1.  ‘The ball is in our court’  - Bluefield Daily Telegraph - Bluefield, WV,USA

Community leaders of the two Virginias got the message from West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine — the time to act is nigh.

“The governors put the ball back in our court,” Marc Meachum, president and CEO of the Greater Bluefield Chamber of Commerce said. “They challenged us to come up with a program they can promote.

“We have to act fast,” Meachum said. “We have between now and the end of December to come up with a program that is do-able. I think it’s possible, but it will take some effort.”

Manchin and Kaine spoke frankly with civic, political and business leaders of the greater Bluefield area during a roundtable discussion in the new Bluefield, Va., town hall. The message from the two governors was simple and straightforward: Decide on a project that would be mutually beneficial to the region, work in concert to come up with a plan, submit the plan to both states as quickly as possible and the governors vowed to work to eliminate any state government barriers in the way.

“The next step is to form a small committee and develop the plan,” Jim Spencer, Tazewell County administrator said. “They put the ball squarely in our court and now it’s time for us to act.”
Spencer and others representatives of the two Bluefields seated at the table during the gubernatorial discussion have already been searching for a way to combine the efforts of the two states on a common project. So far, the Bluestone Technology Park project on 680-acres of land near Bluefield, Va., has been the primary talking point for representatives on both sides of the state line.

“Once you see the power-point presentation, visit the virtual development and then go to the site, you see how everything fits together,” Meachum said of the technology park. “You have 680 acres there, and at least 500 of those acres are developable. It is easy to visualize the concept.”

...

 

  2. Communities urged to plan for regional expansion - Billings Gazette - MT, USA

CODY - Economist Larry Swanson had a simple message Monday for Park County residents: "The region is growing, and some communities will be ready to take advantage of it, while others won't."

Swanson, an economist and director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana, has been visiting with Park County leaders to discuss a new report called "Roots of Prosperity."

Commissioned by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and sponsored by the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce and more than a dozen local businesses, Swanson's report looks at how expected population growth in Park County is likely to affect the area, and what communities should do to prepare for it.

Swanson predicts the next 15 years will see the county following a regional trend of steady growth, driven by new residents seeking the amenities offered by nearby public lands such as Yellowstone National Park and the Shoshone National Forest.

Increased pressures on those public resources, as well as residential and energy development and a shrinking agricultural base, all have the potential to hurt the area if not managed properly, Swanson said.

"This amenity-driven growth can be used for economic development objectives, but we have to realize that you can kill that golden goose," he said.

"How do we capitalize on this growth, while at the same time sustaining those very resources that made this an attractive place to live? It's a bit of a conundrum," he said.

"These large concentrations of public lands are the magnet, and that's why we live under the illusion of wide open spaces. But that's also why, when growth hits, private land is scarce and the fast growth drives up real estate values more quickly than you would ever think," he said.

Swanson said there are no "model communities" with easy answers to the problem.

...

 

  3. Lessons From A Fiasco - Hartford Courant - United States

The collapse of the Utopia Studios proposal in Preston - it sounded too good to be true and apparently was - should cause a re-examination of how the state treats surplus property and how major development projects are brought off. This was ridiculous on a grand scale.

Utopia, a New York-based developer without an extensive track record, proposed to build a $1.6 billion movie studio and climate-controlled theme park on the former Norwich State Hospital grounds in Preston overlooking the Thames River. It was going to attract 8 million to 10 million visitors a year, support 4,200 hotel rooms and employ 22,000 workers.

After more than two years of negotiations, the Preston board of selectmen terminated the development agreement last month, saying Utopia failed to meet various deadlines, notably for the deposit of more than $56 million into an escrow account. Joseph Gentile of Utopia is trying to restart the process and has threatened to sue.

However that plays out, the entire process of redeveloping the 470-acre hospital property was, in keeping with the show business theme, an amateur-night production.

After the hospital closed a decade ago, there was no systematic and comprehensive planning effort by the state to reuse the property. There was an advisory committee, mostly made up of state agency representatives, that did little. Then Gov. John G. Rowland tried to sell it to the Mohegan tribe for a golf course and employee housing, but the town fought that idea because officials said it wouldn't have paid for itself. Pfizer was interested in using the property, but that fell through. After more false starts and much foot-dragging, the state optioned it to the town.

Preston has three years from last January to find a developer and buy the land. There've been several offers of interest.

To plan the reuse of such a major site, there should be a formal partnership between the state, region, town and business community. Gov. M. Jodi Rell and Public Works Commissioner James Fleming have taken a more inclusive attitude than their predecessors toward property disposition, a good first step.

Another unfortunate lesson from the clumsy efforts to dispose of the property is that, again, state officials did nothing to protect, enhance or promote the historic buildings on the hospital campus, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
...

 

  4. More funds for regional arts - Courier Mail – Australia

Construction of the new Gallery of Modern Art and the upgrades to the Queensland Art Gallery and State Library of Queensland have been a focus for Arts Minister Rod Welford, but he said the next phase of arts funding was being planned.

"We are constructing a major cultural precinct in Townsville," he said.

"The existing completed QPAC, museum and gallery will obviously need some refurbishment at some stage.

"There has been some work done on a masterplan for QPAC. Like any performing arts venue, we need to maintain it as a modern attractive venue to hold the very best of entertaining shows there.

"I have asked Arts Queensland to do a quick scan of our cultural assets and prepare a needs analysis. That's to see what we have got and what gaps for potential future infrastructure work."

He said the work would feature in future state Budgets, but no timetable or funding had been set down for the work.

He would not elaborate on details of the QPAC masterplan.

Premier Peter Beattie recently hit back at criticism that the cash spent on the Cultural Centre upgrade was at the expense of the regions.

Advocacy group Museum and Gallery Services executive director Suzannah Conway said more funds were needed for regional arts centres, particularly for social history museums.

"Future stresses are probably about buildings and infrastructure in some areas," Ms Conway said.

"The South Bank complex addresses the needs of the state capital and there is good infrastructure there, but there are issues about infrastructure at a regional level. It's a question of whether community museums are state-of-the-art enough to house the collections they have got. That comes down to funding.

"We may need to have a rationalisation of the number of museums we have.

"There has been a lot of discussions recently about creating (larger) regional museums rather than lots of museums with small collections. There are good galleries in regional Queensland . . . that have good facilities. That has happened in the art gallery area and not for the social history museums."

 

   5. FutureGen could have broad impact - Odessa American - Odessa, TX,USA

Teresa Burnett expects Penwell to land the FutureGen power plant — and, in doing so, benefit more than Odessa-Midland.

“We’re preparing for FutureGen as far as to offer those people a home, a place to live, to go to schools and to be able to settle here if they want to,” said Burnett, the executive director of the Monahans Chamber of Commerce.

If the federal Department of Energy and the private FutureGen Alliance choose Penwell in Ector County as the site of the federally funded $1 billion near-zero emissions, coal-fired, next-generation power plant, Burnett said Monahans is in a prime location.

“FutureGen will not be 30 miles away — it’s only 19 miles away,” she said. “People who come to work in the FutureGen project can decide to live in Odessa or Monahans.

...

Stephanie Sparkman, Permian Basin FutureGen Task Force spokeswoman, said including places like Andrews and Monahans in the process is critical to the overall goal of luring FutureGen to Ector County.

“Community support is vital, and we have a tremendous amount of community support in the regional community,” she said. “We want to keep those lines of communication open.”

...

 

  6. U.S. regional communities - sub-State, State or multi-State - in news articles. Highlighted words are Google search terms. In this and the following section, links to websites of organizations are added to the news excerpt when this is the first time an organization has been found. A goal of this newsletter is to find every regional council in the U.S. in a news story.  In most cases, where a full name is present a Google search will quickly get one to that organization. 

 

      a) Sustainability coordinator sought for region
Telluride Daily Planet - Telluride, CO,USA
...
The concept of a regional organization focused specifically on sustainability is fairly new, but both Aspen and Crested Butte have similar models. Kothe said she thinks Telluride will be at the forefront of a movement many other communities will soon be joining. ...

 

 

      b) Policing in an Age of Terror: Prevention is Better Than Cure
Family Security Matters - Ridgewood,

NJ,USA
... centers. State and regional fusion centers are regional intelligence centers that pool information from multiple jurisdictions. Centers ...

 

      c) Region unites on strategy
Bridgeport News - Shelton, CT,USA
... "We are one economic region," Hadley said. "We need to learn how to take advantage of each other's assets and really grow the entire region." The unified push for regional development cooperation was aided in 2005 by a nearly $500,000 federal grant ...

 

      d) Milwaukee 7 seeks magnificent makeover
OnMilwaukee.com - Milwaukee, USA

For more than 50 years, "Milwaukee the city" has had trouble coexisting with "Milwaukee the metro area." Disagreements over annexations, sewerage treatment, transportation, business competition, and water use have sparked some of the major battles.
... a group dedicated to promoting the region as one entity under the "Milwaukee" brand took several stands with one, united voice. The "Milwaukee Seven" -- a group of business, political, and community leaders ...  
 

      e) ABAG: Berkeley Must Double New Housing
Berkeley Daily Planet - Berkeley, CA,USA
... opposition has virtually guaranteed that new projects will focus on the downtown, itself currently subject of a recently mandated new area planning process. ...

 

      f) Holden official hoping to help area tourism grow
News-Herald.com - Willoughby, OH,USA
... Ulas said officials in Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties discussed regionalization of tourism efforts several years ago, but nothing ever developed past the ...

 

      g) A wise step toward meeting water needs
Lynchburg News and Advance - Lynchburg, VA,USA
... And so, with a push from the state, Region 2000’s Local Government Council is in the midst of a regional water supply planning study. ...

 

      h) GUEST COLUMNIST: Regionalization is now becoming a good thing
thepaper24-7.com - USA
Regionalization is a new buzzword in the world of economic development. ... This year, I really encourage you to try shopping locally first. If you don't, next year that local merchant may be gone and you'll have to drive to the mall and pay whatever they ask for those widgets. Regionalization may be a good thing in manufacturing. In retail, local has been, and will continue to be, better.

 

      i) Meadowlands looks to drum up more ecotourism
NorthJersey.com - Hackensack, NJ,USA
... The guide includes a map of the region and pictures of the wildlife that can be found in the marshes as well as the names of hotels, restaurants and other ...

 

      j) New York proposes regional greenhouse gas draft rule
Newsday - Long Island, NY,USA
ALBANY, NY (AP) _ New York officials have released preliminary draft rules for implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to cut power plant emissions ...

 

      k) Regional transit group adds staff to boost regional focus
Phoenix Business Journal - Phoenix, AZ,USA
Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority has hired two deputy executive directors to bring finance and planning expertise to the agency. ...

 

      l) Regional fire group explored
DetNews.com - Detroit, MI,USA
... Township about consolidating fire services into a four-government regional department. ... a year for its partnership in the Plymouth Community Fire Department ...

 

      m) A Chilling Reminder
Energy Central - Denver, CO,USA
... regional solutions that include investment in new and diverse sources of electricity, upgrades to the transmission system, and additional demand response and ...

 

      n) Region 9 releases retail data survey
Farmington Daily Times - Farmington, NM,USA
... assistant director at the Region 9 Economic Development District, said new businesses within Southwest Colorado have kept shoppers in-state but many still drive south for certain purchases.

The Region 9 Economic Development District released a report this week called "Retail Data for Decision Makers" that describes how much money retail sectors earn based on sales tax receipts. ...

 

      o) Connecticut Draws Crowds to Casinos from Entire Region
Online Casino Reports - USA
Connecticut has strong ties to New York, and part of it makes up one side of the Tri-State region. The state, however, is also part of New England. ...

 

      p) Crime is regional, so why not punishment?
OregonLive.com - Portland, OR,USA
... The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs has studied regionalization of jails, understands both the difficulties and the efficiencies, and ...

 

  

  7. Other in the news: Highlighted words are Google search terms.

      a) America's Most Digital Cities Named for 2006
Market Wire (press release) 

The most technology-advanced cities in America ... 2006 Digital Cities Survey. The sixth annual study examines how city governments are utilizing digital technologies to better serve their citizens and streamline operations. ...

 

      b)  Open Course Ware Movement Broadening Global Access to Education
Washington File - Washington, DC,USA
... (MIT) announced in 2001 that it was planning to offer free online access to educational materials from hundreds of its course offerings, the university in Cambridge said it hoped its OpenCourseWare (OCW) Web site would inspire other educational institutions to help create a “worldwide web of knowledge that will benefit humanity.” ... the university appears five years later to be leading an international movement that is affecting education on every continent.  ...

 

      c) The "Next Big Thing" for Global Business
TCS Daily - Washington, DC,USA

... A billion or so poor families and hundreds of millions of informal businesses yield trillions in this "dead capital" (Adam Smith's term). Six years ago, one well-respected researcher published an estimate that this dead capital was worth nearly ten trillion dollars globally. By comparison, the total loss of market capitalization in the 2001 "tech bubble" crash was just over four trillion dollars....

 

      d) Iraq Study Group: Shift mission, go regional
Christian Science Monitor - Boston, MA,USA
... influence in Iraq, the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group unveiled a set of recommendations Wednesday ranging from a broader regional diplomatic effort ...

 

      e) Learning from recipe books that work
Business Day - Johannesburg, South Africa
... Sixth, while regional integration is not key in a developing-country context, openness to the international economy is sine qua non for growth. Regionalism is important, however, in the setting of regional examples of success. ...

 

      f) Councils push for water from coastal region
ABC Online - Australia
Councils in the New South Wales western division will today be asked to support a renewed push to have water from coastal rivers diverted to drought-stricken ...

 

      g) Regional approach long-term solution to specialist shortage
Wanganui Chronicle - Wanganui, New Zealand
... They were agreed that the answer to providing specialist staff for small DHBs was to have a regional pool from which specialists travelled to smaller regions ...

 

      h) Have a say on new regional governance
Times Online - Auckland - New Zealand

... ARC has worked with other Auckland councils and the government on options to strengthen Auckland’s regional governance ...  amalgamation of individual Auckland councils isn’t on the agenda. The discussion document ... at www.arc.govt.nz. ...

 

      i) Canada may pay a price for "nation" resolution
Regina Leader-Post - Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
... Among the new wave of political theorists who analyse ethnically diverse states, nation is the word for these sub-state groups. ...

 

 

  8. Blogs: Highlighted words are Google search terms.

 

     a) What Terrorists Want

tomhull.com/blog/
Fifth -- and this is a controversial point -- terrorism is the act of substate groups, not states. [ . . . ] A sixth characteristic of terrorism is that the victim of the violence and the audience the terrorists are trying to reach are ...

 

      b) This week's column: A tale of two cities
By ajohnson@... ("Allen Johnson")
Remember the good ol' days, when regionalism was at least an ideal worth dreaming of? Now it seems more like a mirage — an unattainable pot of gold on some mystical exit ramp where I-40 touches the horizon. ... 

      c) Bowers on Kilgore on Schaller
By Joe

... We do not run against demographics or regions, as the conservative movement has done for some time in its crusades against immigrants, northeasterners, San Francisco, Hollywood, Massachusetts, homosexuals, Muslims, and whoever else is on their target list at any given moment. Doing that may win you backlash votes in the short term, but over the long-term it builds strong loyalty for your opposition within the demographics you are demonizing.

 

      d) US Army Leadership Field Manual FM 22-100
By Wade
... since Public Health, industry, and the military will need to work together in a complete catastrophic event, whether manmade or natural, it would be a great idea to all be on the same wavelength. The Center for Army Leadership has published just such a "wavelength" that appears to me to be suitable for public ....

 

  9. Sub-State Regions  - New Mexico - U.S. Census – West Region; Mountain Division, FIPS Code 35

Following  is a selection of links relating to regional arrangements in New Mexico. This year each issue features a State with links to maps of regions and regional related resources. The Census Regions and Divisions of the United States map (PDF) is being used going, region by region from the Northeast to the South to the Midwest to the West.

  

      a) NM - Regional Councils List

 

      b) NM Economic Development - Regions

 

      c) NM Tourism Department - Cities, Regions & Maps

 

      d) New Mexico Department of Health Regions

 

      e) New Mexico - Air Quality Control Regions

 

      f) NM State Purchasing - Highway Districts Map

 

      g) NM - Regional Water Plans

 

      h) New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts

 

      i) New Mexico State Employee Alliance - Regions

 

      j) New Mexico Land Title Association

 

10. Announcements and Links

       a) Tri-State Minority Community Economic Development Summit

HispanicBusiness.com - Santa Barbara, CA,USA
Tri State Minority Community Economic Development Summit: Greenlining Institute (www.greenlining.org) and FMCRC (www.fmcrc.org) in partnership with the United States Hispanic Advocacy Association, will work with minority communities in the Tri-State region (NY/PA/NJ) to develop a comprehensive minority community reinvestment model for the region that will lead to significant increased community reinvestment in minority communities/businesses for the region.

 

      b) Government Offices | South West | Regional Intelligence Group

The South West Regional Intelligence Group is a network of around 40 organisations that share a common interest in improving their effectiveness in the collection, analysis and use of data and intelligence about the South West.

 

Chaired by Government Office for the South West, SWRIG  promotes the sharing of information and best practice, as well as highlighting opportunities for collaborative working. SWRIG also comments on, and contributes to, the development of the South West Observatory.

The broad membership of SWRIG is reflected in the range of topics in which it has an interest. These include:

·         The economy

·         Labour Market

·         Education, skills and training

·         Public health

·         Demographics and population

·         Sustainable development

·         Environment and land use

·         Planning and transport

·         Crime

·         Social exclusion

·         Regional and local governance

...

 

11. Google Earth – Special Feature

 

      a) Download Earth

I'm Bill McIntosh and I created this website in order to help the world of computer users with Google Earth. There are a lot of features to Google Earth. There's a lot to know. And it's not only important it's fun to be able to find places near and far to you at the click of a button. I love the ability to be able to see where I'm going before I get there and to make comprehensive maps of places I intend to go. And I just wanted to create a site that would help everyone else be able to do this, too. ...  

      b) Thematic Google Map Creator
By Mapperz (Mapperz)
The Google Map Creator is a freeware application designed to make thematic mapping ... Publishing the map on the web is then just a matter of copying files onto a web ... for values in the attribute data eg any region over 1.0 is red. ...

 

      c) Google Maps and ASP.NET
Sys-Con - Germany

I am sure that most of you have heard about or have had a chance to use Google Maps. It's a great service and I was really impressed by the responsiveness of the application and the ease with which users could drag and zoom maps from a Web browser. It has in many ways heralded the arrival of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which I am sure will revitalize Web development in the days to come.

 

12. Density

      a) Accomack comp plan input yields consensus
Delmarva Daily Times - MD,USA
... Those common planning priorities are the concentration of development in and around existing towns and villages; large lots and lower density development near ...

 

      b) Density is increased to create housing clusters
Wilmington Morning Star - Wilmington, NC,USA
By Gareth McGrath. In a series of decisions Monday, the New Hanover County Commissioners increased the density for several residential projects. ...

 

      c) New Castle County outlines plan to control growth
The News Journal - Wilmington, DE,USA
... Legislation could range from creating new zoning districts and rules allowing greater density to providing more incentives for building on brownfields -- old ...

 

13. Subscription link stories.

      a) Twelve chambers team up to push regional sales tax - Atlanta Journal Constitution (subscription) - GA, USA

A dozen new players join the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce on Friday in trying to convince the Legislature to try a new way to raise money for transportation.

The support of the 12 chambers of commerce from counties across the metro region for a regional sales tax will be announced Friday, according to the Metro chamber and the Regional Business Coalition. If the Legislature approves the idea, two or more counties could band together and propose specific tax programs for their voters' approval.

If those voters approve it, the special local sales taxes would be levied only in those counties to pay for specified projects in those counties. The tax would run for a limited number of years, after which it would require reapproval or expire.

"Roads don't end at county lines," said James McCoy, president and CEO of the Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce, which supports the idea. "Resolving those issues regionally makes an awful lot of sense."

Other ideas have been floated, such as Georgians for Better Transportation's idea to eliminate the gas tax and replace it with a 1 percent statewide sales tax for transportation. The chairman of the state Department of Transportation's board planned to invite proponents for funding increases to discuss the options at a special meeting next week.

Chamber of Commerce officials have frequently said that if traffic congestion wasn't fixed they feared not only that metro Atlanta would stop attracting new businesses, but that it would start losing businesses that are already here. The Atlanta Regional Commission expects the metro area to add 2 million more people by 2030.

"What we've learned from some other regions that have done this is at the end of the day the projects are what's sold it to the voters," said Renay Blumenthal, senior vice president at the metro Atlanta chamber. "It's convinced the voters it would have an impact."

...

      b) Forum report stimulates productive debate - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (subscription) - Milwaukee, WI,USA

A vigorous debate about economic development in Milwaukee has erupted in recent weeks among the city's political and business class, in the wake of a controversial Public Policy Forum report sharply criticizing city policy.

The backdrop to this uproar is the undeniable evidence that the city's labor market is in the midst of a two-decades-long collapse.

When John Norquist became Milwaukee's mayor in 1988, the city had the 16th-lowest unemployment rate among the nation's 50 largest cities, certainly a respectable rank.

Today, we rank 46th. Only Oakland, St. Louis, Fresno and Detroit have higher unemployment rates than Milwaukee.

Unfortunately, the change in city political leadership in 2004 seems to have made little difference on the jobs front.

... the forum report is misleading because it ignores the elephant in the room: Milwaukee's business leadership, which has exerted a controlling influence over city economic development policy during the years that job creation grinded to a halt here.

As the leaders of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the public policy arms of corporate Milwaukee, put it: "The business community's role is to provide economic growth and jobs."

By that criterion, Milwaukee's business leaders have colossally failed this community since the city has had nearly the worst job growth record among big U.S. cities for two decades.

Moreover, corporate Milwaukee has exerted a pernicious influence on local economic development policy.

Notwithstanding business leadership's rhetoric about "market-driven" economic development, corporate Milwaukee has continually demanded public subsidies and incentives, all justified in the interests of job growth.

Yet, since 1990, the end result of providing millions of dollars in business incentives and development subsidies has been a 10% net job loss in Milwaukee.

... latest economic development initiative involves regionalism, the Milwaukee 7 initiative.

We'll have to wait until next year for the details of the Milwaukee 7 regional strategic plan, but city residents will benefit only if it includes regional equity policies, such as sprawl control, transportation investments linking city and suburban employment centers and regional tax-base sharing.

The 2004 MMAC plan, Blueprint for Economic Prosperity, contained little more than ...

       c) Regents debate boundaries for area colleges - Dayton Daily News (subscription) - Dayton, OH,USA

DAYTON — —Two local colleges battling for potential students in Greene County are closely watching a statewide debate involving geographic boundaries for community colleges.

An Ohio Board of Regents task force is looking at whether the state should open up the geographic territories of community colleges, saying the 30-year-old system is obsolete.

At the center of the debate is Greene County, which is in Clark State Community College's service district.

But more than 90 percent, or 2,700, of the county's community college students were enrolled at Sinclair Community College in Dayton last year, not Clark State in Springfield.

Widening the service boundaries could open the door for competition from Sinclair, which currently can't recruit, advertise or market to students in Greene County.

"It's hard for Sinclair to stay away because practically speaking, we're one region," said Steven Lee Johnson, Sinclair president, referring to Greene County. "Clark (State) gets a little uptight about that. We're not necessarily seeing eye-to-eye on this."

Clark State, meanwhile, is working to open a Greene County branch near Interstate 675 within 90 days, said college President Karen Rafinski. "We believe that Clark State's future lies in Greene County, and we are aggressively moving forward," she said.

Rafinski hopes Clark State and Sinclair can form a partnership to serve the county.

Both colleges have courted Greene County officials while the Regents task force has been under way, said County Commissioner Ralph Harper.

"Both had consultants prepare reports about what our county needs," he said. "Both make sense to me. I hope they can work together."

 

 

14. Google News for “Regional Community”

 

Other menu sections available from this link include: Regional Development; Regional Council;  Regional Commission; Regional America; Regional Asia; Regional Europe; Regional Competition; Regionalism; Intergovernmental and other search terms. They can be sorted by date or relevance. These are among the 50 search terms I use to produce this newsletter.