In Defense of Silos
“Breaking down silos” is a go-to term by people trying to change things in government (or big institutions). But silos exist for a reason: just as actual silos store grain, bureaucratic silos give organizations structure and focus. The real problem isn’t the silos themselves, but their disconnection. So when people call for “breaking down silos,” they often mean something else.
Part of my sensitivity to the cliché comes from my own professional ambiguity. I don’t really work in any professional silo. When people ask what I do for work, I do not have a consistent answer. In fact, I don’t even have a few consistent answers. I usually just string together some ideas I think would make sense to that person based on the context of our meeting. I usually say at least one of the following terms: urban planning, economic development, housing, coalitions, or cities. As my work exists between and among silos, I have developed both a respect for not tearing them down and a suggestion for how we can better address the intent of the silo critique.
So I present my case for ditching the cliché to speak to what is actually needed: better connections.
Systems of place drive bureaucratic silos
To make the case for bureaucratic silos in the context of place, I need to take a step back and start with an organizing framework I use for analyzing places: systems.. The base ingredients of our places come from systems like transportation, housing, and the environment, among others (for the heuristic nerds among you, I have shared the Nine Systems of Place that underpin a lot of my thinking at the end).
This way of systems thinking isn’t new or groundbreaking. Back in the 1960s, Jay Forrester and his colleagues at MIT developed Systems Dynamics to model businesses and then cities as interlocking systems. The models had their flaws, as critics like Jane Jacobs argued they were too deterministic. But the basic insight was right: cities are bundles of systems that interact in complicated and sometimes surprising ways. And their work lives on in everything from today’s digital twins of cities to the video game SimCity.
A photo of my 3.25” floppy version of SimCity
I find the connection between these systems to be underappreciated. For example, at the intersection of housing and transportation, many people often choose where to live based on the time (or cost) of getting to work. There’s a great Housing + Transportation cost index that seeks to bridge these two different policy and pocketbook domains to show a fuller picture of what it costs to live somewhere. And I’ve been fortunate to be part of research that looks at how to spur housing production based on transportation.
I don’t think it’s coincidental, then, that we have departments at local, state, and federal (for now) levels of government devoted to most of these systems: departments of transportation and education and the environment. Organizing the government (and comprehensive plans) around them helps ensure trains run, schools open, and environments are clean. But while our systems are naturally interconnected, our silos are not. And when we see this, we want to bust the silos down!
The Silo Boogeyman
But there's a problem: smashing silos can backfire, as the infamously failed AOL–Time Warner merger shows. The whole deal was sold as the ultimate silo-buster: marrying old media of Time Warner’s film, TV, publishing, and cable with new media of AOL’s internet distribution to reap the financial benefit of synergies.
Instead, it became one of the most famous examples of how the dream of smashing silos can collapse under cultural, organizational, and market realities. Leadership quickly realized that they needed different divisions each with their own goals and motivations in order to function across such a breadth of business lines.
So rather than trying to break silos and “synergize” across unrelated systems, I think the less buzzy answer is in supporting both the structure and focus of silos while fostering strong communications and connections across them. If silos are necessary to store the grain, then we should spend time both building and maintaining them and building the roads that move the grain where it’s needed.
In short, we need solid silos and sturdy roads: the planning and focus that keep each one functional, and the connections of trust, communication, and shared goals that support broader outcomes.
Systems are connected and so their respective bureaucratic silos should be too
I’ve seen the value of cross-agency collaboration most clearly when we designed projects that intentionally bridged silos. In DC, I worked to start an effort to build housing atop a rebuilt neighborhood library and community center in a wealthy neighborhood. The result will be a shared investment in education, community life, and housing stability in a neighborhood that had long been shaped by exclusionary policies and very low housing production. No silos are being broken in this effort, but the separate organizations are doing the hard, and sometimes underappreciated, work of coordinating.
Most recently, I have worked on federally funded efforts with regional coalitions looking to build inclusive economic growth. Recognizing that they must link disparate systems of higher education, economic, and workforce, these groups create formal structures to coordinate and work through differences.
Some coalitions go even further. One built a single platform to track outcomes across projects, organizations, and places. Without it, their data would remain siloed which hampered their ability to tell the bigger story of their collective impact, which makes it harder to raise needed funding. But while it brought together the data, it didn’t break down organizational silos.
In each case, the key was not about breaking down differences but about building relationships and trust across differences toward a common end. From there, you can align, share data, find opportunities to collaborate or sometimes even decide where collaboration may be futile.
We can each play a role in bridging different systems and spaces, in our organizations and neighborhoods. We will never be able to flatten systems, but we can link them. Because if you do knock silos down, all you’re left with is rubble and rotting corn.
Nerdy Bonus: The Nine Systems of Place
Our communities don’t run on a single system. They thrive (or falter) at the intersections of many interdependent systems. These systems shape how we live, move, work, and connect. Understanding them helps us see not only where policy silos come from, but also where connections matter most.
Here are the nine core systems of place — with links to newsletters or other posts where I’ve explored them in practice:
🌱 Natural & Environmental (The Original System)
The ecosystems, landscapes, and natural resources that provide the foundation for urban resilience, from clean air to tree canopy and watersheds.
🚇 Transportation
The network of roads, rails, sidewalks, and transit systems that enable the movement of people and goods, shaping accessibility and the flow of urban life. As seen in this Urban Wire blog post.
🏗️ Infrastructure
The physical backbone of a city that makes modern living and economic activity possible including energy grids, water systems, sewers, and digital networks.
🏛️ Civic Infrastructure & Governance
The public institutions, policies, and public forums like libraries, parks, and local government that organize civic life and collective decision-making. As seen in A Love Letter to Civic Infrastructure.
🏠 Housing
The stock of homes that provide shelter and stability, anchor communities, and act as both social foundation and economic asset. As seen in What’s in a Number and this Urban Wire blog post.
🛡️ Health & Safety
The systems that keep people well and secure, from hospitals and clinics to policing, fire protection, and emergency response, all of which underpin daily trust in a place.
🎭 Cultural & Entertainment
The cultural venues, gathering spaces, and activities that foster joy, connection, and shared identity including arts, sports, nightlife, festivals. As seen in The Joy of Place.
💼 Economic
The businesses, jobs, capital, and markets that generate wealth, distribute opportunity, and shape prosperity. As seen in Growth Through Focus.
🎓 Educational
The schools, universities, training programs, and informal learning opportunities that build human capital, generate research and long-term growth, and enable intergenerational mobility. As seen in Pivots: A Tale of a Few Cities.
