Regionalism: More is Better

This week we will begin a series on regionalism. We talk a good game but it is often hard for communities to sign on the bottom line and lose some control. So again and again we duplicate efforts, miss out on economies of scale, and fail to identify the collection of resources and assets that we have together.

There is a general lack of specificity about the topic though. For most places, developing a regional strategy is a building process that can have lots of moving parts. See the reference on Louisville to get a sense of the scope of a regional approach. We see it most often in regional chambers, regional foundations, and businesses. We see it less often among governments and nonprofit organizations. We need a new focus and a new definition. My friend, Larry Lee, says that a region can be defined by asking three questions: 1) where do you shop? 2) where do you go to the hospital?; and 3) what newspaper do you read daily? He says that the answer to these three questions will define the region for you. You can try it and see.

Comments

[Jim]

There are also different kinds of regions. When I lived in the metro region of Sacramento, it was nice to be two blocks away from the Memorial Auditorium; but it was probably just as nice to be two-plus hours from San Francisco for conferences and such. The Sac metro area has 2.3 million people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Combined_Statistical_Areas

The SF megablurb has 7.2. Add them together, and you have 9.5-plus people who might travel to SF for a concert, conference, or special shopping.

One California organization I know has solved the distance problem by having two annual meetings in the same month-- one in LA, the other in Northern California--this enhances affordable participation and networking.

[Larry Lee]

You should expand on my three questions a bit. 1. Where do you go Christmas shopping? 2. If you have a heart attack, where do you want to go to the hospital. 3. Which daily newspaper do you read?

This is because there is a difference in going to the Dollar General to get toilet paper and going to a big mall to buy mama her Christmas present; between running into town to see the doctor about a stopped up nose and open heart surgery; and keeping up with the obituaries in the local weekly paper or keeping up with which candidate for President stuck his/her foot in their mouth in the last 24 hours.

Since I work with rural communities, my context of "regionalism" is the relationships between urban, suburban and rural areas and what one brings to the other. Years ago, this relationship was largely country folks producing raw products that were used by city folks for food and further processing. Today it's largely country folks taking labor and dollars to town. And I seldom see a noticeable appreciation on the part of the urbanites to extend a grateful hand in return.

To me, regionalism is about a multi-county economy. While Alabama has 67 counties, we do not have 67 county economies. Instead we have 8-10 regional economies where we could gain economy of scale by having common marketing efforts, workforce development, etc. And there should be a close working relationship between the urban hub and the outlying rural counties.

To have a "region" that is simply a collection of rural counties by themselves is simply a group of poor folks sitting around the same table wondering what hit them.