1. Security Council seat for EU, ASEAN? - Christian Science Monitor – USA

...

The best place to start would be with the UN Charter - beefing up Articles 52 and 53 to begin the process of transferring permanent membership from the hands of a privileged group of nation-states to well integrated groups of regional organizations.

 

The most thoroughly integrated of these is the European Union, but other organizations that might qualify include NATO, the Organization of American States, the African Union, the Asian Regional Forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

 

Offering a seat to one of these organizations - the EU, for example - could be made contingent on an understanding that others will be accepted when they have incorporated procedures that encourage them to act as a single unit in foreign affairs. ...

 

 2. Action to promote regional foods - Leeds Today - Leeds, UK

 

LABOUR peer and chairman of Northern Foods, Lord Haskins, pictured right, will give the keynote address at a major Yorkshire seminar on The Future of Regional Food.

 

The event, on February 3 at Hazlewood Castle, near Tadcaster, is being co-hosted by the Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and the Humber. Karen Carlyle, executive director of the Regional Food Group, said that as chairman of Hull-based Northern Foods and an East Riding farmer - as well as being a non-executive director of Leeds-based regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward - Lord Haskins was particularly well placed to head a debate on the sustainability, profitability and responsibility of producing and promoting regional food.

...

 

 3. After 30 years, River Hills group remains both helpful and enigmatic - Louisville Courier-Journal - Louisville, KY, USA

 

The question Jill Saegesser hates to answer keeps being asked. That's part of her frustration.

 

The River Hills Economic Development District & Regional Planning Commission must not be any better understood now than when it began 30 years ago. Then again, is that surprising for an operation with a name so obtuse and a purview so broad?

 

"It's a complicated thing to explain," said Saegesser, River Hills' executive director. "We do a number of things."

...

 

 4. In the Tsunami's Wake: How Best to Respond – Knowledge@Wharton – University of Pennsylvania

 

Wharton professor Jean LeMaire came to Thailand last month to lead a seminar on insurance in Bangkok. ...

 

The Asian tsunami is what insurers dread most: a low-frequency, high-consequence event that inflicts costly damage with very little way to predict where and when it will hit.

 

The insurance industry was not having a good year to begin with, following four hurricanes in Florida, says LeMaire. However, since the insurance market is not as well developed in the region impacted by the deadly waves, and because property values are lower, the industry will not take as great a hit as it has for other major disasters. ...

 

While regions struck by the tsunami may receive some new infrastructure, a natural disaster is not likely to become an opportunity for advancement, he notes. "You could say that because of the disaster you don't have the weight of legacy systems. You don't have to deal with past infrastructure." But the time pressure involved in restoring systems to people struck by a severe calamity does not allow for good, long-term planning.

...

 

 5.  a) Add merger to Masiello bail-out list - Buffalo News - Buffalo, NY, USA

 

"A city-county merger is inevitable. It's got to happen, economically, for the survival of the region." - Tony Masiello, Feb. 16, 2003.

 

In a turnaround stunning only to the terminally naive, Tony Masiello turned his back this week on the city-county merger panel.

...

Masiello said the merger plan doesn't cut Medicaid and pension costs. Hello? It doesn't do anything about the price of gas, either. Regionalism has never been about pensions and Medicaid. It's like saying you don't want a car because it can't fly.

 

... The city gains the most of any burg from real, help-the-hub regionalism. When has he ever come up with anything?

 

Giambra is less popular these days than a wet dog. But he has pushed his brand of regionalism for years and is the force behind the merger panel. Even a private citizen, regionalism activist Kevin Gaughan, came up with a merger plan. Gaughan did it on his own time, on his own dime.

...

 

      b) Giambra Defends Shocking Statement - WGRZ-TV - Buffalo, NY, USA

...

Giambra also pushed his plan for regionalism, calling it the "only way we can afford to (help the city financially) without having to raise property taxes."

For the past year, Giambra has been proposing that the county and city governments combine to form a new entity that would be called, "Greater Buffalo."

 

Erie County  City of Buffalo And also of interest on line: Erie County GIS Data at New York State GIS Data Sharing Cooperative

 

 6. A decade later, decks cleared for regional development body - Indian Express - New Delhi, India

 

AFTER a decade of dithering, Pune region can now hope for a separate body to chalk out and implement a development plan. The chances of Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) brightened recently with the State’s Law and Judiciary department withdrawing its objection.

 

Only last week, a delegation led by Mayor Dipti Chaudhary met Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in Pune seeking a decision on the proposed PMRDA.

 

Planners had envisioned the PMRDA along the lines of Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMTRDA) or the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT). The proposal was given a leg-up by Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer recently. Now, the State’s political leadership is giving the proposal some serious thought.

...

 

 7. Microsoft to grow on its campus - Seattle Post Intelligencer - Seattle, WA, USA

 

To accommodate future growth, Microsoft Corp. said yesterday that it will build up to 2.2 million square feet of new office space on its Redmond campus over the next 20 years, delaying construction on land it owns in Issaquah but confirming the company's commitment to keeping its headquarters in the Puget Sound area.

 

The world's largest software maker said it will submit a 25-page growth plan, formally called a development agreement, to the city of Redmond on Monday, laying the groundwork for construction that could accommodate 10,000 to 12,000 new employees on its 400-acre Redmond campus.

 

Microsoft also said it will spend up to $30 million on transportation, utilities and other infrastructure improvements near its campus. It plans to finance ways to ease congestion around state Route 520 -- the main connection between Microsoft's campus and Seattle -- with additional lanes on surrounding roadways, intersection improvements and a new east-west overpass over 520.

 

"This confirms we intend for our world center to remain in Washington state," said Chris Owens, Microsoft's director of campus development for the Puget Sound region.

 

Many had feared that the company wouldn't expand in the Seattle area, instead favoring a larger presence overseas, where labor is cheaper. Although the company will continue expanding its presence in India, "there will be substantial growth here, too," said Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith. "We can't guarantee we'll hire all the people to fill all the (newly constructed Redmond) offices, but that's our hope."

...

The addition of 10,000 Microsoft employees in Redmond could put more pressure on local governments and businesses to do something about the traffic congestion on Route 520, said Rick Olson, director of government relations at the Puget Sound Regional Council. ...

 

 8. Wind farm case 'all about location' - Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand

 

Several big green organisations are joining forces in support of state power company Genesis Power's proposal, rejected by Franklin District Council, for a $40 million 19-turbine farm on the Awhitu peninsula.

 

This is expected to be a test case about acceptable locations for wind farms as the technology gains traction and becomes economic in New Zealand.

 

A government body, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Agency, is taking a separate appeal against the council in addition to Genesis' own appeal against the decision. The appeals are scheduled for May in the Environment Court.

 

In support of both appeals are Greenpeace and the Environmental Defence Society - backers of renewable forms of power generation. Auckland Regional Council is also expected to support the wind farm proposal, the first in the Auckland region.

...

 9. City might drop SORTA as bus chief - MSNBC - USA

 

A fight over bus fares might lead the city of Cincinnati to scrap a 32-year-old arrangement in which the city provides operating support for the Metro bus system but exercises little control over its operations.

 

City Councilman John Cranley said the city might stage a bidding competition, inviting private companies to take over management of the system. Such a move would require terminating a 1973 contract between the city and Metro's parent, the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA).

...

"The long-term answer is to deal with the funding issue," he said. "This is the only large urban transit system in Ohio that does not enjoy regional funding."

 

The OKI Regional Council of Governments would be willing to convene a regional discussion of transit funding, said Mark Policinski, executive director of the Tri-State's lead transportation-planning agency. Policinski said local political and civic leaders have broached the topic with him, but no one has made a formal request.

...

 

10. Editorial - CSME wake-up call - Jamaica Gleaner – Jamaica

 

AS THE official signing of commitment to the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) approaches, the New Year has witnessed stepped-up discussion of Jamaica's preparedness to exploit any of the presumed advantages associated with this new arrangement.

 

Of course, the traditional argument favouring the CSME is that it gives domestic producers a larger market to facilitate increased competitiveness. Undergirding this argument is the assumption of large-scale production that is consistent with the expanded regional market (approximately seven million persons).

 

11. Social Partnership The NGOs and the media - Barbados Advocate – Barbados

...

The practice of a formal social partnership beyond the shores of Barbados is very rare. The practice of a formal social partnership at the regional level is non-existent. Each social partner has its own contribution to make in the context of regional development but yet history and current practice pander primarily to the public sector as being dominant in all developmental pursuits.

 

There will of course be the defence that there have been attempts to involve other social partners through selected regional bodies. The question that arises is/are these selected bodies truly representative of the social partners in the region?

...

12. Dunstan looks to promote Metro East - The St. Louis Post-Dispatch - St. Louis, MO, USA

 

Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan wants the folks in Metro St. Louis to understand one thing: The metro area indeed extends east of the Mississippi River.

 

"We've done a lot of good things" in Metro East, Dunstan said last week in an interview with the Suburban Journals.

 

Now the vice chairman of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, Dunstan is in line to head the board in 2005. It is customary for the vice chairman to move into the chairman's position. If tradition holds, Dunstan will be handed the gavel at the board's Jan. 26 meeting by St. Charles County Executive Joe Orwerth, who served as chairman in 2004.

 

Dunstan said he's a firm believer in regionalism, but that he feels the Metro East portion of the area has been overlooked as a key part of the bi-state area.

...

 

13. Engaging Culture in Development - The Drum Beat - Issue #281

 

"Culture is communication and communication is culture" Edward Hall (1959: 186)

 

How does culture affect development and how can it be constructively engaged? Who wants to understand culture and why?

 

Development practitioners are increasingly asking these questions and recognising that culture influences development efforts in a variety of ways. ...

 

 

14. Other U.S. regional communities in news articles.

 

      a) Texas region taps Lawson for ERP solutions - Washington Technology - Washington, DC, USA

 

Lawson Software Inc. has won a $5 million contract from the North Central Texas Council of Governments to provide enterprise resource planning solutions, the company announced this week.

 

Lawson of St. Paul, Minn., will provide project management as well as implementation and training services for the financials, procurement, human resources, reporting, and budgeting and planning suites.

 

The ERP solutions will be deployed for the cities of Arlington, Carrolton and Grand Prairie. The three cities, which are council members, decided to purchase and share the same business software, Lawson said.

...

 

      b) Keith Richman California's Radical Centrist Reformer of the Year; ; Honorable Mention for Sacramento Area Council of Governments  - Emediawire (press release) - Ferndale, WA, USA

 

News from the Radical Center, California's premier radical centrist blog, today named State Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Granada Hills) as its 2004 Radical Centrist of the Year for his radically sensible contributions to California politics. Executive Director Mike McKeever received an Honorable Mention on behalf of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) for their innovative, multi-jurisdictional efforts on the regional Blueprint Project.

...

 

      c) Good for the whole county - Andalusia Star-News - Andalusia, AL, USA

...

But the good news in Florala isn't limited to just the city by the lake. Instead, what's good for Florala is good for Andalusia, Opp, Red Level, Gantt -- all of Covington County.

 

Why? Because of regionalism.

 

What is regionalism? It's when a group of communities, and their county leaders, come together to promote an area as a whole instead of just one location. What one location lacks, another may have. In essence, packaging and marketing a county as a future home for industry is a whole lot easier than marketing a single city.

...

RC: Southeast Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission

 

      d) Planner touts roundabouts - The Republican - Springfield, MA, USA

...

Transportation planning engineer for the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, Wilson is on a campaign to have transportation officials consider "roundabouts" as alternatives to traffic lights for some intersections.

 

To get that consideration, he must successfully get people to divorce roundabouts, which he says have a growing good reputation, from the larger rotaries, which do not.

...

 

15. Other in the news:

 

Linux and Open Source: The 2005 Generation – eWeek News & Reviews

 

Linux and open source are at the heart of today's computing technology. Deal with it.

 

Sometimes people don't know when a revolution has happened until afterwards. Then, the historians tell us that 2004 was the year that open source started to become computing's mainstream.

 

Sounds hard to believe? Well, IDC analyst Al Gillen recently said that "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008.

...

Note: also  references Firefox; Thunderbird, the Mozilla e-mail client; Mozilla Sunbird, calendaring and task management; and Sun's open-source OpenOffice.org 2.0

 

16. Announcements

 

       a) EDITORSHIP OF Regional Economic Analysis

 

The Regional Studies Association and Regional Science Association International, British and Irish Section wish to appoint an editor/s for their new start journal Regional Economic Analysis which will begin publishing in August  2006. Further details are available from the Regional Studies Association Office or from the Association website. Submission deadline: Friday 25th February 2005

 

Note: If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to join the RSA, now is the time.  Ed.

 

      b) Convocation to the VII Conference of Economists on Globalization and Development Problems  - Alca Abajo – Cuba

…

The emergence of new problems and of new theoretical approaches, plus the changing state of the world economy, give a particular touch to every confrontation. In the VII Conference, summoned today, the analysis of a year signaled by elections in the United States of America -what undoubtly exerts a singular effect on the economic cycle- will not be left aside. The war and the consubstantial economic interests, unfortunately, look like they also accompany the year that begins and, at the same time, the old continent will continue to try to get its political consolidation and economic boost within the context of a Union that, because of its width, turns out to be more complex and intrinsically contradictory.

...

February 7th through 11th, 2005 - Palacio de las Convenciones in Havana City

Registration Fees (USD) - Categories: Delegates 150.00 USD; Students 100.00 USD; Escorts 85.00 USD

 

17. Subscription link stories

 

     a) Judge rules against HUD in civil rights case - Baltimore Sun (subscription), MD 

 

Ruling in a 10-year-old civil rights case, a federal judge in Baltimore decided today that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development did not meet its obligations under fair housing laws by the agency's "failure adequately to consider a regional approach to desegregation of public housing."

...

"Baltimore city should not be viewed as an island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a contiguous region including Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll and Harford counties," Garbis said in his opinion.

...

Thanks to reader Joe Nathanson, Strategies for Regions/Urban Information Associates, Inc.  www.urbaninformation.net  Ed.

 

      b) Wide strategy could reduce local impact Baltimore Sun (subscription) - Baltimore, MD, USA

 

Local and national public policy advocates expressed the hope Friday that a judge's decision that the federal government should have taken a regional approach to desegregating Baltimore's public housing could be the catalyst for the development of an area-wide housing strategy.

...

 

      c) Street: Region not helping SEPTA Philadelphia Daily News (subscription) - Philadelphia, PA, USA

 

MAYOR STREET said yesterday that the SEPTA [Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority] funding crisis was the most important regional issue facing southeastern Pennsylvania, and yet he's heard little from surrounding counties that help fund the authority.

 

"I am disappointed that we haven't heard more of an outcry from the region," Street said during a news conference. "But I think it's not uncommon for people concerned about these things to work below the radar screen, so to speak."

...

 

      d) John Baer | Show explains our rural state of mind - Philadelphia Daily News (subscription) - Philadelphia, PA, USA

 

OK, KIDS, time for your annual Farm Show dose of what Pennsylvania's really like.

 

This is my yearly reminder of why we have the down-home politics we do, why we tend to rigid regionalism, why, for example, rounding up SEPTA dough's tougher than chasing chickens in an open, muddy coop.

 

Pennsylvania is a rural state, the third largest in America - behind only Texas and North Carolina - with more than 2.8 million folks living in rural counties, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

 

Think that through. That means we're more rural than any state in the Northeast, the West or the Midwest breadbasket.

...

 

Readers:

 

If the use of bold type for the headlines improved readability this issue, you can thank John Fonner, Butler County Transportation Improvement District, Hamilton, Ohio for the suggestion.

 

This year I’m seeking to double my distribution from the current 500 to 1,000. My friend Bernie Wagenblast, whose Transportation Communications Newsletter inspired me to develop this format, has a distribution of nearly 5,000.

 

If you find this useful, recommend it to others: directors and staff, and the broader audience of current and potential regional champions - citizens, business people, elected officials, local planners, academics and nonprofits who could be encouraged by what is going on in other regional communities. Skeptics should see it as well. This is marathon work – not as visible on a weekly basis as the city council or county board dealing with land use.

 

Have a Great New Year.  Subscription information below. Ed.