Regionalism

Our cities are not what they used to be. Over the corse of fifty years the once proud, strong, and viable hubs of American economic prowess are but a shell of what they were built for. The problems that many cities have are no longer condensed to their city limits and the sprawl that was created over that fifty year period is now threatening to enter the suburban spaces that were created when the city’s citizens left. The metro sprawl is starting to loose it’s attractiveness and unless there is more acknowledgment of the problems creeping out of these cities, the same declining trends will create unoccupied commercial and residential districts not unlike the downtowns of many American cities. Without careful discussion about these trends and our communities embracement of a more regional approach, then there will be more problems in less dense suburban areas, making those problems hard to correct. In order to prevent the spread of this urban blight and avoid low occupancy rates, communities must implement regional tax policies, plan for more effective use of space, and encourage smart growth.

Regionalism is the act of looking at a populated area not as individual localities or municipalities, but as something greater. Instead of approaching our revitalization efforts to one area, the problems should be addressed regionally. This has been an ongoing topic of debate since the suburban sprawl that created communities outside of our cities first started. In fact, it has been somewhat over shadowed by the rising popularity of city revitalization efforts through public private efforts of development. City renaissance is only a small piece of what regionalism is about. Charles Clark, writer of the CQ Researcher article “Revitalizing ...

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...he city have grown far larger than anyone would have imagined. It is not just an urban area that has its own concentrated problems, those problems are now directly involved with it’s suburban parters. The sooner this is realized, the sooner Americans can get to work to grow their areas smartly and soundly. The sooner communities share the revenue that is generated through non resident communal traffic, the sooner they can directly take stake in the all their regions can create and offer. The sooner that space is used effectively within their existing boundaries, the sooner communities can function as a greater neighborhood. As the cities continue to rise, so too will they continue to expand. The only way to make this function work for the good of all who share its amenities, is to implement regionalism into our governing policies.