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
No fanfare. No high fives. Not even a story in the local
press.
Yet an unprecedented moment in Lake Tahoe history transpired last week that may shape the Tahoe Basin for decades to come. That moment was the agreement reached by the bi-state consultation group, which should serve as the foundation for the new Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's regional plan.
Yet an unprecedented moment in Lake Tahoe history transpired last week that may shape the Tahoe Basin for decades to come. That moment was the agreement reached by the bi-state consultation group, which should serve as the foundation for the new Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's regional plan.
…
As the TRPA Regional Plan subcommittee worked valiantly
on the details of a new regional plan, the areas of impasse threatened to
sidetrack progress. That's when California Secretary for Natural Resources John
Laird and Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Director Leo
Drozdoff quietly stepped in.
Under their leadership, a small group of stakeholders —
developers, environmentalists, local government, state and TRPA Governing Board
reps — sat together for many long and often contentious meetings to see if
those areas of profound disagreement could be resolved.
The great news is that Laird and Drozdoff pulled off a
feat that often eludes us at Lake Tahoe: They found agreement. That agreement,
which addressed everything from building height to drive-up windows, bike
friendly town centers and decks and stream environmental zones, was a masterful
compromise. The two state representatives were able to push past those areas of
discomfort for all sides involved to forge an agreement that gave every side
bragging rights and constraints.
…
Why is this a big deal? First, and perhaps most
importantly, both Nevada and California were able to unite in support of the
Tahoe Basin. The future of Tahoe has been re-established as a collective
vision, not a battleground over regulations vs. state rights. …
One of Chicago's most influential civic groups is
calling for an end to the Regional Transportation Authority, saying the nearly
40-year-old agency is broken and should be merged with another.
...
Metropolis Strategies said it believes the agency is no
longer the best overseer of the nation's third-largest transit system, which
provides more than 2 million rides a day.
A better plan, the civic group proposes, would be to
create a new entity by merging the RTA with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for
Planning, a low-profile organization responsible for land use and
transportation planning in northeastern Illinois.
The move would integrate regional planning and transit
oversight, Metropolis Strategies said. It also would save at least $10 million
a year, or about 20 percent of the agencies' combined budgets, by reducing
overhead, administrative costs and duplicate functions, the group said.
"It's time to bring some fresh thinking to the
transit issue," said Ranney, 72. "Continuing to ignore the problem as
we are now ... is a road to disaster."
…
This week's meeting of the mayors of the Triad's major
cities was a good step toward better cooperation, but as long as economic
incentives to attract new businesses are legal true regionalism will remain
elusive.
Yes, we have groups such as the Piedmont Triad
Partnership and the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation that work
well together toward some common goals.
But it's an economic reality that incentives work to
persuade a relocating company to choose one community over another. …
Cities and counties have a duty to their citizens to do
all they can to attract new companies and new jobs. And certainly for-profit
companies have a duty to maximize profits. That's the rub when it comes to
regional cooperation. Someone wins and someone loses.
Still, we're encouraged that the big three cities are
working together. True regionalism will come about one day, but probably not
before economic incentives are banned for good. When that happens, cities will
compete for new business fairly and openly and regionalism will flourish.
A physician has a positive
economic impact on a community in many, and sometimes unexpected, ways.
According to a study released
last year by Merritt Hawkins, a physician and allied health services staffing
company with offices in Irving, Texas, and Atlanta, a single physician vacancy
causes downstream income losses not just for a hospital, but for the whole
community.
“Interestingly, for each $1
million generated by an office-based physician practice, .77
full-time-equivalency jobs are created in each respective community,” the
report reads in part. “Further, each office-based physician supports an average
of 6.2 employees, further contributing to the local economy. …While metropolitan
areas certainly feel the pressure of a physician vacancy, such shortages can be
devastating to small communities and their economies.”
…
For Brent Kisling, executive
director of Enid Regional Development Alliance, recruiting physicians is just
as important as recruiting other businesses. In fact, a workforce development
team was established in Enid a couple of months ago, and St. Mary’s hospital is
one of the employers on that team, Kisling said.
“Each doctor’s office is in
itself a small business in Enid,” Kisling said.
…
One week after moving into the
Caribbean and then striking the U.S. east coast as a category 1 hurricane,
Irene arrived in Vermont on August 27, 2011. The storm caused widespread damage
in 223 of the state’s 251 towns and villages. Severe flooding was particularly
devastating for transportation infrastructure, requiring the Vermont Agency of
Transportation (VTrans) to take a leading role in the recovery. The extent of
the damage, however, proved too much for a single agency to manage alone.
VTrans’ leadership sought help from the state’s 11 regional planning
commissions (RPCs) to assume responsibility for assessing needed local road
repairs.
While the RPCs were well
positioned to assist because of their established relationships and networks
within the towns, their recovery activities often went beyond their typical
scope of work. The collaboration between VTrans and the RPCs offers lessons for
disaster preparedness and recovery, both crucial elements for building more
resilient communities.
This publication was developed
with support from the Federal Highway Administration through the NADO Research
Foundation’s Center for Transportation Advancement and Regional Development.
...
Residential segregation by
income has increased during the past three decades across the United States and
in 27 of the nation’s 30 largest major metropolitan areas1 , according to a new
analysis of census tract2 and household income data by the Pew Research Center.
The analysis finds that 28% of
lower-income households in 2010 were located in a majority lower-income census
tract, up from 23% in 1980, and that 18% of upper- income households were
located in a majority upper-income census tract, up from 9% in 1980.3
These increases are related to
the long-term rise in income inequality, which has led to a shrinkage in the
share of neighborhoods across the United States that are predominantly middle
class or mixed income—to 76% in 2010, down from 85% in 1980—and a rise in the
shares that are majority lower income (18% in 2010, up from 12% in 1980) and
majority upper income (6% in 2010, up from 3% in 1980).
Despite the long-term rise in
residential segregation by income, it remains less pervasive than residential
segregation by race, even though black-white segregation has been falling for
several decades.
The Pew Research analysis also
finds significant differences among the nation’s 10 most populous metropolitan
areas ...
Stanley Kurtz's newest book
fills in the middle tier of President Obama's three-tiered plan …
Regional Redistribution
Kurtz's new book, entitled Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing
the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities, warns that Obama, driven by a community
organizer's disdain for "white flight" from poor urban neighborhoods
to suburbia, has aligned with like-minded community organizers -- e.g., Mike
Kruglik and Kruglik's organization "Building One America" -- in a move
to redistribute wealth from the suburbs to the inner city.
In a National Review online article, Kurtz
wrote:
Obama is a longtime supporter
of "regionalism," the idea that the suburbs should be folded into the
cities, merging schools, housing, transportation, and above all taxation. To
this end, the president has already put programs in place designed to push the
country toward a sweeping social transformation in a possible second term. The
goal: income equalization via a massive redistribution of suburban tax money to
the cities. …
Note: It is useful to pay
attention to the arguments against regional community cooperation. Ed.
Greater Egypt Regional
Planning and Development Commission was recently honored by the Illinois
Association of Regional Councils for its work in helping area entities get
grant money to improve lighting systems and heating/cooling systems.
“We spent $800,000 in local
government facilities. We’re trying to add value without competing. We’re
trying to get our name out there,” said Executive Director Cary Minnis of the
GERPDC.
Minnis, who was appointed to
the position in October 2010 after the retirement of Ike Kirkikis, and GERPDC
Program Director Margie Mitchell were singled out by the association for their
“enthusiasm, dedication and an ability to get things done,” said ILARC
Executive Director Kelly Murray.
The money came from $21
million in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act awarded
to Illinois through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to
support energy efficiency and conservation activities. ...
Experts predict that climate change, in addition to
causing longer and fiercer heat waves and higher humidity, will bring an
increase in viruses and bacteria that cause illness.
Infectious disease specialists…got an unplanned preview
from the deadly H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009-2010 and the whooping cough
epidemic that followed a few months later.
For Dr. Kalvin Yu, Southern California’s regional chief
of infectious diseases for Kaiser-Permanente, the fallout of the outbreaks –
emergency room lines, bed shortages and the need for data analysis to track
trends – was a glimpse into how the future might be under the shadow of global
warming. Increased heat and humidity expected in the Inland region could set
the stage for more disease outbreaks. …
‘SIEGE’ FIRES
The state’s fire department already has seen an increase
in deadly, destructive blazes attributed to climate change…Cal Fire…
…climate change isn’t just about warming. It’s also
about weather extremes. In 2008, a lightning siege near Monterey delivered
8,000 strikes and triggered 2,000 simultaneous fires, Upton said. “That was
unprecedented. We had not seen that in over four decades long of recollections
and records, not to that magnitude or duration.”
Those “siege” events, characterized by many large,
damaging fires, used to be something firefighters saw maybe once in their
career.
“My generation is seeing a dozen, 15 siege fires in our
careers,” said Upton, who joined the department in the mid-1980s. Siege events
occurred in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2008, she said.
…
The Otago Regional Council sees no justification for
changing the current purpose of local government by removing the four community
well-beings which currently underpin the Local Government Act, ORC chairman
Stephen Woodhead says.
"We believe the current purpose statement: 'To
promote the social, economic, cultural, and environmental wellbeing of our
region' reflects local government's role appropriately," Mr Woodhead said
The proposed change is part of the Local Government Act
Amendment Bill. It would require councils to meet a cost-effectiveness test
when making decisions about local infrastructure, local public services, and
regulatory functions.
If this became law, councils would be at greater risk of
having their decisions' cost-effectiveness challenged in court, Mr Woodhead
said.
"Making short-term decisions which affect the
community, based simply on whether they can be delivered for the lowest
possible cost may not be prudent, and may hamper our ability to make sound
decisions that are sustainable over the long-term," he said.
Councils throughout the country were responsible for
much of the major infrastructure that people depended on for their livelihood
and quality of life.
…
Extra
The Road from Industrial Capitalism to Finance
Capitalism and Debt Peonage
Essays on
Fictitious Capital, Debt Deflation and the Global Crisis
…
This summary of my economic theory traces how industrial
capitalism has turned into finance capitalism. The finance, insurance and real
estate (FIRE) sector has emerged to create “balance sheet wealth” not by new
tangible investment and employment, but financially in the form of debt
leveraging and rent-extraction. This rentier overhead is overpowering the
economy’s ability to produce a large enough surplus to carry its debts. As in a
radioactive decay process, we are passing through a short-lived and unstable
phase of “casino capitalism,” which now threatens to settle into leaden
austerity and debt deflation.
This situation confronts society with a choice either to
write down debts to a level that can be paid (or indeed, to write them off
altogether with a Clean Slate), or to permit creditors to foreclose,
concentrating property in their own hands (including whatever assets are in the
public domain to be privatized) and imposing a combination of financial and
fiscal austerity...
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