Regional Studies Association and Open Days 2013 University Master Class




OPEN DAYS 2013 University Sessions and Master Class:

RSA is the exclusive partner.

Please see the our  website  

The Regional Studies Association has been selected as the exclusive partner to DG Regio and the Committee of the Regions for the OPEN DAYS 2013. The RSA will be continuing to work with DG Regio and the Committee of the Regions in the design and content of the OPEN DAYS University Programme. Learn about the OPEN DAYS University Sessions in the Information Pack .

OPEN DAYS 2013 UNIVERSITY MASTER CLASS

The Directorate-General for Regional & Urban Policy, European Commission, and the Regional Studies Association would like to invite postgraduates and early career researchers interested in European Cohesion Policy to apply for the Open Days Master Class.

The 11th OPEN DAYS – European Week of Regions and Cities will be held in Brussels, 7th-10th October 2013. Together with the EU institutions, more than 200 regions and cites will contribute to a programme of 100 seminars, workshops, debates, exhibitions and networking opportunities for around 6,000 participants.  For the first time, the Open Days University will include a Master Class for postgraduate students and early career researchers to learn more about Cohesion Policy and meet senior policymakers and academics. The application process is competitive; at least two places will be reserved for applicants from each of the 27 Member States and Croatia. A small number of non-EU participants (up to 15) could also participate. The successful applicants will have their return travel to Brussels and accommodation for up to two nights provided.

Deadline for submissions: 15th April 2013.
Applications received after this date will not be accepted.


Aim of the OPEN DAYS University Master Class 2013

The aim of the ODU-MC is to improve understanding of EU Cohesion Policy and its research potential among European postgraduate students and early career researchers. Specifically, the objectives are:

·       To  present  the  latest  developments in  research  on  European  regional  and urban development and EU Cohesion Policy;

·       To enable postgraduates and early career researchers (ECR) to exchange views with EU politicians, officials and senior academics in the field of European regional and urban development and policy;

·       To help create networking links among postgraduates/ECR from different countries and with the wider EU policy and academic communities; and

·       To raise awareness and understanding of the research potential in the field of EU Cohesion Policy.


POSTER COMPETITION 2013
Deadline for submissions: 31st May 2013.
Applications received after this date will not be accepted.

The Directorate-General for Regional & Urban Policy, European Commission, and the Regional Studies Association would like to invite postgraduates and early career researchers interested in European Cohesion Policy to apply to present their research in the form of a poster at the 11th OPEN DAYS 2013 European Week of Cities and Region, 7th-10th October 2013.

The 11th OPEN DAYS – European Week of Regions and Cities will be held in Brussels. Together with the EU institutions, more than 200 regions and cites will contribute to a programme of 100 seminars, workshops, debates, exhibitions and networking opportunities for around 6,000 participants.

The Poster Competition is in its fourth year and will take place on the 8th October 2013 where 6 shortlisted finalists will be invited to attend OPEN DAYS to showcase research via a poster. Accommodation for up to 2 nights and a return flight/train to Brussels will be provided.

Prize: €750 for the overall winner and €250 for the first runner-up.



Regional Studies Association
North America Project Office
The Lewis Center, UCLA Luskin School of Public
Affairs, 3350 Public Affairs Building Room 6263,
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel + 1 310 291 3708
usa@regionalstudies.org
Regional Studies Association
25 Clinton Place, Seaford, BN25 1NP
United Kingdom
Tel: + 44 (0)1323 899 698
Fax: + 44 (0)1323 899 798
office@regionalstudies.org
Reg. Charity No. 1084165,
Reg. in England and Wales No. 4116288

 

www.regionalstudies.org

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Greater/Regional Community Motivation - News and Thought

With the new focus on the notion of "community motive" in November, 2012 the blog here is shifting, as the title says to:  "Greater/Regional Community Motivation - News and Thought"

The finding and cataloging of news reports that demonstrate the existence of "community motive" at many scales has continued. It is posted to Twitter  Here's what it looks like:


News items are also posted to Delicious A tool that can be used to keep up these and other sources is Google Reader. There are other readers, but Google is the one I use to follow thirty blogs, websites and keyword searches. For the reader feed link: RSS feed I.see.regions.work  Reader looks like this:




Both Twitter and Reader are efficient in that you can go to the articles that by headline 

Another sharing option is Google+ where there is a fledgling "Community Motive" Community.

For LinkedIn there is Community Motive - Regional/Greater Communities with 346 members. It had been Regional and Intergovernmental Planning. The name change did not lead to people quitting.

So where's the thought? - 

Here's a post-Sandy comment to The Burning Platform from November 1, 2012 


It's a fantasy that, in the built environment, things last forever and no maintenance is required. Any window is at risk of being broken.

 A broader view is to note that, in the built environment, anything of value has some maintenance costs. The higher the value, the higher the maintenance costs. Even the dumb gold we've taken from the earth has high maintenance costs due to the security required.

 Cities are built environments of high value because of the centuries of public infrastructure investment which create the real estate value for intensive development. You can't do much on a lot served by a well and a septic tank, and on a country road. Cost might be lower, but work opportunites and markets are much thinner, if they exist at all. City infrastructure is high maintenance. Skimp on it or take it away and the value deteriorates rapidly. Suburban infrastructure may be newer and have less maintenance, but such jurisdictions to not have local employment in basic industries. The tax base can be 90% residential. Service perpetuation depends upon resident incomes being high enough to be able to pay the taxes that are needed to provide their quality of life: schools, fire departments, prompt EMT response for heart-attacks, libraries, dog parks, etc. These jobs are where infrastructure supports a high density of intensive economic activity. 

 The highest value in cities, towns and counties, is the law-abiding nature of its residents who are committed to the perpetuation of their community for generations. This is the "community motive" which long preceded the lesser "profit motive," which can only emerge in relatively safe and stable communities.

 The investments of the fathers and mothers serve the current populations, just as the sins of the fathers can affect the third and fourth generations.  Is deferred maintenance a sin?

 The coastal cities now face some clear challenges. The Dutch, who have much territory below sea level, and receive water flow from inland sources, are working to beef up their water and storm management skills and infrastructure. They were stuck by the problems experienced in New Orleans and have gone there to learn and assist in the rebuilding so as to be able to manage water in storm events. The incoming water from the ocean stops drainage from the tributaries and rivers, increasing inland flooding. http://www.deltacommissaris.nl/english/topics/

 These are problems the private sector is going to solve, but is a market for their services. No trading algo is going to solve this for it takes real, long term capital investment and maintenance in perpetuity.

 Efforts to create new cities on vacant land have been failures. The best locations were found by the original settlers, regardless of the period. Wiser folk built back from the waterfront and those up close, built with rebuilding in mind. Our ancestors were smarter about these things as they lived closer to the land. Architecture was insync with the environmental variations.

 Big choices lie ahead. Private homeowner associations won't  be able to address this. Nature needs to be respected. Its bigger than the elephant in the room.

 Windows get broken. Your maintenance budget should anticipate that. 

 All life is risk management. Communities recognize and cooperate to mitigate the impact of events for their own perpetuation. Economics is involved, but not the prime motivator. Our evolutionary driver is "community motive," since that is how problems are solved; freedom established and maintained.

 With Sandy, like during 9-11, the greater community comes to the aid of those communities which have suffered. It is mutual aid on a large scale. Such provisions come out of the wisdom of generations that the unexpected can happen and that no area can be prepared for everything. Life has redundancy built in.

 Tom Christoffel
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"Given the many problems we face, only community will save us." Thanksgiving Day thoughts about cooperation, collaboration and community motive as necessities for humanity’s future.

November 22, 2012

Dear Reader –
Promoting regional planning and cooperation among the 20 local governments of Virginia’s Northern Shenandoah Valley was my work from 1973-2008. Many people chuckle at the notion that local governments would cooperate. A businessman from California once asked, “Do you have any customers?”
The truth was that the Planning District Commission chartered in 1970 by the member local governments did, over time, have value. They owned it, having taken the funding incentive that doubled their money and made them eligible for other grants, but had to learn how it might be used.
Serving alternately as a as staff person and director of the Lord Fairfax Planning District Commission, now the Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission, the region did achieve many accomplishments including an adopted District Comprehensive Plan; a regional solid waste management plan that was regularly updated and which become the basis for a regional tire shredder; regional water resources planning that involved an Instream Flow study for the North Fork of the Shenandoah River; to mention a few.
This region was having achievements at a time when academics claimed regionalism had failed in the U.S. My work experience as a regional planner led to the thesis: “community precedes cooperation.” If you want to solve a problem, build community of those whose cooperation can solve/if not improve on the problem.
Based on that idea, the Regions Work Initiative was launched in Chicago at the World Future Society, July 20, 1998. The action plan I set out then has guided my exploration and led to many product prototypes such as global geocodes and the Delicious tags which indicated both geographic location and topic. The goal was to make organized regional alignments, such as Planning District Commissions visible nationwide. The code issue required a global approach.
With 2008, the financial crisis brought to light the weakness of many economic theories. They were incapable of predicting what had happened. Massive private debt and the frauds that enabled it to ruin lending was invisible to most economists. This led to my consideration of the “profit motive,” which we are taught is what brings regions and their localities all things good.
I first expressed the idea of a “community motive” in an online discussion February 25, 2011 as follows:
The profit motive is strong, but it can only play out in a community. The community motive has led to civilizations which have economic relationships, internally and externally. Community infrastructure takes a long time to build. Human capital also takes generations to build. Both can be easily destroyed in war or natural disaster.
Community economies are not quickly built. One can learn from another, perhaps speed up the process, but the profit motive is very short-sighted unless it is tempered by cultural and religious values.
Thinking there might be some research along the lines of “community motive,” a later search only found one comparable use. That was from Aldo Leopold, the environmentalist who, in 1944 wrote: “Acts of conservation without the requisite desire and skills are futile. To create these desires and skills and the community motive is the task of education.”
No use of this term in relation to community development or in contrast to the “profit motive” was found. Community is, more or less, assumed to exist for localities with long term perpetuation of the community an implied goal.
In this age, the “profit motive” is both the goal and driver for all economic activity. Huge problems are simply those things that attract economic attention by business and industry. At least, that is what the economists tell us.
The concept was developed further in the presentation of my working paper: “Community Motive: The Untapped Identity Factor for Regional Development” at the Regional Studies Association Global Conference 2012 in Beijing, China on June 24, 2012. It was at this conference I also suggested we have a 300 year planning horizon.
Recently, when discussing the many economic, environmental and social challenges ahead, I  offer, “Only community will save us.” No one has disagreed yet. People seem to respond intuitively to the idea of “community motive,” knowing it does include them. They agree we won’t be saved by a “profit motive.”
Given the good reception to this idea, I've chosen to focus on going forward. The blog will become the space where I weave together the lessons and perspective that my years of experience, reading and observation now offer.
I will continue to scan for news items, saving links to Delicious: Links   RSS Feed  
Key items and conference/ meeting announcements will go to: Twitter
Blog posts will go to the Group: Regions_Work Subscription at Yahoo Groups
Happy Thanksgiving
Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, AICP
Regional/Greater Communities Motivation

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