Interagency Communication at the Regional Level

Abstract

regional, state, and local levels. My purpose in this discussion is to assist the unborn historian by describing at least one method of operating on the regional level which has been productive of excellent results. Whether this brief story of our experience in New England will be of benefit to the living as well as the unborn is problematical. Generally speaking, students of public administration have had rather exceptional opportunities during the past three years to observe and study many new developments in the field of governmental activities. Some of these undoubtedly will disappear after the war. Others will remain. In toto they will have exerted a considerable influence on our political life. We know that even before we actively entered the the defense program had brought about the creation of many new federal agencies. Sweeping decentralization moves followed, affecting many of the old line agencies as well as the war babies, and the levels of administration and operation mentioned above became as crowded (and as dangerous!) as prewar highways. A period of fumbling and stumbling was inevitable, with the confusion worse confounded by the establishment of new agencies under state and local governments, and the appearance of a wide and wild variety of private and quasi-public organizations. 64 The detailed reasons for the confusion