1.  Regional cooperation key to Louisville's success -  Leaf-Chronicle – Clarksville, Tenn. – USA

Clarksville and Hopkinsville leaders gathered last week to take a deep look at how Louisville and southern Indiana are working together on regional economic development.

What they found were groups on two sides of the Ohio River and in different states working on an interesting mix of communication and cooperation.

The key issues being tackled are business recruitment, transportation improvements and education.

"Regionalism is where the action is, " Metro Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson told delegates from Clarksville and Hopkinsville. "It (is) purely economic. I prefer to work hand-in-glove on interstate cooperation and see a company locate in nearby southern Indiana rather than in Memphis."

The framework for collaboration in the Louisville region is chambers of commerce and economic development agencies in several counties in both Kentucky and Indiana.

Greater Louisville Inc. is the merged Chamber of Commerce/economic development agency for the Kentucky side. One Southern Indiana is a similar entity for two counties, Clark and Floyd, in southern Indiana.

These agencies joined with other groups and businesses to form a Regional Leadership Coalition. Grants totaling $400, 000 from two nonprofit foundations helped get the organization off the ground.

The regional approach has led to some concrete action. In April 2007, Greater Louisville Inc. and One Southern Indiana signed a formal agreement to cooperatively market, attract and retain businesses in the region. The two groups also helped form the Ohio River Bridges Project, a regional effort aimed at solving a key transportation problem — aging and inadequate bridges across the river.

...

"Economic development used to be about 'location, location, location.' Now that's shifting to 'work force, work force, work force, '" said Michael Dalby, president of One Southern Indiana.

As a result, the regional coalition is working to ...

RC: Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency

 

  2.  KC should look to Seattle for inspiration - Kansas City Star - MO, USA

More than 120 Kansas City area civic leaders saw a lot to like and imitate during their three-day visit this week to the Puget Sound.

Top lessons learned: The Kansas City region simply must invest more time and money in higher-quality universities, in life-sciences research, in a regional transit plan and in a lively downtown.

Still, the trip will have yielded little more than some business networking and late-night bar tabs unless the people who came to Seattle address key questions in upcoming months.

...

•When will suburban mayors realize their job isn’t solely to preside over a nice place for people to live and shop, but to help support a thriving metropolitan area?

...

•Do some of Kansas City’s major institutions — the Mid-America Regional Council, the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce — need new leaders? Or new missions?

Smart, hard-working veterans lead the agencies’ staffs: David Warm at MARC, Jewel Scott at the Civic Council and Pete Levi at the chamber.

While having a gung-ho, younger leader might be intriguing at all three institutions, the truly basic problem is that all three groups follow the traditional conservative leadership style of Kansas City: Get involved, but don’t push too hard or too publicly for change.

One of the prime stumbling blocks is the ongoing suburban vs. urban tussles between political and business officials.

For example, the elected officials on the MARC board have chosen not to act together to implement earth-shaking changes such as a region-wide transit system, even though Warm and his staff developed a pretty good SmartMoves plan.

Seattle is far from perfect. But the recent trip ought to help energize key Kansas City area political and business leaders to work more smartly to improve life for their residents and their employees.

 

  3.  Local leaders in Denver for inspiration – al-com - Birmingham, AL, USA

Look for obvious and not-so-obvious solutions to improve regionalism, research-based economic development and mass transit in Denver that can be applied

in Birmingham - and then go back and start working on them, UAB President Carol Garrison told a delegation of community, business and elected leaders Sunday.

The group of more than 110 people is in the Mile High City with the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce for a 48-hour crash course on lessons leaders there have learned when they worked to establish funding for transit, bolster research-based development and unify Denver's seven-county metro area.

"There is much to learn in Denver, " Garrison, the chairwoman of the chamber's board, told the group as they noshed on chili, spicy chicken salad and ranch beans at the Hyatt Regency hotel Sunday afternoon during the chamber's sixth Birmingham Innovation Group, or BIG, trip.

Attendees include the mayors of Birmingham, Hoover and Gardendale; representatives from the Jefferson County Commission, economic development officials and state legislators.

"A community is much like a college or university in that it should never stop striving to be the very best it can, " Garrison said.

She added that Birmingham "is making significant progress, had made significant progress and will continue to make significant progress."

She urged attendees to strive to work together to produce real results from the Denver trip. To help promote that, the chamber for the first time will organize subcommittees after the group returns on specific topics such as regionalism, public transportation and public-private partnerships to promote university research and economic development.

"We've been going on these trips for six years, so this is a natural progression, " ...

RC: Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham

 

  4. Solid waste deserves a regional approach - Lynchburg News and Advance - Lynchburg, VA, USA

In just three minutes last Tuesday night, the Board of Supervisors in Amherst County dealt a body blow to the concept of regionalism in Central Virginia.

On a 4-1 vote, the supervisors decided not to join the regional solid waste commission, which the counties of Nelson and Campbell along with the cities of Bedford and Lynchburg have already formed. Under the pact, the members would have started hauling their waste to landfills in each of the member jurisdictions, beginning first with Lynchburg.

That would have continued for six years, or until the city’s landfill filled up. Then the member localities would have turned to Campbell County for the next nine years.

...

Region 2000 has been studying the concept of a regional solid waste initiative for several years and thought a stop-gap solution to the long-term problem of trash disposal had been devised. By forming a regional authority and utilizing landfills in Lynchburg, Amherst and Campbell on a rotating basis, planners hoped to gain a 20-year bit of breathing room, time to develop new, high-tech, cost-effective ways to deal with solid waste well into the 21st century.

Now, thanks to shortsightedness on the part of Amherst County’s elected leaders, that’s all thrown into doubt. At the very least, that 20-year window of opportunity has been severely shortened.

Amherst County, whether its elected leaders like it or not, is part of a regional economy, is part of Central Virginia. The county’s residents commute to jobs in Lynchburg, Bedford or Campbell. Lynchburgers come to Madison Heights to buy cars or eat out.

Bottom line, Amherst is not an island unto itself, divorced from its neighboring jurisdictions. Amherst’s elected officials have bought into the concept of regionalism when it’s benefited them: Economic development, transportation planning and the regional jail authority ...

RC: Region 2000 Regional Commission

 

  5.  Economic Development Collaboration Funds Research of Fragmented Government in Northeast Ohio  - Fund for Our Economic Future

The Fund for Our Economic Future voted today to assist in paying for a research project that will assess the costs and benefits of Northeast Ohio's fragmented governance structure.

The Fund, which unites philanthropy to support regional economic development, will contribute as much as $100, 000 to the study, which will measure the costs of government to the typical citizen of Northeast Ohio compared to analogous regions with fewer governments per capita or more substantive forms of government collaboration.

"This study is a proactive effort to bring facts to a sometimes emotional debate. With no preconceived notions, we hope to learn the costs and benefits of having many local governments, " said Brad Whitehead, president of the Fund. "We hope the study's findings will provide the region with guidance on how best to proceed to maximize government efficiency and effectiveness in Northeast Ohio."

Increasing government efficiency is one of the four focus areas of the region's economic action plan, Advance Northeast Ohio. The Fund is working with partners in the public and private sectors to implement the plan.

The fragmented government study is expected to cost $175, 000, with additional funds being used for communication and citizen engagement. Other funders of the study include the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber and the Samuel H. and Maria Miller Foundation. Pending funders include the George Gund Foundation and the Greater Cleveland Partnership.

The Fund and its partners in the study intend to retain the Center for Governmental Research, Inc. (CGR) of Rochester, NY, which has conducted several similar studies in other regions. CGR will research the costs of government in the four Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Northeast Ohio: Akron, Canton, Cleveland and Youngstown. The findings will be compared with costs of government in communities outside of Northeast Ohio.

"Taking an objective look at the structure and cost of local governments in the region will provide a fact-based starting point for identifying opportunities to improve how local government services are provided in Northeast Ohio, " said Charles Zettek Jr., CGR's director of local government management services.

 

  6. Tokyo's neon lights to dim as Japan ages - Washington Post, United States 

... suburbs of Tokyo, built by the government to accommodate people who flocked to the capital from the countryside as Japan's population exploded in the past few decades, will be hit hard as Japan's population shrinks to an estimated 90 million in 2055 from around 127 million today.

Experts predict that some of these suburbs of high-rise apartment complexes could become ghost-towns ...

Some senior citizens who can afford to buy property in central Tokyo are moving out and the population is already starting to decline in some areas, hurting the local economy. Corner stores are shutting down and streets are often deserted.

...

Development experts say the Tokyo metropolitan government should start preparing now for the city's grey future, such as building old age homes for the millions of elderly people who will need nursing care as their health declines.

"Few local governments appear to recognize this, " said Kosuke Motani, an expert on regional development at the Development Bank of Japan.

Some experts say the Tokyo metropolitan government, now busy with its bid to host the 2016 Olympics, is turning a blind eye to its likely demography in less than a decade.

COMPACT CITIES

Though greater Tokyo does not yet have a clear strategy for dealing with its graying population, some other Japanese cities are already taking steps of their own.

Aomori, near the northern end of Japan's main island of Honshu, has banned development work in suburbs to bring those living on the outskirts back to the city centre.

Aomori's attempt to turn itself into a "compact city" by concentrating the dispersed population in the city centre near railway stations is seen as a model for many other cities in Japan and abroad that are facing steep drops in population.

...

 

  7. Taking faith in community - Citizens Voice - Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA

Patty Conklin watched the neighborhood around her church fade from a manicured corner of a busy business district to a place she wouldn't want to be at night.

...

She and other religious people throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania are acting through their churches to take on very secular issues of community development and government.

About a dozen congregations have joined in an ecumenical group called Faith Speaking With One Voice. They hope to transform the region by taking on crime and drugs, as well as a lower-profile scourge: the fractured array of postage-stamp municipalities.

...

Small municipalities struggle to deliver services and are taxing themselves out of existence as they try to keep up. The lack of cooperation, the group feels, hampers the region's ability to attract employers and jobs.

Church groups are getting involved now because they see a languid economy and loss of good jobs as one cause of consolidating churches, closing parochial schools and even the departure of Scranton's last kosher butcher.

"We are not just doing this because it's right or because we are nice people, " said Faith Speaking State Coordinator Pete da Silva. "There is some self interest in play - like any community institution, we need people to survive."

Most faith systems, da Silva said, can be boiled down to three exhortations: prayer, study, and action. Far too many, in his view, fail on the action.

Many regions have ecumenical councils of churches, some with hundreds of member congregations. But meetings rarely attract more than 20 representatives who focus on relief for hurricane victims or injustices in Darfur, da Silva said, but rarely confront problems in their own communities.

Although Faith Speaking is comprised of people from various churches, Conklin said many people wrongfully view it as a religious group.
...
RC: Northeastern Pennsylvania Alliance (NEPA)

 

  8. Bruns talks regional cooperation - Wyoming Business Report - Cheyenne, WY, USA

The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s new super computer project will help expand the technology corridor from the Colorado Front Range north into Wyoming, according to Cheyenne LEADS President Randy Bruns.

And Bruns said that’s important because the Front Range corridor communities all need to work together to surmount growing work-force shortages.

“We’re all going to benefit up and down the Front Range, ” Bruns said of the NCAR project. “And we all need to, because we’re in a race, a race for workers…. That shortage is not going to go away. That shortage is going to hit nationally.”

Bruns said he supports the regional push to “cement our future on the backs of computers, the computer industry and technology. NCAR is a piece of that.”

But, he added, “we’re going to have to work together to establish ourselves as a corridor, as a center for technology, or we’re all going to lose out.”

...

  9. Dreaming big in a small valley - Napa Valley Register - Napa, CA, USA

...

Beaulieu, who chaired the Contra Costa County Cultural Commission for the past four years, attended the American Canyon meeting to offer his experience and encourage the community to think regionally about the arts.

“A rising tide raises all the ships, ” Beaulieu said. “At some point, all this energy can come together and we can create a more regionally powerful and cohesive art community.”

On a county level, that’s exactly what Arts Council Napa Valley is engaged in this month, with four more “town hall” meetings from Napa to Angwin.

“This is a movement, ” said Arts Council director Michelle Williams.

The cultural planning process began, Williams said, when valley leaders realized that between 2004 and 2006, “we lost 12 arts organizations, including galleries, performance groups, dance groups and theater companies.”

The lack of planning made it difficult for the arts to thrive, Williams said. Beginning early this year with support from the Community Foundation, Arts Council began working on what will eventually become the valley’s cultural plan.

“It’s a series of recommendations to help strengthen the arts, and it’s a road map, ” Williams said.

The “town hall” meetings like Monday’s are at the heart of the planning process: This is when anyone can weigh in during a conversation moderated by consultant Morrie Warshawski.

Williams said language should be no barrier to Spanish-speaking residents: Arts Council will have a translator, “whisper machines” and Spanish-language materials at each meeting.

 

10. 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. 

    .10  Cooperation needed to create a climate for entrepreneurs
Surry Business – NC, USA

Regional cooperation in rural America is rare, however, he said. In most successful regional collaborations, Drabenstott continued, “there is an organization that brings the community together — a ‘King Arthur’ who creates the regional roundtable. In many cases, the catalyst of regional cooperation is either a non-profit group or a university or community college.” ...

 

    .11  Breakfast meeting promotes regionalism
The Southern - Carbondale, IL, USA

Organizers of the first-ever Prosperity through Partnership breakfast called in one of regionalism's biggest boosters to help them promote the concept to the novices in the room. ...

 

    .12  Making smarter use of region's hydropower
Buffalo News - NY, United States
Think of the giant hydropower plant north of Niagara Falls as a set of jumper cables with enough juice to help restart the stalled regional economy. Smart allocation of the low-cost power it generates could give a boost to key business sectors deemed as having the best growth prospects.  ...

 

    .13  Region can soar with aerotropolis
Detroit Free Press - United States
Passenger and freight rail will take on new importance to our region. Plans are already underway to connect Detroit and Ann Arbor through commuter rail. ...

 

    .14  Doak: Iowa isn't enough. Sell the best region in the nation: the Midwest

DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Moines, IA, USA
Iowans need to start thinking more regionally - not just regionally within the state but regionally across state lines. We should begin to see ourselves as a part of something bigger - the Midwest.  ...

 

    .15  Southwest Tenn. Development District gets a new CEO
Jackson Sun - Jackson, TN, USA

Joe Barker, executive director for Tennessee Tomorrow Inc., recently accepted the position as chief executive officer with the Southwest Tennessee Development District. ...

 

    .16  New program hopes to tap into state's rural assets
Palladium-Item - Richmond, IN, USA

... program is based on one developed in Nebraska and aligns with the Rural Indiana Strategy for Excellence 2020, a 15-year initiative addressing regional planning, education and health care, among other topics.

 

    .17  BOC sends letter to OPAC protesting state's proposed methods of establishing Marine Reserves
Curry County Reporter - Gold Beach, OR, USA
... concerns regarding the establishment of Marine Reserves and Wave Energy in the first three miles of the Curry County coast. ...  "Why can't one reserve be established within a bioregion with all habitat types in it?  ...

 

    .18  Drinking Water on Decline in Charles, Study Finds
Washington Post - United States
The agency, which is finishing a study of Southern Maryland's water supply, briefed local officials on the findings at a Tri-County Council for Southern ...

 

    .19  Detroit Renaissance joins state to promote growth
DetNews.com - Detroit, MI, USA

... an official corporate partner with the Michigan Economic Development Group. ....

The MEDC has partnerships with 132 economic development organizations to promote development and create jobs, ...

 

    .20  Freeholder candidates want less county power
Cherry Hill Courier Post - Cherry Hill, NJ, USA
"As opposed to let's chop up a neighborhood, we need a serious long-term solution, " said Marino, suggesting instead a regional, tri-state solution to create ...

 

    .21  Atlanta Regional Commission to vote on $67 billion to-do list
Atlanta Journal Constitution - GA, USA
The Atlanta Regional Commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the Regional Transportation Plan, a 25-year to-do list of $67 billion worth ...

 

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

    .10  EU still aims for balanced economic growth
Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan
From its earliest days, the European Union has aimed for balanced economic development across its many regions. ...

 

    .11  Commission Communication on "Competitive European regions through research and innovation"

... policy paper presented last week, the European Commission seeks to offer guidance to national and regional authorities on how to interlink Cohesion Policy programmes with innovation ...

 

    .12  Universities Could Play a Greater Role in Regional Development
Xorte-com

Universities could play a stronger role in the economic, cultural and social development of their regions, according to a new OECD report. Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged argues that regional ...

 

    .13  International Conference To Explore Community Tourism
PR-GB.com (press release) - Sofia, Bulgaria

... region to understand the common challenges associated with the development of the various types of community tourism programmes. ... European partners in the CANTATA Programme ...

 

    .14  Diversity and civic disengagement
Economic Times – India

A recent survey conducted by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam covering 41 communities, including Boston, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, has underscored this growing body of research that points to diverse populations extending themselves less on behalf of collective needs and goals. He found that more diverse communities tended to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television”. ...

 

    .15  Passengers desert London for regional airports
Telegraph-co-uk - United Kingdom

British travellers are deserting Gatwick and Heathrow in favour of regional airports, according to figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority ...

 

    .16  Kingdom's Economic Growth Is Par Excellence
Arab News - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), located in Rabigh, near Jeddah, is the largest of the four new cities planned. In all six new cities have been announced. These cities are intended to function as catalysts for regional development. ...

 

    .17  Rise above geographical boundaries for regional development
The Daily Star - Dhaka, Bangladesh
He said local and regional development is not possible with the help of distant international bodies like International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank ...

 

    .18  Grasping the full economic impact of Caribbean tourism
Jamaica Gleaner - Kingston, Jamaica
Past agreements with Europe have treated tourism as if it we are in some way marginal to regional development. "By every measure, we are central to the ...

 

    .19  Africa: Improved Regional Integration Still Key for Success
AllAfrica.com - Washington, USA
And many of those woes could be solved through development of further intraregional trade. "The relatively small weight of intraregional trade in Africa, ...

 

    .20  Skilled workforce shortage: Hard realities
Sify - Taramani, Chennai, India
The Government's role would have to change from being a vocational training provider to a partner and facilitator, the report concludes. ...

 

    .21  Nine cases of Ebola confirmed in DR Congo region
AFP -
Nine cases of Ebola virus have been confirmed in the West Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo that is at the epicentre of an ...

 

    .22  'Future directions for evidence-based decision making in the Pacific'
Saipan Tribune - Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia
"Future directions for evidence-based decision making in the Pacific' is the theme for the regional meeting of the heads of Planning and Heads of Statistics ...

 

12. Blogs: Highlighted words are Google search terms.

    .10  One Long Island Project: Dynamic, Collaborative and Sustainable Regionalism ...
By LIIF(LIIF)
First a word about the posts and ideas on the Long Island Idea Factory site. While we are primarily concerned with our home region of Long Island, we believe that many of the ideas we are proposing would work in other regions of New York State and elsewhere as well....

 

    .11  Transportation Regionalism
By cthompson
He said he hopes to make Burke "a national model for mixed use and general aviation." The mayor also laid out a vision for what he called "transportation regionalism, " a vision to bolster the region as a major transportation hub. ...

 

    .12  Cleveland + Minus Akron & Canton
By Ed Esposito(Ed Esposito)
So much for regionalism; what I'm sure was an off-handed remark to a couple hundred Cleveland big shots reflects more of the real thinking along the lakefront when it comes to regionalism and just how far folks will go in turning ...

 

    .13  Humble Dean emphasizes education, regionalism
By Rob Robinson
While observing that it was not a focal point of the campaign, Dean stated that regionalism and a move toward regional thinking for Nashville and its satellite cities would be a major priority during his time in office. ...

 

    .14  Regional economic development: Generation change
By Ed Morrison
Here is one of the most thoughtful analyses I've come across on the generational shift taking place in regional economic development. It's just that in Youngstown, the shift is clearer to see, and we have people like Phil Kidd and John ...

 

    .15  East Portland
By Urban Planning Overlord(Urban Planning Overlord)
And, as overlords in the know can attest, counties do a lousy job of local area planning for a number of political and institutional reasons. When Portland and Gresham annexed these areas in the 1980's and 1990's they were characterized ...

 

    .16  SI WORKS for Southern Illinois
By Amelia
The mission of SI WORKS is to develop plans to establish an innovative regional economy that is competitive with that in other parts of the state. The program will accomplish this by creating a "robust healthcare system that utilizes ...

 

    .17  Diving Deeper into University Changes
By cthompson
As I've noted before, regionalism doesn't make hard decisions go away. But it should mean that people involved in the decision-making process trust each other and the process enough to have confidence that the outcome will be best for ...

 

    .18  Suburban Networking: Silicon Prairie Social
By Eric Waltmire

Connect local people with others in their industry and build community; Raise the profile of the Silicon Prairie through the publicity generated around the events; Foster investment and economic development in the region by showcasing local businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups. ...

 

    .19  Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Announced
"The GTA is home to a diverse cluster of technology companies, ranging from telecommunications to software and hardware developers, and with green technologies quickly emerging as a lucrative new sector, the region is well placed to ...

 

    .20  New articles at C@tO
By Andy Miah
This article offers a detailed look at regionalism when devising a cultural programme for an Olympic and Paralympic Games. Regionalism is an area rarely dealt with successfully by Olympic hosts, in part because the Games contracts are ...

 

    .21  The Toaster awards for crimes against amenity
By Phil
Regional winners were Stocklands for a shopping mall in Mudgee and a residential development in Vincentia, with the most environmentally-destructive regional development going to Centennial Coal for the Anvil Hill coal mine in the ...

 

    .22  Top Six Regional Conservation Priorities
By Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Comprised of the Metropolitan Washington District Council of the Urban Land Institute, the Metropolitan Washington Builders' Council, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade, Enterprise Community ...

 

    .23  Ethiopia gears up to benefit from landmark coffee-name trademark ...
By Africa News Network(Africa News Network)
A precedent-setting deal with coffee giant Starbucks this year allows Ethiopia to promote the names of its coffee-growing regions worldwide. Hopes are high that this strategy will increase the coffee's value and hopefully bring a ...

 

    .24  We're from the guv'mint...an' we're heah to he'p you...or not
"It really appears to me that the state has had an overabundance of caution to prevent fraud and abuse, " said Walter Diggles, executive director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments. "Every time we talk to them they say, 'Look, ...

 

    .25  Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council Newsletter
By Roger Green(Roger Green)
The Fall 2007 Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Review - Newsletter of the G/FLRPC has come out, featuring: · Tracking Our Changing Region: The Regional Land Use Monitoring Report · Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) Program Update ...

 

    .26  What Baristaville Can Learn From Katrina
"You must work regionally and cooperatively and think about where you make investments, " said powell, of the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University.

 

    .27  New Vision for a Historic Space
By Peter Hellman
The pair -- a nonpracticing architect and Slow Food advocate, Robert LaValva, and a city planner, Jill Slater -- is determined to see the historic Tin Building reborn as a public market offering regionally produced artisanal foods. ...

 

13. Announcements and Regional Links

    .10  More on megaregions - At Lincoln House, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy – USA

The planning concept of megaregions - areas with common economic and planning goals that spill over the boundaries of major metropolitan areas and of states as well, like the Boston-Washington corridor or the Pacific Northwest - face challenges in the areas of governance, transportation policy, and shifting economic geographies, according to a new report by the Lincoln Institute and the Regional Plan Association.

    Megaregions, a termed coined by Armando Carbonell, chair of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute, and Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, have become an important construct in the national planning framework, informed by American, European, and Asian precedents. The Lincoln Institute and RPA have convened several conferences to explore the idea of spatial planning in the US.  One such gathering in Healdsburg, Calif. in April, produced a compilation of papers in the report,  "The Healdsburg Research Seminar on Megaregions". The case studies include a look at infrastructure and environment problems in California, transportation planning and existing regional planning organizations in Texas, urban and rural densities in the Midwest, and the polycentric model in Western Europe.

    "Each of these papers deals with a particular piece of the geographic puzzle, and contributes greatly to megaregion theory, planning, and policy development, " says Carbonell.

    More information on megaregions is available at the Web site America 2050. Megaregions also factor into new thinking on national transportation planning and funding mechanism, in another joint publication of the Lincoln Institute and the RPA, "The National Roundtable on Surface Transportation."

    .11  2007 State of the Future

The 2007 State of the Future report offers well-researched evidence of global trends and challenges that are shaping the agenda of the United Nations. Executive Summary and elements available on-line as downloads.

 

    .12  Developing regional clusters and networks - Berlin - November 15, 2007

Cluster are a popular policy tool: Many cities and regions support networks of companies and science in specific branches and technologies to boost innovation and regional development. But the successful management of such knowledge-intensive networks is challenging: Cluster managers and policy makers need sound information to formulate strategies, monitor success and communicate their networking activities. Appropriate tools for the management of clusters are therefore gaining importance.

Within the RICARDA project researchers and practitioners from Austria, Sweden, Hungary and Germany have explored the potentials of intellectual capital reporting for regional networks during the last two years. This method was originally developed for private companies. Intellectual capital reports support management and policy makers developing cluster initiatives by highlighting the intangible assets of networks: What know-how do members bring to the network? How do they cooperate? Of what quality are the networks linkages with important stakeholders?

Programme and registration:

http://www.ricarda-project.org/news/ricarda.programme.pdf
http://www.difu.de/english/

Contacts: Daniel Zwicker-Schwarm  Holger Floeting

 

14. Subscription

    .10  More commuter delays ahead? - Dallas Morning News (subscription) - TX, USA

Yesterday was a bad day to go to work – even by Monday morning standards.

Tens of thousands of downtown-bound DART riders quickly learned that weekend construction that should have been finished by 5 a.m. was still very much under way, delaying trains for as long as two or more hours.

Meanwhile, drivers didn't fare much better. A police chase that ended when a suspect shot himself to death kept Central Expressway closed in both directions for much of the early rush hour.

And that's not even the bad news, transportation officials say.

If Monday was bad – future delays are only likely to be that bad or worse, they said.

Travel time is getting slower every year, thanks to the nonstop population growth and a bottleneck of road and rail projects that can't seem to keep up with demand.

"All of our excess capacity has been taken out of the system, " said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. "So if you have a construction project that takes longer than it should, a major freeway incident, or even just a special event [held downtown] during a busy time – any of those events and you may see delays on the road."

...

Problems ahead

Dallas traffic problems are not hard to understand, Mr. Morris and other officials say.

The population here adds a million people every seven years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Traffic has grown, too, and at a much faster clip than the combined capacity of new and old roads.

Over the last 20 years, for instance, traffic on freeways has about doubled, the total miles of freeway lanes has jumped just about 32 percent, according to a study released this month by the Texas Transportation Institute.

...

 

 15. Google News for “Regional Community”

Other menu sections available from this link include: regions, regional, regional community, region, Regional Council, regional development 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.