rely only on that model. We need residents to wrestle with tradeoffs, not simply defend positions. We need to ask what affordability means, for whom, at what income levels, in which neighborhoods, and with what responsibilities shared among city government, county government, the university, developers, employers, nonprofits, and residents. We need better information, sure, but information alone will not solve the problem. We also need a process people can trust.
Several structured forms of public deliberation exist, most of which operate by convening a broadly representative group of residents who are compensated for their time, given access to relevant information and competing perspectives, and asked to deliberate together over a specific public question. Participants hear from experts and stakeholders. They ask questions. They examine tradeoffs. They develop recommendations. Public officials then respond, including where they agree, where they disagree, and why. It is a coordinated effort among citizens, elected officials, businesses, and advocacy groups, working together despite their differences to make better decisions, together. You know, “better together?”
Citizens’ Assemblies, Juries, and Panels represent different infrastructures for listening. Like roads, utilities, schools, hospitals, and broadband are forms of infrastructure that make community life possible, the ways we listen to each other needs infrastructure too. Not listening as a slogan. Not listening as a public relations strategy. Listening as a disciplined process through which residents learn together, weigh evidence, confront tradeoffs, and help shape the future of their community.
Across Mississippi, major decisions about health care, economic development, education, infrastructure, and growth are raising the same question: Who gets heard, when, and with what influence? Surveys, hearings, and stakeholder meetings can be useful, but they are not enough when decisions are complex, consequential, and unevenly experienced. Oxford has an opportunity to model something better. Something that does not stage another debate between “growth” and “no growth.” Rather, something that helps us ask a better question: How can we grow in a way that allows more people to belong? Because if public trust is the concern, then the answer cannot simply be to explain decisions more clearly after the fact. The answer is to build processes worthy of trust before decisions are made.
Graham Bodie is Professor of Media and Communication in the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. When asked what he does for a living he responds, “I teach people to listen.” The housing event mentioned was part of a the 9th annual National Week of Conversation, a yearly campaign that seeks to provide opportunities for people to #ListenFirst across their differences.
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