A PATH TO UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF REGIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE IMPERATIVE OF EVOLVING REGIONAL STRATEGIES
On 17 June Gooze Views posted “How Virginia’s Metro Areas Are Weathering the Recession” about the three largest of Virginia’s 11 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). On the same day a WaPo story addressed the Washington, D. C.-VA-MD-WV MSA. As Peter noted, the data to support both stories came from an invaluable new research tool developed by Brookings Institution called MetroMonitor.
MetroMonitor has just been launched but is already a very useful resource. It provides data on ten parameters covering – Gross Regional Product, Employment / Unemployment / Wages and Shelter for the largest 100 MSAs in the US of A. The MetroMonitor web site http://www.brookings.edu/metro/MetroMonitor.aspx?emc=lm&m=226673&l=2&v=41423 includes maps that are color coded by quartile for all ten parameters and a spread sheet. Brookings plans to up date this resource quarterly.
Viewing MetroMonitor as a whole, the first thing that strikes one is the immense diversity among the 100 largest MSAs. The 100 largest MSAs encompass about 75% of the economic activity in the US of A. (There are 366 MSAs in the US of A and a whole alphabet soup of other “Census Defined” geographies. The New Urban Region data used by SYNERGY is based on the 68 largest urban agglomerations and represents over 85 percent of economic activity in the US of A.)
The primary message to take from MetroMonitor? These data document that there is NO one nation-state-wide policy that will improve the economic, social and physical well being of all Regions. Further some of the most often touted “policy alternatives” (aka, ways to spend federal money) will damage many Regions.
Three examples drive home this point:
It is painfully apparent that MainStream Media and most Governance Practitioners are still dreaming that the Great Recession will be eclipsed by the two principle economic forces that have been relied on to end every recession since World War II. (It is worth noting in passing that it was World War II, and not specific economic policies that ended the Great Depression.)
The sale of cars and houses have pulled citizens and their Organizations out of every recession over the past 64 years.
It does not take Adam Smith, John Keynes or Milton Friedman to understand that policies that make shelter cheaper will damage, not help, all those Regions with depressed residential real estate markets and large numbers of lender owned housing. That is the focus of WaPo story noted above: “Region’s Economic Performance Ranks High: Housing Sector Remains a Drag.”
The US of A is an Urban society and many believe most of the ‘urban ills’ of the past 64 years were CAUSED by Federal policies. Kirkpatrick Sales provides a thumbnail summary of this view based on his analysis of the demise of South Bronx in Human Scale.
The other primary recession killer employed over the past six plus decades has been car sales. Policies to boost cars sales (especially Large, Private Autonomobiles) will help some rust belt MSAs over the short haul but it will damage EVERY Region in the long term because it will continue to drive dysfunctional human settlement patterns. Oh yes, then there is the matter of balance of payments / imported oil, air pollution, etc.
EMR suggested in this forum (“Addicted to Autonomobiles,” 2 June 2009) that those who can afford an autonomobile already have two or three and those who cannot afford an autonomobile need functional settlement patterns, not a vehicle they will not be able to afford soon. (You have noticed that every time the stock market ticks up because someone “sees the bottom,” the price of crude jumps even thought there is now a glut of petroleum.)
For all Regions, one-size-fits-all programs like “Cash for Clunkers” is just another way to dig citizens further into the Mobility and Access Crisis.
Finally with respect to employment:
Recent data shows that the National Capital Subregion (and other MSA-comparable geographies) have added jobs but also increased unemployment. EMR has pointed in this forum that what is needed in most Regions are jobs for those who are not highly skilled and are not highly motivated.
There is a lot of debate about how much economic boost ‘green’ jobs will produce but no one is talking about the sort of jobs for which most of the unemployed now (or after training will) qualify. Broad brush federal programs to ‘add jobs’ may not add the right jobs in any Region. The bottom line is that jobs need to be the right ones for each Region, not a one-size-fits-all hole into which the fed pours newly printed dollars.
All this points to the need for Regional Strategies to address Regional Conditions in order to evolve sustainable New Urban Regions comprised of Balanced Communities. Did someone say Fundamental Transformation of governance structure?
A couple of suggestions:
The MetroMonitor would be greatly enhanced by the addition of an indicator measuring Regional Consumer Confidence. If 70 to 80 percent of the US of A’s economy is consumer consumption then knowing Regional consumer confidence is critical.
Citizens can do a lot if they have the right information, are motivated and confident that what they are doing will improve citizen well being and quality of life.
Another improvement would be to aggregate the MSA data MegaRegion. Right now it looks like there is great diversity WITHIN MegaRegions.
For example, the National Capital Subregion (Washington MSA plus) and the Baltimore Subregion (Baltimore MSA plus) do not fall in the same 20 percent category for a single one of the ten indicators.
This suggests there is a need for not just Regional strategies but also MegaRegional strategies where Balance can be achieved from trade-offs within a MegaRegion.
Brookings staff is aware of the “America 2050″ program that is focused on MegaRegions. This would seem to be a simple step to take on the path to creating ‘Real Regional’ data (aka, New Urban Region and MegaRegion Data) not just MSA data. Even more important will be to evolve subsets of the Regional Data to reflect Beta Communities and NOT state or municipal jurisdictions.
This last suggestion illustrates how valuable MetroMonitor would be if Governance Practitioners had not been doing everything in their power to obscure and obfuscate an understanding of the evolution of the organic structure of Urban systems for the past 222 years.
EMR
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