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Regional Community News - January 23, 2004
"Community precedes cooperation. Regional community makes regions work."
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The regional planning agency that serves northwestern Pennsylvania recently changed leadership.
Now it's about to change a lot more....
Northwest Commission - formerly Northwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission
The federal government is preparing to switch to centralized planning for regional development. In February, a Spatial Development Concept of Russia will be submitted to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasianov, and a specialized governmental research institute will be set up. Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev explained the proposed scheme does not imply revival of the Soviet State Planning Committee (Gosplan), but meets interests of both the central leadership and the regional leaders....
Members of the Minuteman Advisory Group on Interlocal Coordination expressed a bit of disappointment in the results of last month's visioning session for the Metro Future project.... those who attended were asked to brainstorm the values and challenges of living in eastern Massachusetts and create a vision for the region's future. While this produced a set of values like history, community character and culture and challenges such as zoning, transportation and preserving open space, the topic of regional values may have turned off some people... The key is making sure people know the master plan applies to everyone and will be used to determine policy. Carlisle Selectman Vivian Chaput said people are often discouraged when the values they identify in a master plan do not receive the same attention in state and federal budgets....
OAKLAND — Efforts are moving forward to have Garrett and Allegany counties, along with several West Virginia counties, named a National Forest Heritage Area. Becoming a heritage area can bring more grant money to the region and forest projects can receive exposure and assistance through the National Park Service. ... Oakland and Kitzmiller are behind the efforts so far, said Mike Mullan, municipal assistance coordinator for Tri-County Council for Western Maryland. ...
... The Sacramento Region Blueprint offers area residents the chance to chart their county's growth patterns, and the county's population increase. The high-tech, interactive workshops will feature the use of computers hooked up to an online program. The computers will crunch the numbers for whatever the workshop participants dream up, spitting out some of the results at the workshop....The workshops are a joint effort of the
... State leaders also need to stop thinking about economic development in terms of roads, jobs and profits, and focus instead on prosperity. "It's about a high and rising standard of living for people,'' said Randall Kempner, executive director of the Center for Regional Innovation's Council on Competitiveness...."In the old paradigm, economic development was about chasing smokestacks,'' Kempner said. "Today, it's about people, human capital.''
... software giant has been taking some of its hardest knocks in city council ... tactics, the sheer volume of deals point to a greater willingness among governments plans to migrate official computers to open-source software. ...
... program to attract migrants to regional Australia. Yet Senator Vanstone is threatening to deport about 9000 temporary protection visa holders who are from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq and who are enriching the social and economic fabric of regional areas such as Albany in Western Australia, Griffith in NSW and Mildura. It arguable whether the new program will do much to tackle the emerging Australian population crisis. ...
The Regional Entry Point (Regional portal) Site description - The Regional Entry Point provides information and links to Commonwealth Government programmes and services relevant to people living in non-metropolitan, rural and remote Australia. The primary objective of the regional portal is to make accessing programmes and services easier without people needing to know the structure of Government or portfolio responsibilities. The Regional Entry Point has been developed as part of the Commonwealth Government's Online Strategy.
SAINT JOHN, N-B -- The mayor of Saint John, New Brunswick is pitching the idea of a commission of politicians and businessmen for the northeast provinces and states. ...
13. Call for gov't overhaul gains volume - Crain's Cleveland Business, OH - By Jay Miller
Talk of streamlining government in Northeast Ohio is erupting almost spontaneously, highlighting a growing frustration over the lack of a focused economic development strategy in the region.
For example, Michael Gibbons, principal of investment banking firm Brown, Gibbons, Lang & Co., this month went off on a tangent during an economic forecasting presentation to 300 real estate professionals.
He used the platform instead to launch into a monologue about how regional government is needed to focus efforts to shake the area's economic doldrums.
Last Wednesday, Jan. 14, Garfield Heights Mayor Thomas Longo interrupted a presentation at a meeting of the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission about the status of plans to rebuild the Innerbelt to ask who would take charge of the economic development opportunities spawned by the road's reconstruction. The public officials gathered around the table offered no answer.
The next day, at an ad hoc meeting of municipal and county officials hosted by law firm Bricker & Eckler LLP, the discussion focused on how to create a regional entity, perhaps a council of governments, that could spur economic development and attract more money from the federal government. This gathering followed a similar luncheon meeting in October that identified political fragmentation as a serious regional weakness. ...
Access to the complete story requires a paid subscription: Crain's Cleveland Business
See also: Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency
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Regional Community News is published electronically Tuesday and Friday.
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Tom Christoffel, regional@adelphia.net © 2003 Thomas J. (Tom) Christoffel, AICP
"Think globally, act locally." - That was an innovative paradigm in its time. The problem is
that the local sale is too small for today's problems. "Think local planet, act regionally," is a
new paradigm. Regional community acts to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
Making regions visible for Leaders and Problem-solvers. www.regions.ws
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