Community Motive 🌎🌍🌏Think Local Planet, Act Regionally!: Why focus on COGs/Regional Councils in the U.S.? "the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states"

The prior three posts which demonstrate the levels of the global geocode will raise the question, "Why focus on COGs/Regional Councils in the U.S.? The following excerpt from the paper: "Prototype Global Geocoding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management - Wikipedia Example," a paper to be presented at the Applied Geography Conference, October 31, 2013 in Annapolis, Maryland.

4. SUBNATIONAL GEOCODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES FOR REGIONS

"The historic primary substate political region of States is the county or its equivalent. It is for these areas that Census data is collected and maintained. Four states have independent cities for which census data is collected. Virginia has 39, while Maryland, Missouri and Nevada each have one. Though Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have eliminated some or all counties, census data is compiled for historic counties which have no current governance function. State data is collected on the same geography and is a resource.

"As previously noted, though Federal programs have encouraged and funded multi-jurisdictional regional approaches, the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states. Generally there are a variety of agency based multi-jurisdictional substate district systems used by departments and agencies for program administration. While they may interface with localities and local officials for planning and programming, there is rarely a representative organizational structure. The Federal Metropolitan Planning Organization process is an exception, but it is confined to the defined urbanized areas and is for transportation planning only. Regional councils are, or can be, multi-issue in their planning.

"The prototype uses the state based COG/regional council alignments as the substate region. Most states have complete systems.For Delaware and Hawaii, the county is the substate region. Compared to other systems of substate regions, the COG/regional councils have the advantage of local government representation appointed by the member local governments, the responsibility for a variety of planning processes which include local government planners, and, in many cases, the ability to implement or promote the implementation of regional programs. Having worked together for over 40 years in some regions, there is some “regional community” social capital. Staffs work with communities and their data, in effect cultivating “regional intelligence.” Multi-state councils enable coordination across state lines, while operating consistent with regional council requirements of each state. A national, single-layer of substate regions is the base product. If substate region boundaries are renegotiated, as is underway in Connecticut, the codes can be changed to match new alignments. Multi-state regions are the sum of substate components."

Sub-State Region Maps for the U.S.

In 2011, two posts were made showing substate region maps for COGs/Regional Councils and alternatives for those with incomplete systems by state. Part 1 - Maine to Texas and Part 2 - Michigan to Hawaii

If you are interested in more information, send me an email for the current paper and related information. Tom.Christoffel (at) gmail.com

Prototype for Global Coding of Political Geographies Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example

The system is based on a geocode scheme set up for earth that focuses on established political boundaries as a basis for regional grouping of nations, states and localities. It is decimal system based to take advantage of the sort criteria for numbers in computers. It utilized the Sector Group and Region codes of the United Nations and ISO. Geographic information system technology does not solve the problem, but its tools can be used with the geocodes.

The geocode system effectively organizes Wikipedia entries as a library management and the geocodes can be used for data aggregation. This has been developed under a Creative Commons license and would benefit from a global network implementation where local users cooperatively related subnational geographic regions and component political geography.

Examples are at the links which follow:

1. Global Geocode Library Use Organizes Wikipedia Pages Geographically

2. Global Geocode Library Use Organizes U.S. State Wikipedia Pages Geographically

3. Global Geocode Library Organizes U.S. Sub-state and Multi-state Region Wikipedia Pages Geographically

4. Why focus on COGs/Regional Councils in the U.S.? "the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states"

Contact: Tom Christoffel

Community Motive – Three Thoughts by Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, 3/16/09-revised 9/29/09; 9/26/11

Based on my experience as a regional planner and agency director, 1973 -2008, and in recognition of emerging "regional communities," I developed three thoughts about community that relate to the challenge of working across-boundaries as greater or regional communities. The thoughts/theses apply for communities at the scale of bonding or bridging social capital as defined by Robert D. Putnam, which is alternately local or regional. (link below)

As of 2011, considering the global financial crisis brought about by pursuit of the "profit motive," it struck me that this has come to dominate modern life. This is a relatively new invention of civilization and wasn't a concern for most of the time that homo sapiens has been on the planet.

The three thoughts below that had emerged in my experience of working on regional cooperation now represent what I now posit as the "community motive." Concern about "profit" can emerge within an established community over time, but, to my mind the "profit motive" does not exist in the wild.

1) Community precedes cooperation.
2) Community is how life solves all problems.
3) Security is the primary purpose of community.

These three thoughts, theses if you will, are the basis of the "community motive." Following is some exposition about each one.

As I see it, security has always been the priority for humans since the plains of Africa. That's why communities first seek to establish defensible boundaries. After the basics are in place, security focus shifts to the social and economic. Boundaries work like the membrane in the osmosis experiment most of us have seen in a science class. The membrane is a filter that lets the good things pass through, but keeps unwanted things out. (Osmosis -YouTube - 45 sec.)

The evolved political boundaries of today have consequence. The rules change when you cross them. Though marked on the ground and fortified in some instances, they are conceptual, as pictured above, with Universe Man. The boundary divides the space between local, that within, and regional, everything outside, as labeled in the second panel. The third panel repeats the image within, to show, without graphic elegance, that the land on which Universe Man sits is regional at another scale, as determined by other boundaries, and another area that's local. A territory is both local and regional, depending upon the perspective.

Communities of communities, “regional communities” are greater communities organized to solve a problem, be it managing a watershed, strengthening an economic cluster or ensuring peer competition for school sports. Regional boundaries can be imposed for administrative purposes within states, but for these to be a basis for effective cooperation, a greater community sense is needed for that geography among the people. This is true for multi-state and multi-national regional communities as well. The leaders with such a vision can build a regional community by finding that which is already in place.

This is not to suggest that community is easy to build in order to solve problems. In a crisis, humans of any culture, belief or politics can quickly come together and self-organize to save themselves and others. It was the on-the- ground response to the 9/11 attacks that demonstrated to me the deep responsiveness of human community, as well as the fundamental importance of security. Community is how humans have always survived. This, I think, extends to all life forms.

The "community motive" comes into play when there is a problem to be solved. In a monetized civilization, the "profit motive" may be an incentive for some action, but most of the problems of life don't have a check at the end for their solution. They are things that must be done. Because this is the case, humanity has been able to perpetuate. ©

For more on Regional Community and Scale, see the Slideshare box below.

To learn about bridging and bonding social capital, read Chapter 1 of Bowling Alone: the collapse and revival of American community By Robert D. Putnam

Community Motive 🌎🌍🌏Think Local Planet, Act Regionally!

Why focus on COGs/Regional Councils in the U.S.? "the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states"

Sub-State Region Maps for the U.S.

No comments:

Post a Comment

"Community Motive" - What is it?

Prototype for Global Coding of Political Geographies Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example

Search This Blog

Earth ( we know its a spherical whole)

Universe Man at the Boundary

Local Planet - Regional Space

Our Local Planet has systems of Political Geographies which combine as Regional/Greater Communities

Community Motive – Three Thoughts by Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, 3/16/09-revised 9/29/09; 9/26/11

Regional Community News

Financial Crisis - New Necessity for Cooperation

Slideshare - PowerPoints and PDFs

Regional "Communites of Practice"

Facebook Badge

StatCounter

Blog Archive