1. Jackson will create post to oversee regionalism - Cleveland Plain Dealer - Cleveland, OH,USA

 

Cleveland Mayor-elect Frank Jackson said Wednesday that he will appoint the city's first point person for regional issues, a promise that has made many suburban mayors ecstatic and dashed any lingering suspicions that he viewed regionalism with skepticism.

 

"It will be a key member of his administration," said Mary Anne Sharkey, a transition-team spokeswoman.

 

Jackson is still working on the organizational structure of his administration, so he has not determined the regionalism czar's specific duties or if it will be a cabinet-level position. He said economic development and job creation that stresses cooperation between the city and suburbs - instead of the customary competition - will be among the issues the point person will tackle.

...

 

RC: Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency

 

 2. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton - Christian Science Monitor - Boston, MA, USA

 

Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 commission, were the guests at Monday's breakfast. They have just issued a new report assessing how the White House and Congress responded to the 9/11 panel's recommendations for improving homeland security. ...

 

On the need to spell out who is in charge in emergencies:

 

Hamilton: "I think this question of unified command is a very difficult one politically and I don't think you can solve it after the fact. I think you have to reach an agreement beforehand. When you have a disaster or a terrorist attack that affects a multiplicity of jurisdictions, you've got a tough problem on your hands.

 

When you have a disaster strike, you have to make hundreds and hundreds of decisions very quickly about people and first aid and equipment and all kinds of things.... We have to decide in this country, probably through legislation, and I suspect through federal legislation, although maybe you can do it on a regional basis, how to deal with a disaster before it strikes. Because once it strikes, all of these competitive pressures arise. Everybody in the White House is saying, 'How do I make the president look good here?' And everybody in the state capital is saying, 'How do I make the governor look good?'"

...

 

 3. EU border regions join in bid to prevent new iron curtain - EUobserver.com 

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Forty regions on the EU's eastern border are kicking off a network, aimed at avoiding a new "iron curtain" emerging after the enlargement of the bloc's Schengen borderless zone to new member states.

 

The Network of Eastern External Border Regions (NEEBOR) is to be officially launched in Brussels on Thursday (8 December), linking together regions of the EU's 5,500 km long eastern border.

 

The network will bring together regions from Finland, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Greece, as well as some Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian regions.

 

"We want to join forces in preparing projects funded by the European Union which will boost co-operation of external regions in the east both within and outside the EU," Jani Taivalanti from the East Finland region told the EUobserver.

...

4. 'Quality of life' tax idea resurfaces - North County Times - Escondido, CA, USA

 

A "quality of life" sales tax of up to a half-cent on the dollar for water-quality enhancements, beach-sand replenishment and other environmental projects is resurfacing in the offices of the San Diego Association of Governments.

This morning, an executive committee of the transportation planning and funding agency is scheduled to review legislative priorities for the coming year, including whether to seek a legal opinion about its authority to ask voters for the tax.

 

When county voters last year approved a 40-year extension of a half-cent sales tax known as TransNet, association officials also said they would seek funds to pay for environmental measures.

 

Association Executive Director Gary Gallegos said earlier this week that the agency believes it has the authority to seek an additional half-cent taxing authority and is simply asking its directors to approve getting an independent legal analysis to support that conclusion.

Even it is gets a favorable opinion, Gallegos said he does not anticipate taking the issue to voters anytime soon, if at all.

...

 

 5. Council refuses request for funds - Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - Columbus, GA,USA

Phenix City Council turned thumbs down Tuesday on a request from the Lee-Russell Council of Governments for additional money.

 

The joint council sent the city an invoice for $44,191.92 on Nov. 7, after exceeding the Phenix City Express transit system's fiscal 2004-05 budget authorization. The council of governments is a regional planning and development organization that serves member governments by administering programs, collaborative efforts, and grant writing.

 

During Tuesday's meeting, Phenix City Mayor Jeff Hardin was critical of the LRCG's planning, saying it should have anticipated the possibility of higher gas prices in its budgeting for 2004-05. ...

 

LRCG Executive Director Suzanne G. Burnette said she does not expect the denial of payment to affect the Phenix City Express, which primarily serves lower-income residents lacking personal transportation to services in Phenix City and Columbus.

...

 

 6. Counties unsure of what regional plan will entail - The Express Times - Easton, PA,USA

 

The Highlands regional master plan may reflect municipal master plans in Hunterdon County but not likely in Warren County, Highlands Council representatives from those counties said.

 

Seven Hunterdon County municipalities are in the process of changing their master plans to discourage development, said Janice Kovach, the county's representative on the Highlands Council and a Clinton town councilwoman. Clinton Town, Clinton Township, Readington Township, High Bridge, Lebanon Borough, Union Township and Franklin Township have worked jointly to control development in their shared Interstate 78 corridor, she said.

 

"A lot of the municipalities are interested in the Highlands regional plan because we started this and this helps us finish it," Kovach said last week. "A nice surprise is there will be municipalities in the planning area opting into the regional master plan."

 

Warren County municipal officials have not expressed the same interest in conforming to the Highlands plan, ...

 

 7. Planning for leadership - Jamaica Gleaner - Kingston, Jamaica

...

First, Jamaicans do not like impersonal leadership. They do not want cold and impersonal managerialism. They expect to have that personal leadership that is visible in the communities and that is working with the issues closest to people's everyday lives - water, crime, roads, transportation, and so on. This is how political leadership started in Jamaica ­ in the communities. This more intimate form of politics lost ground as power became more centralised and politics more urban-based.

...

Second, Jamaicans need to know that their leaders care. In this age of governance, markets, regionalism, and globalisation, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these structures only make sense to people when they are about those very people. Jamaicans were attracted to Manley and Bustamante because they demonstrated that they cared. They were close to people-based organisations like trade unions and community groups. In this age of governance and markets, the state and economy must become more people-friendly. The market must become a people-based structure. This is what we should mean when we talk about a friendly macroeconomic environment. ...

 

 8. Salt Lake County leaders OK homeless plan - Salt Lake Tribune - United States

 

The idea is simple: Get the homeless off the streets. In practice, however, that goal is as complex as the problems vexing the vagabonds.

 

Even so, leaders across Salt Lake County are putting stock in a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, which was adopted Thursday by the county's Council of Governments.

...
RC: Wasatch Front Regional Council

 

 9. Walking school buses are a hit - Newstalk ZB - New Zealand

 

It is healthy and children love it - so it is obviously not vegetables.

 

Walking school buses are a huge hit and an Auckland Regional Council study shows they could be a great start to solving New Zealand's obesity problem.

 

A third of primary school children are overweight and do not exercise much. However, an Auckland Regional Council study shows walking school buses are changing children's attitudes towards walking and physical activity in general.

 

Researcher Dr Pat Neuwelt says that is mainly because kids think the buses are fun. She says cities should be focusing on encouraging walking, by making roadways safer for pedestrians, especially children.

...

 

10. Bitter pills - San Antonio Current - San Antonio, TX,USA

 

How will funding changes affect SA’s ability to care for its poorest AIDS patients?

 

When County Judge Nelson Wolff announced that Bexar County’s AIDS funding would soon be under new management, the San Antonio AIDS Foundation had this reaction: “It can’t be worse.”

 

That’s not too surprising, considering the history of the County’s AIDS funding. The Bexar County Commissioner’s Court has administered local CARE Act funds since 1998, during which time it has repeatedly drawn criticism from the AIDS community for mismanaging the fund and failing to use all of the federally allocated dollars. Yet, just as the County seems to be more efficient at running the program, Wolff proposes to shift the responsibility to the Alamo Area Council of Governments, which administers grants and programs for its 12 member counties, including the Clean Air Plan, Alamo Regional Transit, and Homeland Security. The question looms: Will AACOG be able to build on the County’s progress, or will the move once again throw the program into disorder?

 

“We think it’s got to be a good thing,” says Jill Rips, AIDS Foundation associate director. “There’s a learning curve, and they don’t know our clients, but we’ve got to give them a chance — I don’t know that the County ever got it, so really, it can’t be any worse.”

 

But it could be better. ...

 

11. Lew the visionary: Former city chief pushed roads, annexation, regional plans  - Tucson Citizen - Tucson, AZ,USA

 

Tucson's longest-serving mayor, Lew Murphy, who died Thursday, may ultimately be remembered for the vision he was never able to bring to fruition and the ideas that were years ahead of their time.

 

Most famously, he called for "mountain-to-mountain" annexation to avoid becoming a fractious region beset by the competing interests of many jurisdictions.

 

His annexation plan was soundly rejected by the City Council. His drive to get voters to approve a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for transportation projects also failed. Murphy's idea of a consolidated city-county government never gained traction during his tenure as mayor from 1971 to 1986.

 

Mayor Bob Walkup said Murphy understood that growth was inevitable and that planning for that growth far in advance was necessary.

 

"It's the natural evolution of the city, and he was the first one to articulate that we need to start thinking about becoming a consolidated region," Walkup said.

 

The recently formed Regional Transportation Authority is a critical step toward achieving Murphy's ideal of regional cooperation in long-term investment.

...
RC: Pima Association of Governments

 

12. Congestion expected to rise in Rockland and region - The Journal News.com, NY 

...

A first-of-its kind report by a regional transportation council forecasts that by 2030, residents may have to do just that, as more people will move into the Lower Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island and will drive more miles, resulting in more congestion.

 

Besides frustrating drivers who are trying to travel between work and home, congestion has a real and substantial economic impact, primarily in the form of unproductive time spent sitting in vehicles rather than behind a desk or at home with the family. Then there's the extra fuel costs, more harmful pollution released into the air, and wear and tear on local roads, bridges and tunnels.

 

Rising populations, job growth, higher rates of automobile ownership and rapid growth in truck freight are the reasons why demand is outstripping road supply.

 

The region's population is about 13 million and is expected to increase by 13 percent to nearly 14.7 million in the next 25 years. The total of daily vehicle miles traveled is expected to rise by 9 percent to 142.1 million.

 

The report by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, which determines the most effective ways to spend federal transportation dollars in the region, confirmed what most drivers already knew. Its purpose, though, was to assess and understand the extent of existing congestion, and to offer suggestions on ways to reduce it.

 

The information was presented to its 10 member agencies — New York City's five boroughs, Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, and Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties
...

 

13. Straight from Google. – Bold type words are search terms.  

 

      a) Foolish Fences
Washington Post - United States
... Our misplaced border policies have transformed what was a limited regional movement affecting three states into a mass migration to 50 states. ...

 

      b) East: Leaders Meet In Ukraine To Create New Regional Alliance
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - Prague, Czech Republic
... after the United States lost interest in the organization. ... that for the Democratic Choice Community to be ... adviser, believes that the region's lacking democracy ...

 

      c) A new museum for Chicago art?
Chicago Sun-Times - United States
... "The art world is already so balkanized, so any effort to break down regionalism is a good thing," says Joseph Tabet, organizer of the annual Navy Pier Walk ...

 

      d) Power to the people
Central Maine Morning Sentinel, ME 
... The New England Futures Project, reported in this newspaper, calls New England "America's energy orphan, literally at the end of the energy pipelines." The ...

 

      e) Lecture explores Great Plains black history
Daily Nebraskan - Lincoln, NE,USA
... some black communities. Regionalism or place-consciousness is closely associated with Great Plains literature, she said. In Ruby ...

 

      f) The Innovation Manifesto of the Lisbon Council says that
EUROPA (press release) - Brussels, Belgium
... bring together entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers, education and training institutions, financial intermediaries, local and regional development bodies. ...

 

      g) Regional transit a step closer to reality
Whistler Question - Whistler, British Columbia, Canada
The Sea to Sky corridor is one step closer to a regional transit system after an Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) board meeting on Monday. ...

 

      h) Interest in KRG rising among Nunavik youth
Nunatsiaq News - Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada
At the first meeting of the regional council, which saw many new faces following November's municipal elections, councillors revealed a new gusto for ...

 

      i) Future of regional press looks healthy, says new report
HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk - UK
Future prospects for the regional press in terms of circulation and readership remain good, according to a new report published by research group Mintel. ...

 

      j) Train to Cooperation?: Regional cooperative supports rail link with Turkey
ArmeniaNow.com - Yerevan, Armenia
... route would immediately make it possible to link among themselves four regional states at a ... of the Kars-Gyumri railroad link elicited a wide response in Baku. ...

 

      k) REGIONAL TOURISM POLICY NEEDED
Barbados Advocate - Barbados
... and International Transport, who was speaking at the workshop on Regional Sustainable Tourism ... the urgency in coming up with a collaborative response from the ...

 

      l) Abu Dhabi Hosts Regional Forum on Cultural Heritage
WAM - Emirates News Agency - Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
... The Regional Forum of International Heritage in Arab Countries is organised by the UNESCO's World Heritage Centre in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Tourism ...

 

      m) Car pooling into the future
Toronto Star - Canada
... municipalities. Q What kind of power will it have? A We want to make sure it can look at the projects that cross regional boundaries. So ...

 

      n) Plan delineates regions, sets representation - Jordan
Middle East North Africa Financial Network - Amman, Jordan
... Each regional council is envisaged to elect its head, deputy head and two assistants. An appointed commissioner, with ministerial ...

 

      o) Education report proposes 251 fewer school districts
Waldo Village Soup - ME,USA
... The draft report reinforces one of the familiar themes of the Baldacci administration, which has called for enhanced regionalism and consolidation to shrink ...

 

      p) Regional water authority warns of potential shortages
Boston Globe - United States
WEST WARWICK, RI --A regional water provider is warning of potential shortages unless new sources are found, angering some who feel the statements could ...

 

      q) Stepped-up bird flu effort needed
Viet Nam News - Hanoi, Vietnam
... Animal health authorities in HCM City and seven southern provinces met last week to map out the regional response to the bird flu epidemic and formulate ...

 

      r) Aspen prepares for the big one
Edson Leader - Alberta, Canada
... Health has established the Regional Emergency Management Committee (REMC) to guide the planning process and Johnson is drafting a pandemic response plan. ...

 

      s) Bus Color a Gray Area, Studies Show
Los Angeles Times - CA,USA
... But there's scant evidence to support the theory. ... When the MTA developed color schemes for its buses, the main consideration was branding, not safety or cost. ... a 2003 report in the British Medical Journal found that in the Auckland region of New Zealand, silver cars were associated with the fewest serious injuries.

 

      t) Council Receives Final Report on Review of Region of Peel Official Plan
Region of Peel (press release) - Brampton, Ontario, Canada
(Brampton) -- Regional Council has received a final report from staff on the Regional Official Plan Strategic Update (ROPSU), which commenced in 2002. ...

 

      u) JJ ‘regional rivalry' made out to be a misdiagnosis
Afternoon Dispatch & Courier - Bombay, India
MARD says a fight among students was blown out of proportion by some elements and misconstrued as regionalism.. Clashes between ...

 

      v) Force could get four-month reprieve
ic Birmingham.co.uk - Birmingham, UK
... He said: "We want to reflect regional boundaries if that is possible. That is the consultation now taking place.". * What do you think? ...

 

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

      a) Regional plan seeking money
Rome News-Tribune - Rome, GA,USA
Elected officials in Northwest Georgia are seeking increased state funding to create a long-range regional development plan. Focus on the Future is the brainchild of Bill Steiner, executive director of the Coosa Valley Regional Development Center. ... “Right now it’s every city and county for themselves, and the ones who can pull the most political weight get what they want,” Steiner said. “We should do this scientifically, see what’s good for the region.”

      b) Editorial: Wake up, Duke City: Rio Rancho has landed
Albuquerque Tribune - Albuquerque, NM,USA
... Metro area leaders long have talked the talk of regionalism - of cooperating to address environmental, water, air, transportation, economic development and ...

RC: Mid-Region Council of Governments

 

      c) Municipalities urged to conserve
Gateway Newspapers - USA
... Because most mines providing salt to the South Hills are in Louisiana, members of the South Hills Area Council of Governments (SHACOG) met with vendors late ...

       d) Panel: Traffic relief should drive choices
Gwinnett Daily Post - Griffin, GA,USA
... relief as 70 percent of decision-making models. That is up from 11 percent under the Atlanta Regional Commission's current standards. ...

 

      e) Plans for regional bikeway picking up steam
Roanoke Times - Roanoke, VA,USA
... Shane Sawyer, a planner with the Roanoke Valley Alleghany Regional Commission, said his region is updating its Metropolitan Planning Organization bikeway plan ...

 

      f) Commission discusses successful programs
Demopolis Times - Demopolis, AL,USA
... In addition, the commission worked with the Alabama-Tombigbee Regional Commission and the University of Alabama to create the Black Belt Treasures Gallery in ...

 

      g) Citizens Want to Vote on a Regional Sales Tax to Improve Public Transportation, Greenways and Traffic Management
Kansas City infoZine - Kansas City, MO,USA
... The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) contracted with the polling firm ETC ... The survey yielded a very high response rate - 1632 forms completed - and exceeded ...

 

      h) More county drivers filling up lots, not gas tanks
San Luis Obispo Tribune - San Luis Obispo, CA,USA
... The San Luis Obispo County Council of Governments is exploring various ways to fix and eventually expand the system, including better landscaping at lots ...

 

      i) CEDS transitions to local leadership

Cibola County Beacon - Grants, NM,USA

The Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) group met Wednesday to discuss progress and the transition of leadership of the group from the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments (NWNMCOG) to local citizens. ...

 

      j) Groundwork laid, systems in place to make Valley freeways reality
Arizona Republic - Phoenix, AZ,USA
As the mayor of Mesa and chairman of the Maricopa Association of Governments Regional Council, residents often share with me their frustrations with their ...

 

      k) Valley answers census survey
Arizona Republic - Phoenix, AZ,USA
The Maricopa Association of Governments is reporting a 98 percent response to the mid-decade US census survey it sent to one in every 13 homes in September. ...

 

15. Other in the news:

 

      a) Bowler fires Joondalup councillors - WA Business News - Northbridge, Western Australia, Australia

 

The councillors of the City of Joondalup were today dismissed by Local Government and Regional Development Minister John Bowler.

 

The dismissal was the main recommendation of the Inquiry into the City of Joondalup, prepared by Mr Greg McIntyre SC.

 

Mr Bowler said the 625-page report concluded that the council failed to provide good government by making decisions that were not rational or ethically sound.

 

The dismissal of the council provided an opportunity for the Joondalup community to elect fresh representation.

 

"While under the Act the dismissed councillors are allowed to again stand for election, I would hope there would be a clean break from the long-running situation and enable the City of Joondalup to re-establish itself as a quality local government," the Minister said. ...

 

      b) “Crash Course in Empathy” – The Texas Observer

 

In his latest book, Last Chance in Texas, journalist John Hubner recounts the nine months he spent at the Texas Youth Commission’s Giddings State School, where therapists and administrators have come up with a treatment program called “resocialization,” a kind of emotional boot camp for young criminals. The program combines strict regimentation (inmates march in columns across campus in hair shorn military-style, refer to staff as “sir” and “miss”) with Gestalt-like talk and drama therapy, whereby inmates (referred to by rule as “students”) are forever arranging chairs in circles to discuss their behavior and emotions and to reflect on both. Hubner tracks two students, one boy (Ronnie) and one girl (Elena), through the emotionally grueling Capital Offenders Group, the pinnacle of treatment, a six-month-long series of intense group therapy sessions which, passed successfully, all but insure a student an early release on parole.

 

Fundamentally, resocialization offers Giddings’ students an on-going lesson in confrontation and reflection. Upon arrival, students are handed a text called Changing Course: A Student Workbook for Resocialization, and are responsible for memorizing nine “thinking errors” (deceiving, downplaying, avoiding, blaming, making excuses, jumping to conclusions, acting helpless, overreacting, and feeling special), which serve as the day-to-day vocabulary on campus. They’re then encouraged to detect the use of errors in their own decision-making processes, as well as those of their fellow inmates. Members of rival gangs are placed in the same housing unit and expected to get along. Guards on campus are unarmed. The parents of murdered children are hosted as guest-speakers. While incarcerated, students attend high school or GED programs, earn the privilege to play organized sports, and, nearing the end of their time at Giddings, earn passes which allow them to walk unattended across campus. Throughout the program, therapists and caseworkers monitor students for improvement.

 

Just what do they consider improvement? Empathy. The word itself is good as gold on campus, as elusive as it is sought after. “Everything that happens on campus, from the behavior groups to the football team, is designed to foster empathy,” Hubner writes. ...

 

      c) U.S. Manufacturing 2005: A Panoramic View  - Industrial Market Trends – ThomasNet.com

 

Throughout the year, we've covered various trends of U.S. manufacturing. Now we'll take our wide-angle lens to 2005's overall industry. Like Sergio Leone, we'll view the good, the bad and the ugly. ...

 

      d) Report Confirms Skilled Labor Gap Already Impacting  - Industrial Market Trends – ThomasNet.com

We've covered the purported threat of an impending loss of manufacturing's skilled workers. A new report now offers in-depth data that show the labor shortage is not only inevitable, but it is already affecting manufacturers. ...

 

      e) Top Technology Trends of 2005  - Industrial Market Trends – ThomasNet.com

Rather than the introduction of brand-new technologies, this year instead saw a number of established technologies come of age. Innovative nonetheless, these technology trends peaked or neared peaking in 2005. ...

 

16. Announcements

 

     a) Towards a New Nordic Regionalism -  Balestrand, Norway, 4-5 May 2006 - Nordic Network of the Regional Studies Association

 

Nordic regions are currently involved in processes of profound transformation, and the conference will bring together policy-makers and researchers from the Nordic countries and beyond in order to take stock and exchange experience about the current state of regional reforms, about the economic and other rationales for the new regions, and about the implications of reform for leadership and democracy. The two-day event will combine high-profile plenary speakers and thematic workshops, giving participants plenty of opportunities to listen, reflect and discuss. Kvikne’s Hotel - http://www.kviknes.no/

 

      b) Inaugural Forum on Information and Urban Markets - February 16-17, 2006 - Washington, DC

 

A new field of urban information is taking shape in U.S. cities. Visionary leaders know efficient market-driven development requires good information. America’s cities‑dense, diverse, and complex as they are‑require a lot of good information to grow. Nonprofits, governments, and businesses are actively taking steps to improve data availability, create innovative analytic tools, and find ways to more effectively use information to create healthy urban markets.

 

Developing healthy urban communities requires that private and public investment decisions are based on accurate assessments of business opportunities and community needs. The emerging field of urban information is focused on addressing this need.

 

The 2006 Forum of The Brookings Institution’s Urban Markets Initiative will take you to the leading edge of the field of urban information, help you understand how to take advantage of new tools and techniques, and engage you in a conversation about how the field should proceed. ...  Download the Preliminary Conference Program

 

17. Subscription link stories 

 

      a) Vicious circle - Sligo Champion - Sligo, Ireland

...

According to Dr. Patricia O'Hara, Policy Manager at the Western Development Commission (WDC), the burden of growth on Dublin will become unsustainable and will drain the lifeblood out of the regions unless development is accelerated outside the capita. Addressing a major regional development conference titled Rural Development: A Time of Transition, Dr. O'Hara said it's time we recognised that investment in the regions is actually good for Dublin and essential for Ireland. Indeed, wondering why opinion-makers in the greater Dublin area are not the most vocal proponents of the development of the regions, she said this would be of major direct benefit to them.

 

And she pointed out that despite Dublin's relative prosperity it is, without a doubt, the most pressurised, expensive and congested part of Ireland. Massive public investment has, quite rightly, been earmarked to tackle these pressures.

 

However, she told the conference: "Beware the vicious investment circle. The more investment and resources that the greater Dublin area takes up, the more Dublin will dominate the economy, attracting more industry and people and causing even more congestion. Without substantial investment in enabling infrastructure and other supports that can be absolutely justified on the basis of their spatial impact, the regions will fall further behind.

 

"We're in danger of tilting the country's infrastructure so much towards Dublin that the rest of the country will fall into the capital. Solving Dublin's problems cannot be at the expense of the regions; rather, enabling the regions to prosper will serve national goals and add to the welfare of those living in the Dublin area."

 

Dr. O'Hara continued: "One of the difficulties with taking regional issues into account in decision-making on public spending is that the electoral system is organised spatially so that quite sensible initiatives for regional development tend to be judged in terms of their perceived political‚ rather than spatial impact. The government decentralisation programme, and investment in the Western Rail Corridor, both of which will bring substantial benefits to regional towns, are cases in point.

 

"Many cutting-edge businesses are trading very successfully in the regions. The WDC's experience with the Look West campaign has convinced us that many more businesses and individuals wish to locate in the regions provided that they can access the basic infrastructural facilities of a modern well-developed society."

 

Dr. O'Hara pointed out that those who have moved, or who wish to do, say that they do not expect metropolitan facilities everywhere, but they do need quick and reliable transport access, broadband telecommunications, and quality services at reasonable cost. Current prosperity is so recent that we may have difficulty recognising the opportunities we can create for regions over the longer term, at relatively little public cost, considering our wealth. Now that we are a prosperous county, the payback from funding enabling infrastructure in the regions will be to deliver substantial benefits including easing the pressure on Dublin.

 

The refrain of 'amen to all of that' may be heard stage left - not least from the people of Dublin themselves who find themselves living in a city in danger of becoming an urban nightmare.

      b) Regional planning's watershed - Charleston Post Courier (subscription) - Charleston, SC, USA

 

Getting local governments to acknowledge common ground on land-use planning is an accomplishment in itself. If elected officials can agree to meaningful limits to development in and around the Francis Marion National Forest, it will be a historic event for the Lowcountry.

 

Local leaders who attended last week's forum in Awendaw appear inclined to do so, though first they must convince their respective councils to endorse a proposal to restrain development in and around the forest. Its approval would be, as Mount Pleasant Mayor Harry Hallman said, "an example of regional planning for the future." Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. was not exaggerating when he said the ability to make regional decisions now will determine the legacy that is left to "our great-granchildren's great-grandchildren."

 

Development threats to the forest will loom ever larger without an agreement among the various jurisdictions to act in concert. There are large private tracts within the general boundaries of the forest that will be subject to large-scale development, particularly if water and sewer service are made available.

 

In the past, developers have been able to play one local jurisdiction against another in seeking the required zoning and utility services for their projects. An increased tax base has been the payoff.

 

The need for regional planning is all too apparent in today's report that 113,000 new homes are in some state of preparation in the Charleston metropolitan area.

 

... Berkeley County Supervisor Jim Rozier said he is working with the Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester Council of Governments to develop a better framework for regional planning. And Charleston County Council Chairman Leon Stavrinakis said he recently met with representatives of Berkeley and Dorchester to discuss ways to limit the ill effects of projects that cross county lines.

 

A common front is necessary to protect the national forest. More broadly it is needed to protect the Lowcountry's natural resources and landscape from sprawling development.

 

RC: Lowcountry Council of Governments PO Box 98 Yemassee, SC 29945-0098 - NARC Profile

      c) County buying old Belk - Wilson Daily Times (subscription) - Wilson, NC,USA

 

The