1. Mid America Regional Council seeks legislation support - Sun-News of the Northland - Liberty, MO, USA

 

The Mid-America Regional Council wants to know if a new state legislation should allow voters to approve a metrowide retail sales tax to fund public investments like trails, greenways and a transit system.

 

The increase would not be more than a half cent, Steve Rhoades, Metro-Green project manager said.

 

MARC is engaging the community in a conversation through public forums to be held through Nov. 1, about a regional approach to funding the Smart Moves transit plan, the MetroGreen trails and greenways system, and the Operation Green Light traffic signal coordination effort.

 

"I think it would be difficult to pass in Platte County," Presiding Commissioner Betty Knight said. "People are already paying a half cent park tax. We don't want this to become another Bistate II."

 

Discussion has centered on a method that would allow local governments to raise and distribute money across the metro area by creating an eight-county district where locally decided funding options could be placed on future ballots.

...

 

 2 Regional cooperation - The Jackson Citizen-Patriot - Jackson, MI, USA

 

We feel strongly enough about this principle to take it to the bank:

 

There are sufficient benefits implicit in intergovernmental cooperation to warrant doing it just because it's the right thing to do.

 

Now, however, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is giving communities a financial "carrot" as an extra incentive.

 

Granholm's Centers for Regional Excellence program will award $25,000 grants to five pilot communities that demonstrate a commitment and plan to improve services via cooperation. ...

 

RCs: Michigan Association of Regions    Map of Regions

 

 3. Regional compact can fight poverty - Albany Times Union - Albany, NY, USA

 

When regional policy expert David Rusk released a study in May on the upstate economy, prepared at the request of ARISE, it bore the powerful and suggestive title: "Upstate New York: A House Divided."

"A house divided" evokes Abraham Lincoln's reflection on a republic split by slavery, and is a metaphor for racial segregation and inequity.

 

"A house divided" points to a Legislature and a state government in New York that cannot unite to address the most urgent needs of our economy.

 

And "a house divided" refers to a patchwork of 1,545 local governments in New York that compete against one another and are losing out in the global competition against other regions in the United States and the world.

 

Every one of these meanings applies with full force to the Capital Region, and cries out for an effective response. ARISE (A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment) is pushing for passage of a regional compact bill -- the Smart Growth for the New Century Act pending in the state Legislature -- that will encourage voluntary, negotiated regional planning to make our regions more competitive by making them more unified.

 

Why is a group composed mostly of churches involved in the arena of land use and development policy? Because that is the heart of the matter. It is high time communities of faith and people of conscience addressed basic causes of poverty and distress, rather than just relieving symptoms with handouts
...

 

 4. Houston plans for 70 percent growth - Baytown Sun - Baytown, TX, USA

 

A public workshop to help plan the 70 percent population growth expected in Harris County by 2035 will be on Wednesday.

“After both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the importance of planning ahead has been exemplified,” said Lily Wells, a spokeswoman for the Houston Galveston Area Council.

“We believe the Envision Houston region process is more important than ever in that we can see the effects of a lack of planning.”

Current growth projections include an additional 3.2 million people attending school, seeking employment and commuting over the next 30 years.

The Houston-Galveston Area Council, in collaboration with Blueprint Houston, a citizen-based group, and Fregonese Calthorpe Associates, a professional land-use planning firm, will be working together through the “Envision Houston Region” initiative, a plan to study how the region’s growing population will live, work and travel.

...

 

 5. Planning group wants regional designation - Shelbyville Times-Gazette - TN, USA

 

Bell Buckle's planning commission wants to be designated a regional planning commission and will ask for the city council's approval as well as an OK from the county commission.

 

However, the request will not be submitted to the county body until the planning commission approves Bell Buckle's subdivision regulations, which should take place over the next two months.

 

Alderman Dennis Webb suggested the idea to the commission, saying that he saw no negative impact in doing so, only positives.

 

Handing out copies of state statutes, Webb stated that the Department of Economic and Community Development can create a planning region composed of the municipality and their urban growth boundary. The members of the regional commission would be the members of the current planning commission.

 

According to the Municipal Technical Advisory Service, (MTAS) the body could adopt subdivision regulations beyond their corporate limits, but only in their urban growth boundary. The county would have jurisdiction over zoning.

 

The town would have to petition the county's planning commission and seek permission, Webb said.

 

"I think a move in this direction shows our community and the county that we seek to promote planning, though limited, in our urban growth boundary," Webb said. "I also believe it reinforces the message that Bell Buckle is committed to a quality plan and that we see our urban growth boundary as a natural extension of Bell Buckle's future."
...

 

 6. COMMUNITY COLUMNIST: Learning to live without the wizard - LaCrosse Tribune - LaCrosse, WI, USA

...

Some goals can only be accomplished by state and even federal governments, but we can accomplish important things here in La Crosse without their help. We can make a regionwide effort to conserve fuel; individually we can buy more fuel-efficient cars and lower-energy appliances and lights; this winter, and every winter, we can turn down our thermostats.

 

Collectively we might declare one walk/bike/bus/carpool-to-work day a month. Maybe we could make it every second Tuesday. Employers could hold contests; downtown businesses might offer discounts to people who earn walk-to-work stickers.

 

Think how friendly the streets will look when we fill our sidewalks with people.

 

And maybe our little effort will have a ripple effect, the opposite of Katrina’s. Maybe we can start a movement that will sweep the region, the state even the country.

 

Maybe walking together will help us change the world.

 

 7. Commission concludes Bristol/Warren deregionalization would be costly - Bristol Phoenix - Bristol, RI, USA

BRISTOL/WARREN - If Bristol and Warren were to deregionalize, neither town would be able to afford the services it gets under the current system. That's one of the major determinations of the Regionalization Study Commission, a fact-finding group that began meeting in January to examine the school district. The commission, comprised of representatives from both towns, a state education official, and independent education experts, is now preparing a report on its findings as the stalled school bond project spurs talk of deregionalization among citizens of both towns.

 

The commission's report will show that the district receives a huge annual bonus in state aid — nearly $6 million — because it is regional. The towns would lose this money if they deregionalized. Both towns would have to compensate for the regionalization bonus to keep their schools running which would elevate the tax rates.

...

 

 8. Regionalization key to school woes - Aberdeen American News - Aberdeen, SD, USA

 

A friend of mine was appalled recently when she read that South Dakota public school teachers are the lowest paid in the nation - not in the region, not among farm states - but in the nation. That is appalling but not surprising.

 

... our leaders are more prone to spend resources on one-time physical facilities - buildings, equipment, computers, etc. Part of this mania for edifices is driven by the false confidence that a community school cannot be closed if it is a fairly new set of buildings and meets all of the state fire laws, etc.

 

We are told that northeast South Dakota is going to experience a 25 percent decline in high school graduations over the next five years. Now that can be cause for a half dozen communities to go into a psychological tailspin and convince themselves that the end of the world is just about to come. Armageddon is just around the corner! Or ... the sobering news can be faced that we need fewer schools and that we need to start thinking seriously about regionalization now.

...

 

 9. Communities of Tomorrow Partners for Sustainability: 'Building Our Communities' Conference to Explore Best Practices  - REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN

 

How do we ensure communities designed 100 years ago for the needs of the Wheat Boom make a successful transition to a new era characterized by infrastructure challenges, regionalization issues and depopulation?

 

This tall order is at the heart of Communities of Tomorrow's (CT) mandate. CT is a Saskatchewan-based centre of excellence in research and development around new technologies, planning and management tools that communities can access, according to Executive Director Anne Parker.

 

"There is a recognition, increasingly, that what we are all after is sustainability. Let's face it, how long will our communities last if we just keep applying band-aid solutions and prescribing the same old remedies regardless of long-term consequences? Communities of Tomorrow is there to help identify and support innovations that show promise-to help steer communities, towns and mid-sized cities away from what otherwise might be a crash course."

 

This being Saskatchewan's Centennial year, Parker felt there would be no better way to engage decision-makers in the province and across Canada than by hosting a national conference on community sustainability.

 

"We carefully explored and sought out best practices in areas like the role of culture in sustaining our communities; immigration; infrastructure renewal; regionalization; access to affordable housing; urban naturalization; community engagement; placemaking; design; planning; and the creation of energy efficient recreational facilities.

 

"We then invited known international, national, regional and local leaders and innovators to come share their secrets with conference participants in a few days in Regina. On October 23 to 25, all these folks will be brought together as part of a groundbreaking, one-of-kind gathering of doers, with a view to sharing solutions for sustainability."

 

What can we do now to use our resources more efficiently? How can we attract new residents to our communities and then support them so they want to stay? How should our infrastructure solutions be adapting to new fiscal and environment realities? These questions and others are begging for answers.

 

"The Building Our Communities conference is viewed as a necessary first step to creating a network of well-equipped community members who are committed to seeking out the common threads in the processes that lead to better, wiser utilization of community assets; in engaging the disenfranchised members of our communities; and in creating a vibrant economic, social and cultural environment that is more conducive not only to survival, but also to prosperity."

 

The conference is being organized in partnership with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a Saskatchewan Centennial initiative.

 

To find out more about the conference, visit: www.ctinfo.ca/ conference or call Communities of Tomorrow at (306) 522-6691.

 

10. Straight from Google.

 

      a) Port Huron must look outside its boundaries to fix its woes
Port Huron Times Herald - Port Huron, MI, USA
... offer. We no longer can look within our city or county boundaries to fix all our woes or only let certain people develop here. With ...

 

      b) Strapped governments must share
Ann Arbor News - Ann Arbor, MI, USA
... There have been meetings with residents, and a new resolve to try intergovernmental cooperation. ... They, too, need to look at intergovernmental cooperation. ...

 

      c) Region 5 mule deer decline
Billings Gazette - MT, USA
... The trend has resulted in southcentral Montana's Region 5 - surrounding Billings - enforcing a more restrictive season. Mule deer ...

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Game Regions

 

      d) Informal Meeting Of EU Foreign Ministers Ends In Greece
Turkish Press - Plymouth, MI, USA
... time, confirmed the will to strengthen political dialogue among regional countries, adding that they discussed encouragement of regional cooperation as well as ...

 

      e) Bob Peck resigns from Board of Trade
Washington Business Journal - Washington, DC, USA
... coordination between business leaders and local, state and federal homeland security officials and oversaw the creation of a regional organization to promote ...

 

      f) Plans for region's 5th casino to come today
Detroit Free Press - United States
Plans to build the region's fifth major casino will be announced today, but the city and an Upper Peninsula tribe will need Congressional approval before they ...     

 

      g) County forms economic pact
Newszap Arizona - AZ,USA
... NEPEP. "What the partnership will do is touch on regional issues such as getting transportation routes, go across boundaries. ...

 

      h) Group supports going smoke-free regionally
Johnson County Sun - Overland Park, KS, USA
Clean Air Kansas City, a grass-roots coalition promoting smoke-free ordinances throughout the metropolitan area, has asked mayors in Johnson and Wyandotte ...

 

      i) LI: 2 counties, 1 region
Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA
Our hyper-fragmented Island now has two county executives who believe in regionalism. That's reason to rejoice. And both want to ...

 

      j) REGIONALISM TAKES ON NEW MEANING
Niagarafallsreporter.com - Niagara Falls, NY, USA
... The Reporter has generally opposed the concept of regionalism in the past -- at least insofar as it means having creepy rich white guys running things up here ...

 

      k) Focus on agritourism
Sturgis Journal - Sturgis, MI, USA
... Uniting agriculture and tourism can play a role in helping farmers escape from boom-and-bust cycle of commodity food production and rising property values and ...

 

      l) No. 2 Texas closing in on Southern Cal
Virginian Pilot - Norfolk, VA, USA
... undefeated and left out of the championship game.". The pollsters have made it clear that they will not be swayed by regionalism.

 

      m) Mid-Atlantic States Form Regional Hazard Response Consortium
Insurance Journal - USA
... Presidential Directives, port security, evacuation planning and biohazard response and recovery. ... of the country and must be executed on a regional level," said ...

 

      n) Officials urge school regionalization soon
Acton-The Beacon - Concord, MA, USA
BOXBOROUGH - If Boxborough is to attempt a K-12 regionalization with Acton, the time to move on investigation is soon, the selectmen said at a recent meeting. ...

 

      o) Akron Municipal Court judge - Seat 1
Cleveland Plain Dealer - Cleveland, OH, USA
Question: Northest Ohio's elected officials spent much of the past year talking about regionalism as a potential solution to economic woes. ...

 

      p) Mayfield charter proposal focuses on sharing services
Cleveland Plain Dealer - Cleveland, OH, USA
Mayfield- In what could be a blow to regionalism in Northeast Ohio, a proposed charter amendment in the village would give voters the power to say "thanks ...

 

      q) Recovery Crosses Lines
ChallengerNKY.com – Covington, KY, USA
... a region and the communication between counties here, we are probably better prepared than you might normally find, just because of the regionalism that exists ...

      r) LLOYD GRAY: 'Master narratives' frame the stories
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - Tupelo, MS, USA
... Regionalism's rewards - Local political boundaries are largely artificial when it comes to facing economic, educational and social challenges. ...

 

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

 

      a) Controversy at Area XV Regional Planning Commission
Ottumwa Courier - Ottumwa, IA, USA
OTTUMWA An unknown controversy has evolved at the Area XV Regional Planning Commission, which has put one director under review and a request for a special ...

 

      b) Area planning commission will consider special audit
DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Moines, IA, USA
A regional planning commission serving 10 Iowa counties is investigating allegations that federal money is missing from its multimillion-dollar coffers. ...

 

     c) Urban renewal board nailing down project plans
Bonner County Daily Bee - Sandpoint, ID, USA
... Miller. Drinkard said headway is being made in drafting the plan, thanks to the hiring of John Austin of Panhandle Area Council. ...

 

      d) Dallas Borough targets blight
Citizens Voice - Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA
... It will be used by the Back Mountain Area Council of Governments and the Back Mountain Business and Professional Association to hire consultants to analyze ...

 

      e) Regional governments council gives $25,000 to homeless shelter
Norwich Bulletin - Norwich, CT, USA
NORWICH -- The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments will help pay for a New London homeless shelter, but many members warned that it would be a one ...

 

      f) KC Looks Into Development Plan
Kansas City Channel.com - Kansas City, MO, USA
... "We're trying to develop a plan that makes sense for our metro region," said Mell Henderson, of the Mid-America Regional Council. ...

 

      g) The gravy train is leaving
Boston Herald - United States
... That goes for employees of his department, as well as 61 staffers for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the T's credit union, its real estate firm ...

 

 

12. Other in the news:

 

      a) When is the Arctic no longer the Arctic? - International Herald Tribune – France

...

Freed by warming, waters once locked beneath ice are gnawing at coastal settlements around the Arctic Circle.

 

In Bykovsky, a village of 457 on Russia's northeast coast, the shoreline is collapsing, creeping closer and closer to houses and tanks of heating oil, at a rate of 15 to 18 feet a year. Eventually, homes will be lost, and maybe all of Bykovsky, too, under ever-longer periods of assault by open water. "It is eating up the land," said Innokenty Koryakin, a member of the Evenk tribe and the captain of a fishing boat. "You cannot do anything about it."

 

To the east, Fyodor V. Sellyakhov scours a barren island with 16 hired men. Mammoths lived here tens of thousands of years ago, and their carcasses eventually sank deep into sediment that is now offering up a trove of tusks and bones nearly as valuable as elephant ivory.

 

Mr. Sellyakhov, a native Yakut, hauls the fossils to a warehouse here and sells them for $25 to $50 a pound. This summer he collected two tons, making him a wealthy man, for Tiksi. "The sea washes down the coast every year," he said. "It is practically all ice - permafrost - and it is thawing."

 

For the four million people who live north of the Arctic Circle, in remote outposts and the improbable industrial centers built by Soviet decree, a changing climate presents new opportunities. But it also threatens their environment, their homes and, for those whose traditions rely on the ice-bound wilderness, the preservation of their culture.

 

A push to develop the North, quickened by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas has raised fears of catastrophic accidents as ships loaded with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, headed to markets in Europe and North America. Land that was untouched could be tainted by pollution as generators, smokestacks and large vehicles sprout to support the growing energy industry

...

 

      b) Globalization's End - Forbes – USA

 

... John Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism ($29.95, Overlook, 2005) brings a new argument to the debate about economic globalization.

...

Globalization was supposed to deliver a world without borders and its adherents have often said that the power of governments would wane against the more fluid powers of commerce. Saul says that it just isn't so. Governments can make choices, and people aren't required to simply follow what the market dictates, even if it hurts them.

...

 

13. Announcements – World Town Planning Day – November 8, 2005

 

      a) Planning Institute of Australia - Victoria Division

 

      b) Canadian Institute of Planners-CIP

 

      c) World Town Planning Day American Planning Association

 

14. Data & IT  

 

      a) Bangalore s E-governance Initiatives - CXOToday.com - Mumbai, India

 

With E-governance a big part of business today, Indian government enterprises have been waking up to the IT call in recent years.

Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the planning authority for Bangalore metropolitan area has taken up a powerful initiative in this space. Recently, BDA has decided to deploy SAP solutions to automate and integrate its processes across various departments.

"The e-governance project, first of its kind in the country, will integrate the numerous processes and also bring the various divisions on to a common platform, enabling a single-window view for clearance and information updation," ...

With E-governance a big part of business today, Indian government enterprises are waking up to the IT call in recent years. Bangalore ...

 

      b) Social engineering - Coming to an IT ship near you? - WTN News - Madison, WI, USA

 

Have you noticed recently the earnest discussions about a seemingly inalienable right to blog on company time and company topics? OK, maybe that overstates the argument a little bit, but the case in which Apple fired a couple of employees for their blogging activities on what Apple considered competitive secrets is only one of several that have generated furrowed brow discussion in various media.

 

... However, as we move beyond the basic business applications, much of the technology we’re putting in the hands of employees is creating poorly understood and inconsistently managed workforce capabilities. HR managers everywhere should feel a prickling sensation on the back of their necks, and IT needs to be ready to help out as the HR folks deal with the workplace changes being driven by new technology.

...

 

15. Subscription link stories 

 

      a) Pushing the boundaries - The Age (subscription) - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

 

Three years ago, the State Government trumpeted a bold plan. Melbourne 2030 would stop the dreaded sprawl, house more people in apartments near public transport and keep the city "marvellous". So what's happened? Developers keep pushing to build on the city's outskirts, the Government's gone "wobbly", according to some, and many Melburnians still want their big backyard. In the first of a three-part series, Royce Millar reports on a plan under strain.

... vision, articulated in the Government's 2030 blueprint, is of a city that can contain its sprawl within a self-imposed boundary while preserving its green oases; that can provide services and space for its projected 4.5 million inhabitants by persuading them to live on smaller blocks, closer together.

...

But there is growing doubt in property and planning circles about whether 2030 will be able to deliver on its promise to rein in Melbourne's bolting burbs. And if so, at what cost?

 

Whereas some growth boundaries — especially in Europe — are hard and fast, Melbourne's boundary is permeable, allowing for growth in Casey (south-east) Whittlesea (north ) Hume (north-west) Melton and Wyndham (west). Land supply will be reviewed in these corridors every five years, in line with the Government's 15-year guarantee.

...

      b) Winchester, County Now Part of ‘Super Region’  - Winchester Star - Winchester, VA, USA

One planner may have summed up an entire day of talks with one single phrase: “Super region.”

 

Planning experts from throughout the area — Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, Baltimore, the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, Hagerstown, Md., and Winchester, Frederick County, and Clarke County — gathered Friday at Lord Fairfax Community College for a day-long transportation roundtable.

 

Paul DesJardin, chief of housing and planning for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, spoke of the ever-burgeoning capital region.

 

By 2030, according to a study that DesJardin presented, the metropolitan Washington area will need 600,000 more workers, as well as another 400,000 housing units. That doesn’t include growth in the northern Shenandoah Valley, the Eastern Panhandle, the Baltimore area, or any other fringe areas.

 

The daunting challenge facing community planners is how to deal with the massive growth and make sure people can get to where they need to be.

...