Residents of the Great Lakes are divided by great physical and political distances. Stretching from the remote Northwoods of Minnesota and Western Ontario through the heavily industrialized and arrigated lands of the eastern Midwest, and on to the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes drainage basin spans two countries, two provinces and eight states. These distances make it difficult for the basin's 37 million residents to recognize and act on their shared concern for the Lakes.

The Great Lakes Town Hall is designed to bridge those distances. Like the town meetings on which it is modeled, the Great Lakes Town Hall provides a "space" where residents from all across the Great Lakes basin - and all walks of life within the basin - can come together to identify common concerns, set the political agenda, share and develop collective solutions, and demand - as a public - that the Lakes are clean, abundant, and natural for generations to come.