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For Akron residents Jasina Chapman and Kevin Smith, the reasoning was simple — “If you care about Akron, come to the table.” It was an invitation that brought them, and over 500 other residents, to the city’s first civic assembly.

The assembly, organized by , addressed the topic of housing. Civic assemblies bring together a representative group of residents, chosen by lottery, to deliberate and develop recommendations on policy issues. In Akron, that meant 65 residents met for 50 hours over 9 days between March 14 and May 14, ultimately developing a set of 9 recommendations. The assembly itself was just the visible piece of a longer effort — more than 300 listening sessions and months of relationship-building across the city laid the groundwork, sparking what organizers hope will become a lasting culture of deliberation in Akron.

On June 24, Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½’s Political Reform Program and Future of Land and Housing Program organized a conversation with Unify America about the civic assembly that took place in Akron, Ohio, and the steps leading up to it. The conversation featured Morgan Lasher, Chief of U.S. Democracy Leagues at Unify America, and Matt Byrne, Senior Director of Deliberation at Unify America, alongside delegates Jasina Chapman and Kevin Smith, moderated by Sarah Jacob, Senior Research Associate.

Before Akron, came Montrose. In 2022, Unify organized an assembly on childcare in Montrose, Colorado. After that experience, Unify began to see themselves as “seed planters” — scouting for the next location that might be ripe for deliberative practice, a city that could institutionalize the practice of deliberation rather than let it remain a one-off.

Akron, has a population that is 50 percent renters and 50 percent homeowners, with one in four people receiving assistance for housing. The majority of the population has an income under $50,000 and, as Lasher put it, is “unaffiliated in any political perspective.”

Outreach around the assembly began with community organizing, and that approach paid off. Chapman, who works for a nonprofit and has experience organizing, got involved because Unify had chosen trusted community ambassadors to deliver the message about the assembly. She recounted how the influx of information can make it tricky to discern what’s worth responding to: “We get postcards … mailers … flyers, and we see a lot of things that pop up on social media that sometimes feel like spam, even with the best of intentions … I came to the table based on the people they chose as ambassadors.” Smith, on the other hand, initially ignored the invitations. It wasn’t until he opened one of the mailers a week later that he decided to get involved — an experience he described as being “drafted into the process.” Looking back, though, he said that if he had it to do over again, knowing what he now knows about the importance of the assembly and the reasoning behind it, he’d volunteer.

Trust encapsulated every part of the process, from outreach to design. The first team — the kitchen table team — consisted of trusted leaders within the community, and it was this team that guided the process. Their guiding question, “Is this worthy of the public’s trust?”, became the lens through which every process design decision was made. 

But trust alone wasn’t enough. Beyond community buy-in, the process needed real solutions, along with buy-in from both the city and the implementers who would carry them out. Unify’s solutions team reflected that commitment though an unlikely group of stakeholders — bankers, tenant organizers, and landlords sitting at the same table. Together, they surfaced 165 ideas, drawing on both existing reports and the community members closest to the problem.

Now, the city has 9 recommendations to respond to. Each recommendation has a working group that includes delegates, community members, and practitioners who will help implement it. This framework of accountability was in place before the recommendations even existed. Prior to the assembly’s start, the mayor’s office had signed an MOU, and city council had unanimously passed a resolution outlining the relationship the government would have with the recommendations going forward. Every six months, the government must report back to the community and delegates on the status and progress of the recommendations.

When 584 residents raised their hands to be part of the assembly process, 65 got lucky. But as Morgan noted, that means more than 500 people wanted to serve their community. The assembly is the first building block in creating a cycle of deliberative practice in Akron. Reflecting on the process —and on why the first assembly benefited from starting with housing — Smith brought it back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, explaining that people’s most basic needs are “space, safety, and food.” Once those are met, he said, “a whole lot of other things can be taken care of from there.”