Community Motive 🌎🌍🌏Think Local Planet, Act Regionally!: Sep 23, 2009

6th Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtable

Smart and Sustainable – Local & Regional, State and Multi-State -
How will planning contribute to achieving these goals of the citizenry?

September 30 – October 1, 2009 - Frederick, Maryland

For: Planners and Elected and Appointed Officials, Business Persons and Citizens

Sponsored by: Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division, American Planning Association and APA Chapters: Delaware, Maryland, National Capital Area, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia to allow no admission cost to participants.

Hosted by: Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG)

Historic Roundtable Support: AMPO, NADO, NARC

Location: Cultural Arts Center of Frederick County, 15 W Patrick St., Frederick, Maryland 21701

Wednesday, September 30 - Late afternoon and Evening

Frederick, Maryland: Mid-Atlantic Regional Hub - Downtown Walking Tour Workshop

Cultural Arts Center of Frederick County - 15 W. Patrick St, Frederick, Maryland 21701

Frederick is a regional hub in the Mid-Atlantic and a living example of the benefits of planning coordination at the city, county, regional, state and multi-state levels. This history and the current results will be shared in a Downtown Walking Tour Workshop beginning at 4:15 p.m. AICP certification - Proposed AICP credit - 1. At 6 p.m. there will be a Dutch treat dinner at Patrick's Irish Pub and Restaurant followed by speakers explaining the City-County relationships and agreements that are models for smart growth and sustainability in a network of wider regions.

Thursday, October 1 – Morning and Afternoon (Proposed AICP credit - 4 )

Smart and Sustainable – Local & Regional, State and Multi-State -

How will planning contribute to achieving these goals of the citizenry?

8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Continental Breakfast - Cultural Arts Center of Frederick County

15 W Patrick St, Frederick, MD

9:00 – 9:30 - Welcome and Introductions

Welcome by Frederick officials and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments

Program Introduction - Bob Leiter, FAICP, San Diego Association of Governments, Director of Land Use and Transportation Planning; Chair, APA Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division

9:30 -10:45 - Panel 1 – Metropolitan Council and State Perspectives – Smart and Sustainable

Moderator - Lee Schoenecker, Past Chair, Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division

- Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments – Alan Imhoff, Frederick City Alderman and Chair, Metropolitan Development Policy Committee

- Baltimore Metropolitan Council – Dunbar Brooks, Manager of Data Development

- Maryland Department of Planning - Richard E. Hall, AICP, Maryland Secretary of Planning, Maryland Department of Planning

10:45 -Noon - Panel 2 - Metropolitan Fringe – Rural and Small Metro Regions and Counties – Smart, Sustainable and Metro Impacts -

Moderator – Tom Christoffel, AICP, Editor, Regional Community Development News

- Northern Shenandoah Valley – Chris Price, AICP, Executive Director, Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission – Front Royal, Virginia

- Western Maryland - David Umling, City Planner, Cumberland, Maryland

- South Central Pennsylvania - Richard Schmoyer, AICP, Director, Office of Planning and Development (ACOPD), Adams County, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Noon - Lunch followed by

Panel 3 - Smart and Sustainable – Local and Regional from Academic and Federal Perspectives.

Moderator: Dave Robertson, Executive Director, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments

Gerrit Knaap, Director of the Smart Growth Center, University of Maryland

John W. Frece, Director, Development, Community and Environment Division: The Smart Growth Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The Panelists will give an overview of the needs, issues and opportunities from their individual perspectives. This will be followed by questions from the Moderator and then a broader Q &A session including the audience.

1:45 to 3:00 - Panel 4 – Smart and Sustainable – Regional, Inter-regional and Intergovernmental Planning Integration – How might we improve what is already being done?

Moderator: Douglas R. Porter, FAICP, President, Growth Management Institute

History, Practice and a Future Vision - Bruce McDowell, FAICP, Fellow and Project Director, National Academy of Public Administration

Chesapeake Bay Program: A Unique Regional Partnership - TBA

3:00 to 3:45 – Panel 5 - Next steps discussion - follow-up topic meetings and host for Roundtable 7 Note: A host for Roundtable 7 in 2010 is needed. The Richmond Regional Planning District Commission of Virginia is interested in hosting Roundtable 8 in 2011.

Moderator - Bob Leiter, FAICP, San Diego Association of Governments, Director of Land Use and Transportation Planning; Chair, APA Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division

3:50 Adjourn

Register on-line

To register go to: http://www.mwcog.org/calendar/ Scroll to the dates – September 30/October 1 and open the link. The form gives the option to register to attend either or both days. You may change your choices in the future. There is no registration fee thanks to the sponsors.

Conference Hotel

Comfort Inn Red Horse, 998 W Patrick St., Frederick, MD 21703-4066

Government Rate $75

Conference Rate: $101.99

Phone: (301) 662-0281

Conference reference – ask for: Mid-Atlantic Roundtable

Note: There are two Comfort Inns in Frederick, MD – this one has the Red Horse restaurant attached. www.comfortinnfrederick.com

Directions and Map

Page 4 is a Google generated map for the route from the hotel (A.) to the City Public Parking Garage (B.) at 140 West Patrick Street.

The event is two blocks east of the parking garage in the Cultural Arts Center of Frederick County - 15 W. Patrick St. (C.)

Google Maps is recommended by the Visitor’s Center for giving directions to the City Center for the Parking Garage at 140 W. Patrick St., Frederick, MD 21701

Contacts

Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division contacts (Please send any feedback to both): Tom.Christoffel@gmail.com & Leeschoenecker@aol.com

Phone – Tom: 540-664-7037 (Cell) Lee: 202-686-8864

Metropolitan Washington COG contact: Paul DesJardin pdesjardin@mwcog.org

Phone: 202-962-3293

Information and presentations from the prior events are at: http://semanticommunity.wik.is/Mid-Atlantic_Regional_Planning_Roundtables

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!

6th Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtable - September 30 – October 1, 2009 - Frederick, Maryland PDF

"Community Motive" - What is it?

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

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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"

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