Using the power of the National Performance Review Act, the Administration should continue to consolidate and coordinate federal programs and allow flexibility to enable states and local governments to consolidate smaller separate grant programs. Many sustainable community initiatives are spearheaded by community groups that lack the experience, fiscal resources, and time to work within the complex administrative structure of government. Other organizations have expertise, time, and money, but could be even more productive if their resources were targeted elsewhere. Although federal, state, and local governments have taken action to reduce obstacles, continuous attention should be given to encouraging flexibility for funding eligibility and .one-stop shopping. for grants and other funding opportunities.

The Administration should create a commission comprising banks, governments, and community development corporations to evaluate how recent restructurings of financial institutions can provide opportunities for sustainable community development. Corporate and legal restructurings incur a variety of public obligations. Each new merger in the banking and financial services industry, particularly on the scale evidenced in the past two years (such as the recent Citicorp-Travelers Insurance merger to create a $700 billion institution), creates new kinds of reinvestment obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). As regulatory practices move from command-and-control to more flexible performance-based systems, increased public disclosure requirements increase the opportunities for public intervention and negotiation to guarantee that CRA obligations will produce tangible community and consumer benefits. The proposed commission may also evaluate if it is necessary to increase CRA obligations, applying these obligations to all financial institutions, and expanding the federal pool of funds (currently about $350 million) for seeding new community development financial institutions. Despite the incentives provided by CRA, poor communities still lack banks or other institutions in which to place their savings, and the poor, in general, remain unable to access affordable credit. This significantly affects progress towards sustainability in inner city and rural communities.

Working with financial institutions and rural community development corporations, USDA should develop strategies that address rural credit concerns. The range of financial institutions involved in rural communities is often small. Some sectors of rural America are well served, such as large farms and housing. Less well served are sustainable agriculture; small farmers, ranchers, and woodlot owners; small municipalities interested in rural development projects; and entrepreneurs interested in new innovative businesses (such as information and knowledge based industries and services); these are precisely the types of entities that could serve as the foundation of rural sustainable communities.

The Administration should strengthen and support community- owned banks. In pursuit of this goal, it should support full funding of the U.S. Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions program. Local ownership is an important way for a community to inoculate its banks against unwanted shutdowns, mergers, or departures and ensure a high level of community reinvestment of savings. The argument for local ownership applies with even greater force to nondepository financial institutions which have no CRA obligations for community reinvestment. Leaders from all sectors, the Administration, community development corporations, and foundations should highlight the efforts of various kinds of local depository institutions, commercial banks like South Shore, thrifts like the Union Savings Bank of Albuquerque, and community development credit unions like Raleigh-Durham Self-Help . that are helping low-income members and small businesses finance myriad sustainability initiatives.

Federal, state, and local governments should strengthen relationships with the philanthropic sector to leverage their respective funds as a source of capital for sustainable community development. There are more than 400 U.S. foundations with combined total assets of $10 billion. These foundations play a critical role in supporting development for the general community well-being. The public sector should work with foundations on place-based community development initiatives to better leverage public and private funds.