This 36 page report summarizes the results of a quite interesting forum on regionalism sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in April 2001. The report focuses on what is termed "ad hoc" regionalism.

To give a flavor of the contents, here is a short excerpt from the introduction:
"During the 1980s and into the 1990s, public opinion surveys of urban residents revealed significant support for regional solutions for many problems associated with growth, development and economic transformation. However, voters continued to resist proposals for regional actions that would diminish the independence of their local governments. ... By the early 1990s, interest in regional governance and action was renewed, but this time in a significantly more bottom up manner. New approaches to regional problem solving were emerging with the goal of providing needed capacity for action while avoiding popular resistance to enlarging regional government. In many metropolitan areas, the weakness of 'official' regional agencies was being offset by leadership groups formed to focus on selected regional concerns. These groups sought to identify areas of common interests that could unite diverse stakeholder groups as well as governments ... These groups avoided promoting regulatory solutions, preferring instead collaborative, incentive-base approaches for meeting various regional challenges.

The Lincoln Institute report draws on the experiences (and "lessons learned") from several participants at the forum, including the Great Valley Center of central California; the Treasure Valley (Idaho) Partnership; The Southeastern Massachusetts Vision 2020 Project; EcoCity Cleveland and the First Suburbs Consortium; and several other "ad hoc" regional organizations.

The growth of these type of regional organizations is a quite interesting recent phenomenon -- and this report offers some useful insights into these relatively new groups.

Written by Douglas R. Porter & Allan D. Wallis. Published by Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

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