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.
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Top 10 Stories
City limits don’t limit much of anything anymore. The
issues that really matter in metropolitan areas transcend political boundaries:
efficient mass transit, good highways, a safe, clean environment.
Those regional challenges are becoming even more critical
in a global economy, since good planning will be key to the economic
competitiveness of megaregions like the Northeast, the Texas Triangle and the
Great Lakes, says Louise Nelson Dyble, an assistant professor of history at
Michigan Technological University.
“To be productive and prosperous, we need efficient,
equitable, sustainable metropolitan areas with good infrastructure and
appropriate transportation,” she said. “The role of our government should be to
manage our resources in a way that results in our success, and to be
successful, you need infrastructure that integrates a region.
“However, that infrastructure doesn’t arise on its own,”
she said. “Agencies must plan for it.” But as sensible as regional planning may
seem, , it is notoriously tough to implement. Its enemies are not usually the
people, who stand to benefit from better services and economic growth, but the
local agencies and governments that view regional planning as a threat to their
sovereignty.
…
Seen from space at night, the southwestern coast of Lake
Michigan shines in a blazing band of light that starts in Milwaukee and gutters
out just south of Chicago. This uninterrupted glow must be one city, right?
What else could it be?
In daylight, back on planet Earth, that one big city
fragments into urban shards that are no longer the sum of their parts.
Milwaukee anchors one end of this region, Chicago the other. The two cities
have much in common - their lakeside geography, their rise in the industrial
era, their decline as those industries vanished, their search for a role in the
global economy.
It's hard to imagine two cities with more to talk about.
And it's hard to imagine two cities that spend less time talking about their
almost identical challenges. Instead, they seem happiest in competition,
rooting for their Brewers or Cubs, poaching each other's businesses, content to
let their state governments bash the other.
… But we're in a global economy now. Size matters, …
UCLA scientists last month released a landmark study
with sobering & conclusive results: Global climate change is a profoundly
local problem.
In just 30 years, the effects of climate change will be
evident & measurable here in the greater Los Angeles region. We will
experience climate change in our daily lives, in our homes, & in our
communities. And we will have to adapt.
Using state-of-the-art science, UCLA researchers
produced the most detailed projection of climate change ever done for a major
city. The study, "Mid-Century Warming in the Los Angeles Region,"
provides high-resolution, precise forecasts of rising temperatures at the local
neighborhood level.
Temperatures will rise significantly throughout Southern
California by the middle of this century, with an average annual increase of
3.7 degrees to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of our region's varied
topography & ecology, some communities will experience more dramatic
warming than others, but temperatures will rise everywhere.
Even more disturbing is that warming will be most
notable during the summer and fall, resulting in a dramatic increase in the
number of heat waves and extremely hot days.
…
In the aftermath of storms that knocked out power to
millions, sweltering residents and elected officials are demanding to know why
it’s taking so long to restring power lines and why they’re not more resilient
in the first place.
… Above-ground lines are vulnerable to lashing winds and
falling trees, but relocating them underground incurs huge costs — as much as
$15 million per mile of buried line…
The powerful winds that swept from the Midwest to the
Mid-Atlantic late Friday, toppling trees onto power lines and knocking out
transmission towers and electrical substations, have renewed debate about
whether to bury lines. …
To bury power lines, utilities need to take over city
streets so they can cut trenches into the asphalt, lay down plastic conduits
and then the power lines. Manholes must be created to connect the lines
together. .…
Pepco’s initial estimates are that it would be a $5.8
billion project to bury power lines in D.C. and would cost customers an extra $107
per month, …
Year after year the debates go on if the wild weather
events that destroy parts of our urban, suburban and rural landscapes are the
result of global warming or just freak events. Friday's high "Derecho
winds" blowing in straight from Chicago and knocking over a lot more than
just a few trees (1.5 million people without power in the Virginia, DC,
Maryland, Pennsylvania region) are just the latest example for news making
weather events.
...
For examples of mundane vulnerabilities consider this
list:
Power outages: Far-flung outer suburbs are vulnerable
and so are older suburbs due to overhead power lines. …
Information Technology: ...
Traffic signals: …
Floods: …
The Senate and House of Representatives finished their
conference on Friday, June 29, to finalize the new surface transportation bill.
The bill is responsible for making it legal for the federal government to
collect gas taxes and manage the Highway Trust Fund and its Mass Transit
Account, disbursing revenues to road, transit, railroad, water, bicycling, and
pedestrian transportation infrastructure projects. The previous bill, known as
SAFETEA-LU, was extended for 1,000 days since its original expiration in 2009.
The new bill is known as MAP-21 and will expire September 30, 2014, for a total
duration of 27 months. President Obama is expected to sign the bill, H.R. 4348,
on Friday.
There are many changes, good and bad, between the two
bills that have transit, bicycling, and pedestrian advocates disappointed.
What’s
changed
Transportation
Alternatives
Three formerly independent programs that funded
bicycling and walking infrastructure are now combined with roadway activities
into “Transportation Alternatives” ...
…
The Texas Department of Transportation released the
state’s first transportation plan for rural areas last week, intending it to
serve as a “blueprint” for the development of future transportation projects
and services in rural areas through 2035 as more funding becomes available.
“That little, two-lane FM roadway that used to just be
for farmers and ranchers is now carrying thousands of people a day coming from
subdivisions, going from work, going to school,” said Will Conley, Capital Area
Regional Transportation Planning Organization chairman and Hays County
commissioner.
According to Census data released this year, Texas has
the largest rural population of any state, more than 3.8 million people. But
Texas has been becoming less rural since 2000…
While state law does not require a rural transportation
plan, TxDOT spokesman Bob Kaufman said increasing population in the state and
growing economic opportunity created the need for a long-range plan. …
…
The state released details
Thursday on how hundreds of projects were scored in 2011 during the first round
of grants issued by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 10 regional economic-development
councils.
The scores showed how some
Southern Tier projects gained little traction with local and state judges, and
how state officials rejected some projects heavily backed by regional leaders.
Eighty percent of each project's score rested with state judges and 20 percent
with the regional councils.
…
The Regional Economic Development Councils are a
community driven, regional approach to economic development in New York State.
Each of the ten Regional Councils was tasked with developing a five-year
strategic plan that included a comprehensive vision for economic development
for that region, regional strategies to achieve that vision, and specific
priority projects that are significant, regionally supported and capable of
stimulating economic investment.
The number of restaurants and bars offering patio dining
and drinking has surged in the last five years, according to statistics from
the B.C. Liquor Control and Licensing Branch.
More than 20,000 new patio seats in the Greater
Vancouver Regional District were approved by the body between July 2007 and
July 2012, with 80 per cent of the permits going to restaurants and the
remainder to bars. As of July 5, there are almost 60,000 outdoor seats in the
GVRD for diners and drinkers.
But even though patio season is finally here, dining al fresco
at popular city venues may still require a bit of patience …
The popularity of al fresco dining is also spreading
into the Fraser Valley - the Abbotsford Downtown Business Association is
working to get approval for 10 new patios before the end of the summer,
according to executive director Tina Stewart.
"Everybody anticipates it will have a great
economic impact on the downtown as a whole," she said. Patios could add as
much as 30 per cent to a restaurant's sales, according to Ian Tos-tenson, president
of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association.
…
Beijing Economic-technological Development Area (BDA) is
the only state economic and technological development area that enjoys the
preferential policies of both state economic and technological development
areas and state high-tech industrial parks.
BDA, located on the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity
Expressway, the Fifth Ring Road and the Sixth Ring Road, is situated in the
eastern part of Beijing’s city development region. It is near the
Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan industrial circle as well as at the core of the Bohai
Sea economic and industrial circle. The Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Expressway,
the Fifth Ring Road, the Fourth Ring Road, the airport expressway, the urban
expressway, the main road and the light rail link BDA with economic development
areas and with transportation hubs.
...
Note: I visited the BDA in Beijing as part of the
Regional Studies Association Global Conference. It is very impressive. Regional
development initiatives from the municipalities like Beijing have been
successful because of their grass roots nature, compared to top down
policies.
Plus +
Orion Magazine, a beautiful and lyrical nonprofit
publication, is celebrating its 30th anniversary by publishing “Thirty-Year
Plan,” a short book of essays by 30 writers, myself included, who were asked to
describe “some thing—emotion, insight, technology, resource, practice, policy,
habit, attitude—that’s going to be increasingly essential if humans are going
to live comfortably, sustainably, and redeemably on Earth.” ...
Blechman (to Pete Seeger)
Orions’ doing a 30-years project. We ‘re trying to ask
people to come up with some thing, a noun, that we’ll need for the next 30
years in order to survive well on the planet and to flourish and to live with
some form of grace. Seeger responded this way:
Stabilization. Economists say you must grow or you die.
And I sat up in bed at 1 o’clock and said if it’s true that if you don’t grow
you die, the quicker you grow the quicker you die? The earth is only so big….
You cannot grow forever. I sing with very small children a song about this: …
#8 A
Larger Sense of Time.
#18 A Plan.
#27 A Different
Kind of Growth.
Next
issue July 23, 2012
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