Regional/Greater Community Development News – March 26, 2012


     Multi-jurisdictional intentional regional communities are, in all cases, “Greater Communities” where “community motive” is at work at a more than a local scale. This newsletter provides a scan of regional community, cooperation and collaboration activity as reported in news media and blogs. More articles are at delicious.com.
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Top 10 Stories
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter stressed regional growth and cooperation … meeting with…Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce.
“We are the economic engine of the commonwealth … We should never be reluctant; we should never be shy; we should never be embarrassed to make sure our voices are heard.”
The five-county region of Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia counties is responsible for about 40 percent of the state’s economy,…101 colleges and universities in the broader region, which also includes northern Delaware and South Jersey. And the region has been recognized as one of the leading spots for sustainable energy and clean technology jobs.
“Our region is truly at a crossroads...We must continue to work together to grow our economies and attract 21st century jobs.”
But the region won’t succeed unless officials work together, the mayor said.
“My second job (after advocating for Philadelphia) is to make sure, if a business can’t be in Philly, they’re in the region"
5140-09-07-Delaware.Valley-Philadelphia-PA-NJ, re:energy.clean, re:economy, re:state, re:chamber.of.commerce, re:cooperation, re:region, re:mayor
… chair of the Tulsa Metro Chamber Board, is enthusiastic and optimistic about Tulsa and the surrounding region’s growth and development opportunities in the years ahead. In order to determine the best steps to achieve the region’s tremendous potential, Frank, along with Tulsa County and regional mayors, are calling on business leaders and the public to participate in the enVision Summit …
… Owasso Chamber of Commerce, says, “The enVision Summit is an extremely important step in developing a cohesive vision of where we want to see the region going in the future. The spirit of regionalism is key to our success, both collectively as a region, and individually as cities and towns.”
Akin says the city of Tulsa is key to regional growth because regional communities need a core city. At the same time he says, “Core cities need regions in order to develop and be successful. It is a real collaborative relationship.”
Speaking to the strength of the Tulsa region’s collaborative spirit …
5140-25-06-INCOG-Tulsa, re:spirit, re:collaborative, re:city-region, re:city, re:chamber.of.commerce, re:development, re:vision, re:summit
The merger of Illawarra councils appeared inevitable and the region's community leaders should start laying the groundwork, Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said …
… Bradbery's view puts him at odds with his Shellharbour and Kiama counterparts, who yesterday rejected the idea of an Illawarra merger.
… Bradbery said in his "grand scheme of government" the role of the states was redundant.
"I would see Australia having federal government and then regional governments which would be ultimately the aggregation of councils," he said.
While acknowledging such a change might not occur in his lifetime, he said it was something the region's councils could work towards through collaboration.
"The economies of scale enter into this. Delivering services across the three local government areas for instance could be done more effectively and efficiently."
"What I'm suggesting is that collaboration and shared resourcing seems to me the way to go and preparing the ground for future amalgamations."
7430-0X-New.South.Wales-Illawarra, re:officials.elected.appointed, re:mayors, re:government, re:scale.economies.of, re:collaboration, re:amalgamation
A three-county program to spur economic development through energy efficiency and clean energy in small businesses has proven successful, program backers say, saving businesses in Garfield, Eagle, and Pitkin Counties $240,000 in energy costs annually and leveraging investments of $1.1 million in energy-saving projects.
In 2011, the Governor's Energy Office launched the “Main Street Efficiency Initiative” — a regional program implemented by Clean Energy Economy for the Region, the Community Office for Resource Efficiency, and the Eagle Valley Alliance for Sustainability. During the past year, the local organizations worked with 96 businesses to save energy through upgrades and retrofits in their buildings. Sixty-four of those buildings have completed the energy-saving upgrades, and many additional projects are in the works. … Main Street Grant, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the 2009 federal “stimulus” bill — put $250,000 to work …
5140-44-12-Northwest-Vail, re:state, re:green.jobs.economy, re:energy.clean, re:conservation, re:energy
A bitter battle is brewing between park agencies in the Twin Cities and in outstate Minnesota over how much each should get from the nearly $40 million state Parks and Trails Legacy Fund.
More than 60 percent of the sales tax money comes from the seven-county metro area, but only about 40 percent is being used for parks and trails there. The rest goes to the state Department of Natural Resources and to regionally important parks and trails outstate.
…
Carver County and nine other county and local governments with metro regional parks want a bigger piece of the pie. … The resolution said that the metro system needs "a more equitable distribution" of the money because the metro area contributes 64 percent of the sales tax and its regional parks have four times more visitors than parks in greater Minnesota.
…
However, the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Coalition said the metro area has it backward.
...
5140-32-00-Minnesota, 5140-32-11-Metropolitan.Council-Minneapolis-St.Paul, re:trails, re:funding
A series of community forums are being held to help the region develop a cultural blueprint.
Belleville, Quinte West, and Hastings County have recently partnered in an effort to revitalize their combined cultural picture.
Their cultural plan — A Cultural Plan for Hastings County and Quinte Region — is about halfway toward completion.
To further the project, a series of three community forums have been announced. The forums will provide residents and organizations with an opportunity to give input on the project’s directions and priorities.
Organizers say resident input and ideas are valuable insight into the region’s cultural needs, and critical to the project’s success.
…development of a regional cultural plan will provide many benefits to promote and develop cultural assets while building local economies and improving the quality of life for residents and visitors.
…
The project itself is being funded by the Creative Communities Prosperity Fund of the Government of Ontario.
5130-06-00-Ontario, re:blueprint, re:plan, re:cultural
After a meeting with county official Ed Jerse and Cuyahoga County Council member Sunny Simon, Lyndhurst City Council members felt better about the anti-poaching deal that had first been put before council late last year.
…
Council members met … county’s Director of Regional Collaboration, and Simon …
Speaking about joining the other 22 county communities that had signed on to the protocol, Ward 4 Councilman Patrick Ward said, “It sends a strong message that Cuyahoga County is open for business.”
…
Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald has instituted a $100-million economic development fund as part of the protocol. In addition to communities promising not to “poach” businesses from other communities within the county, the protocol would make available money from the fund to businesses who need financial help in moving into the county.
Cities that do not join the protocol, the county let it be known, would be less likely to receive help from the fund when trying to attract a business
5140-28-0X-Northeast-Cleveland-NEO, re:collaboration, re:protocol, re:funding, re:economic.development
8. Sacramento Region SCS Builds on Tradition of Blueprint Planning | California Planning and Development Report
For many jurisdictions that are part of California’s “Big Four” metropolitan planning organizations, Senate Bill 375 has ushered in new, unprecedented degrees of collaboration. But whereas SB 375 makes a regional planning revolution for many, for the jurisdictions of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the SCS is business as usual.
Having pursued so-called “Blueprint” planning since 2004, and having built its 2008 Metro Transportation Plan (MTP) around it, the Sacramento region’s efforts inspired some of the tenets of SB 375 in the first place. The SACOG SCS, released in November and scheduled to be voted on next month, is no novel concept but rather more of a revision of existing plans. It has been met with broad support in part because the heavy lifting was done years ago.
“It's been a nudge. It’s not like it was a revolution,” said McKeever. “The revolution happened when the Blueprint was adopted.”
Thus far, developers, environmental groups, and member cities alike ...
5140-50-03-Sacramento-SACOG, re:politics.Tea.Party, re:politics.Tea.Party, re:sustainability, re:blueprint, re:SB.375, re:sustainability, re:blueprint, re:SB.375
People and patents and progress — that’s the short version of what the Midwest Intellectual Property Management Institute is all about. The unique economic development initiative is more, though, as it spreads its regional concept to companies and retirees across a 50-county area of western Illinois and eastern Iowa. Knox and Warren counties are in the southern portion of the region. Exec.Dir.William Ratzburg said IPI started as “a blank sheet of paper. This has been an idea for five years. It has been a reality for about two and a half years.”
IPI has corporate partners, which are John Deere, KONE Corp., and … Rockwell Collins was recently added. The institute has access to patents of its corporate partners, patents that are being used in products or are “market proven.” IPI looks for companies that can benefit from the patents in fields not in competition with the owners of the patents. The patents also can be made available to entrepreneurs preparing to start businesses. ...
5140-35-10-East.Central-Cedar.Rapids, 5140-30-00-Illinois, re:entrepreneur, re:development.economic, re:patents, re:property, re:intellectual
In January, … South Africa introduced a resolution to tighten the relationship between the UNSC and regional organizations—
… growing role of regional organizations poses a conundrum for the United States. Many of these implications … in a terrific new book, Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World,. … at least four other insights of the book warrant mentioning.
Regional organizations are a diverse lot. The aspirations, mandates and activities of regional organizations vary enormously. …
Regional approaches are no panacea. At first glance, regional organizations provide an attractive alternative, or complement, to an overstretched and sometimes dysfunctional United Nations. …
Capacity building must be a priority. In addition, the aspirations of regional organizations often outstrip their ability to deliver. …
The United States must adapt its diplomacy to rising regionalism. The State Department tends to approach conflict management through the lens of bilateral relationships
0000.UN-United.Nations, 5140-00-00-USA.United.States.of.America, re:security, re:diplomacy, re:peace

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0900 - Arctic Ocean
1000 - Europe
2000 - Africa
3000 - Atlantic Ocean
4000 - Antarctica
5000 - Americas
6000 - Pacific Ocean
7000 - Oceana
8000 - Asia
9000 - Indian Ocean

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Regional/Greater Community Development News – March 19, 2012


     Multi-jurisdictional intentional regional communities are, in all cases, “Greater Communities” where “community motive” is at work at a more than a local scale. This newsletter provides a scan of regional community, cooperation and collaboration activity as reported in news media and blogs. More articles are at delicious.com.
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Top 10 Stories

1. Peirce: Metro areas assert global leadership | Richmond Times-Dispatch
While hyperpartisanship and ugly derogation of opponents infect Congress and national politics, we needn't despair. In fact, "the United States is really awash in quality leadership."
That's the case made by Bruce Katz, Brookings Institution ..

"Everywhere you turn, at the city, at the metropolitan or state scale-you find either individual leaders, or more likely networks of leaders, who tend to put place over party and ideology."
…
Indeed, today's ever-more-globalized and urban-focused economy, … "means city and metro leaders — corporate, university, elected — are not on the periphery of American policy. They're really going to be at the center of it, as national politics disintegrate."
Successful metros demonstrate an interesting interplay between place-making and economy-shaping.
… several state governments, most notably in CO, NY, TN and NV, are actually reaching out to encourage their metro regions to organize across local borders to create economic strategies.
...
5140-00-00-USA.United.States.of.America, 5140-13-15-Richmond.Regional, re:networks
re:multi-state, re:economic.strategy, re:metropolitan, re:global, re:leadership

2. Boston Foundation finds growing income disparity is greatest threat to region’s prosperity
The disparity between Boston’s top earners and its poorest workers has widened and will continue to grow unless the region’s educational system is improved to increase opportunities for all workers, and excessive costs, especially for health care, are reined in, according to a biennial report released Wednesday by the nonprofit Boston Foundation.
“Now is the time to get a grip on the growing divide,’’ said Charlotte B. Kahn, director of the Boston Indicators Project, a collaboration between the foundation, city officials, and institutions to track the economic health of Greater Boston.
Income inequality was identified as perhaps the greatest threat to the region’s long-term prosperity.
As more wealth is concentrated in the top income groups, it leaves the vast majority of workers more vulnerable to economic downturns and rising costs of living that can quickly wipe out finances, the report said.
...
5140-04-08-Boston.Metropolitan.Area, re:long-term, re:threat, re:income, re:education, re:greater

3. William S. Becker: Green Plowshares in the Pacific Northwest
The idea is this: National defense isn't only about containing foreign threats; it's also about strengthening the fabric of society. In other words, sustainable development is a critical component of national security.
… idea that sustainable development must be central to America's global strategy. Marine Corps Col. Mark Mykleby and Navy Capt. Wayne Porter wrote that to thrive in this century's "strategic ecology", the United States must move from a global posture of containment designed to preserve the status quo to a posture of sustainability designed to build our strength at home and our credible influence abroad.
… "The Grand Strategy for Sustainability". It's an initiative to reshape economic policies so that market forces produce a more sustainable and secure United States while America leads by example to help build a more sustainable world.
… is rooted in the work of nation's traditional policy laboratories: sub-national regions, states and communities. …
5000.Pacific.Coast-BC-WA-OR-CA, re:sustainable, re:subnational, re:strategy, re:defense, re:security

4. Regional transit agency going nowhere? | Opinion | Creative Loafing Atlanta
After decades of congestion, sprawl, and kicking Fulton and DeKalb County taxpayers in the shorts, state lawmakers still don't give a damn about MARTA.
Case in point: the failure of lawmakers to make any progress on the much-discussed legislation that would overhaul how transit systems are governed in the metro region.
… a solution exists: House Bill 1200, legislation proposed by state Rep. Pat Gardner of Atlanta that's largely based on a proposal developed by the Atlanta Regional Commission that was blessed by metro Atlanta elected officials. Her plan would've divvied up voting powers based on a city or county's population and how much it contributes to funding transit.
But every lobbyist and elected official … should be beating down lawmakers' doors to tell them what's at stake. Fulton and DeKalb residents deserve to decide how their money is invested in their transit system. MARTA might be a creation of the state, legally speaking, but it has survived with our support.
5140-17-05-Atlanta.Regional, re:state, re:legislators, re:governance, re:trans.funding

5. L.A. region's arts development ambitions face uncertain future - latimes.com
A state law that recently abolished community redevelopment agencies has advocates pondering the future of cultural projects and their funding in L.A., Long Beach and elsewhere.
…
Gov. Jerry Brown pushed for the change, arguing that there were more pressing needs for the property taxes that had funded redevelopment. Shutting the agencies frees up $1.7 billion for the state and $1.3 billion for public schools and city and county governments in the current fiscal year, …
Now arts advocates will have to persuade financially strapped local governments not to forget the cultural needs that redevelopment had often addressed. If they fail, it could spell the end of an era in which the L.A. region's cities were able to fund ambitious cultural projects.
…
Redevelopment agencies often viewed the arts as a tool for invigorating tired downtowns and other neighborhoods. … they have pumped more than $470 million into arts venues and artworks in the L.A. area.
…
5140-50-02-Southern-Los.Angeles-SCAG, re:cultural, re:redevelopment, re:funding.cuts, re:arts

6. A new report makes case for stronger collaboration - JSOnline
About six years ago, the seven counties of southeastern Wisconsin called a truce. No more poaching, they vowed, when it came to economic development. We're all in this together.
And that agreement, hammered out under the auspices of the Milwaukee 7 economic development group, has mostly held …
But imagine if a similar agreement about rules of engagement could be broadened beyond the seven counties - to the entire Chicago tri-state area. Imagine also that this region collaborated on a number of fronts, that members of Congress from the 21 counties of Greater Chicago formed a caucus to focus on regional issues, that the governors of the three states met regularly. …
We think that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report offers a first important step toward thinking of the region that begins in Ozaukee County and extends south through Chicago to northern Indiana as a coherent, cohesive unit. We think over the long term there is great economic value in that.
5140-31-06-Southeastern-Milwaukee, 5140-00.CMSA.Chicago.IL-IN-WI, 5140-29-01.1-Northwest-Gary, 5140-30-0x-CMAP-Chicago, re:multi-state, re:collaboration, re:OECD
re:governors, re:economic, re:greater

7. Marin Voice: Corte Madera's overreaction - Marin Independent Journal
CORTE MADERA'S Town Council, motivated by frustration at state housing mandates, the One Bay Area planning effort's regionalism and the disruption of a perfectly good town, voted to quit the Association of Bay Area Governments.
Yet, this vote, billed as a win for local control, will actually further diminish the town's power over its own destiny, robbing it of the tools needed to reassert what it deems is lost rights.
State housing requirements don't come from ABAG, they come from the state. ABAG is just the middleman, which does the heavy lifting to determine regional allocations.
By leaving ABAG, Corte Madera loses its seat in the association's general assembly and the voice it had in determining how these allocations are formulated, trading the possibility of appeal before a body of peers for a Sacramento bureaucracy, even further removed from local concerns.
…
So what did Corte Madera get with its resolution?
Headlines, extra costs, and a muted voice.
…
5140-50-05-Bay.Area-San.Francisco-ABAG, re:state, re:mandate, re:allocation, re:housing, re:council, re:town, re:regionalism.problem, re:SB.375

8. Regional Cooperation for Southeastern Offshore Wind - CleanEnergy Footprints
15.7 million people reside in the Southeast Coastal Region – along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Combined, these states have the greatest regional energy demand in the U.S., and in 5-10 years, that could be matched with one of the greatest energy resources: Southeastern Offshore Wind.
The Departments of Energy (DOE) and the Interior (DOI) combined efforts to set goals in their report, The National Offshore Wind Strategy: Creating an Offshore Wind Energy Industry in the United States.
… The Southeast is home to about two thirds of the East Coast’s shallow water, offshore wind resource. …
It is ideal for the development of a regional policy. The continental shelf is our Southeastern common border – quite possibly the most valuable energy asset we have. Leaders in our region are just beginning to recognize the importance of offshore wind.…
We need to further streamline the regulatory regime, and get state agencies to collaborate …
5140-00.Southeast.Coastal-NCSC-GA-FL, 5140-00.Southeast, re:federal.state, re:states
re:energy.wind

9. Alberta WaterSMART promotes regional cooperation ~ Rocky View Weekly
Cooperation may be the answer to stormwater issues in Rocky View and other southern areas of the province, according to a non-profit society dedicated to the improvement of water management in Alberta.
Alberta WaterSMART, which uses awareness, technology and water management practices to achieve its goals, is promoting dialogue between municipalities as a way to affect government policy.
Representatives from the group presented their mandate to Rocky View County council, ...
“It is going to take a concerted effort to get government to move forward (on changing stormwater re-use policy),” said Lorne Taylor, who represented WaterSMART at the meeting.
“If we can bring a coalition of communities together with a common theme… I believe there is real opportunity for us to do something.”
According to the society, there has been a high degree of verbal interest from several municipalities in collaboration on regional flooding issues, ...
5130-09-00-Alberta, re:collaboration, re:water.quality, re:water.protection, re:water


10. Rural Wealth Creation: Concepts, Strategies, and Measures - Economic Research Report
This report presents a conceptual framework for rural wealth creation, drawing upon the U.S. and international development literature. The framework emphasizes the importance of multiple types of assets (physical, financial, human, intellectual, natural, social, political, and cultural capital) and the economic, institutional, and policy context in which rural wealth strategies are devised. The report discusses the role of wealth creation in the rural development process, how wealth can be created in rural communities, and how its accumulation and effects can be measured.
Keywords: wealth creation, rural development, regional development, community economic development, sustainable development, livelihoods, wealth indicators, conceptual framework, ERS, USDA
More from the week - 50 stories: http://delicious.com/i.see.regions.work  
Top stories tweeted daily - 45.  http://twitter.com/#!/tomchristoffel
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Basic Geocodes - 
0000 - Earth
0900 - Arctic Ocean
1000 - Europe
2000 - Africa
3000 - Atlantic Ocean
4000 - Antarctica
5000 - Americas
6000 - Pacific Ocean
7000 - Oceana
8000 - Asia
9000 - Indian Ocean

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