This study examines local creativity in generating municipal resources which include human capital, financial resources, social capital, cultural, environmental and infrastructural capital and harnessing them to the municipality's advantage. Harnessing resources is the crux of any internal organizational processes (local authorities included), whereby external capital is raised and channeled to stimulate output, among others, policy, goods and services. The goal, namely, is not just raising capital but its appropriate utilization for local development.

The principal issues which guided this study were these:
* What is the degree of municipal openness towards available resources in both the immediate vicinity and further, and to what extent are they successfully secured?
* To what degree is municipal government effective in harnessing these resources for the development and advancement of the city?

In order to study the creative management of local government, local resources and the interface between them, two variants were created ‒ effective management and democratic openness. Effective management focuses on internal processes in the municipality and examines policy practice by highlighting such factors as policy circles, strategic thinking and planning (long-term comprehensive vision, studying the environment, staff operations, utilizing relevant data, examining possible avenues of action), propriety of processes and decision-making and implementation competence.
Democratic openness focuses on raising capital and the interaction between the municipality and its environment.

The study focuses Shoham and Holon, selected from among only three municipalities in the country (Shoham, Holon and Tel Aviv) awarded with the Ministry of Interior autonomous management status in 2006 and autonomous planning status for their local planning committees. The fact that only three out of 253 municipalities are eligible to conduct these reforms indicates that they are perceived by central government as successful. Underlying this study is the conjecture that an in-depth understanding of the two variants selected ‒ effective management and democratic openness ‒ can be instrumental in uncovering contributors to successful municipalities and aid others in addressing the challenges of their complex realities.

Against a background of the small number of municipalities eligible to conduct reforms, the following questions arise:
* Is differential treatment by the Ministry of the Interior towards elected municipalities, indicative of their Effective Management?
* To what degree can those effectively managed municipalities demonstrate Democratic Openness?
* Are Effective Management and Democratic Openness on a par, or do effectively managed municipalities prefer to operated far from public scrutiny?
* Can the variants Effective Management and Democratic Openness expound on the degree of success of these municipalities?

Shoham and Holon differ, inter alia, in their periods of establishment, the size of their populations, their municipal status, their socio-economic status and their economic development. Moreover, they represent diverse forms of governance and therefore of municipal development. Holon represents a municipality conforming to developmental governance, whereas Shoham represents progressive governance. This diversity allows room for further questions:
* Is municipal creativity manifested differently in diverse forms of governance?
* To what extent are democratic openness and the government's inclination for public participation manifested in developmental governance, whose main goal is the economic development of the city and in progressive governance, whose main emphasis is on environmental quality, conservation values and restrained development?
* Do diverse forms of governance develop distinct varieties of local democracy?
* Do diverse forms of governance develop distinct strategies to raise local capital and harness it to promote their cities?

The study focused on two municipalities only and it is therefore unfeasible to draw sweeping conclusions. It is possible, however, to highlight its interesting findings. First, that local leadership, namely the administrative and political personnel, plays a crucial role in the success and effectiveness of local government. Second, that while effective management is crucial in securing the municipality's success, democratic openness, albeit significant in progressive governance, is not crucial in developmental governance. This is an important finding, which raises stipulations related to some research certainties which seemingly over-emphasize the importance of participatory democracy.