At this year's local elections, three in every five people didn't bother to vote. They did not think it worth indicating a preference on who governs their local areas or wish to express a view on care for the elderly, community safety, social housing or school places.

This fact hardly shocks us any more. There are countless explanations for it, but coupled with the rising votes for anti-establishment parties, it seems there is now a lack of faith in mainstream politicians.

This comes at a time when long-term changes to our population, economy and environment present an unprecedented set of challenges to local government.

To meet these challenges a sense of civic mission needs to be rediscovered. The word "municipal" must be reclaimed and reframed for the 21st century. It should no longer just refer to city boundaries or be about physical infrastructure and grand buildings. It should now mean social architecture, a civic infrastructure in which local government works together with communities for the public good.

It's time to move beyond the technocratic tinkering that commonly passses for radicalism. City deals, joint commissioning and community budgets are important but insufficient to meet the scale of challenges we face and too technical to capture the public imagination. We need a new way to talk about what a council does and what it is.

The Local Government Information Unit has released Municipal Futures, a new collection of essays, in an attempt to tell that story. There are four characteristics that will define successful local government in the future:

• The powerful council: Decentralisation should not be viewed as a political project in which power must be demanded from the centre. Power can be much more dynamic and inclusive. It's important to recognise and develop the community strength that already exists.
   
• The learning council: Councils need to become centres of adaptive leadership that are continually learning both from their own practice and also from that of other sectors. This sets the scene for new and deeper forms of partnership.
   
• The social council: Councils need to focus on building relationships. Both the relationships within communities that create wellbeing and allow mutual support and the relationships between people in the council that enable employees to feel secure innovating.
   
• The global council: Let's broaden our perspective and think about localism in a global context. Issues such as migration, climate change and economic growth are better managed between cities and localities than mediated by national governments.
   

If councils were really like this it would be a very different world in which the relationship between local government and residents is mediated not by a set of public service transactions but by a genuine dialogue about how they might support each other. A world in which councils were focused on building strong resilient communities rather than just on picking up the pieces when things go wrong.

Communities would have the opportunity for public services that are responsive to their needs and rooted in real social connections. However, they would have to play their part in producing these services and in managing their lives and helping manage the lives of their friends and neighbours to build resilience, mitigating the demand for emergency or critical care.

That would be a world full of challenge and opportunity – and it would a world in which it was worth voting.

Article originally publish by The Guardian and authored by Jonathan Carr-West.

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Photo Courtesy of Swan Hill Council (VIC).