Title Details

Identifying community leadership as the key to meeting the potential challenges that Y2K posed, this issue becomes a textbook of problem solving at the community level in the face of the random, unknown, and pervasive risks Y2K posed. As federal and state agencies concentrated on the technical end of the issue, local governments were left to respond individually to the community impact of Y2K-induced disruptions. Examining the common response of the time, which favored isolating behavior that placed individual survival over civic cooperation, contributors demonstrate how Y2K anxiety created the need for government, business, and nonprofits to come together with citizens in an inclusive and collaborative problem-solving process. They provide the steps for creating civic or safe spaces, where different perspectives share an equal voice and work together, places where concerned individuals of diverse points of view are brought together to resolve differences and develop strategies to address complex issues like Y2K.

Since this issue's publication, other national events have seriously impacted local community infrastructures with the same disruptive nature once attributed to the Y2K. The need for collaborative and inclusive community leadership in disaster preparation planning or in response to the unforeseen is never out of date.