Wednesday, February 17, 1999
Regional vs. local focus of meeting
BY PERRY BROTHERS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MIAMI TOWNSHIP — More than 100 Tristate residents debated a historic conflict — localism vs. regionalism — Tuesday night at the RSVP Banquet Center during a public discussion designed to promote regional cooperation.
Michael Gallis, an urban planner and architect from Charlotte, N.C., fostered the debate with a “work-in-progress” presentation of Tristate demographic, economic and political data he has compiled as a paid planning consultant for the Metropolitan Growth Alliance (MGA).
Tuesday's meeting was the second of two held this week by the MGA, a local business group geared toward uniting the fragmented area in a regional growth vision.
Mr. Gallis explained each of the 25-plus informational maps he displayed on easels, stretched across the room. When he reached a map detailing the more than 340 government jurisdictions in the Tristate, one audience member whispered, “What a mess.”
“This is how we're going into the future,” Mr. Gallis said. “This is how we define our regional vision — through all of these pieces.”
Once the floor was opened to questions, the focus remained, primarily, on the rampant fragmentation.
“We've never seen anything with this many (jurisdictions) of this size,” Mr. Gallis said in response to a man who asked whether he'd ever seen regional cooperation work in an area as systematically fractured as the Tristate.
“It's unique.”
Another asked what effect a unified government would have on the area.
Mr. Gallis, after looking with a smirk at Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce President John Williams — alliance member and the event's moderator — said he didn't want to get into that. Mr. Gallis did say that an integrated government has a competitive advantage.
“You can really do things and do them rapidly,” Mr. Gallis said. He recounted a story of a Charlotte bank executive who told North Carolina officials that fractured governments hindered business growth.
At one point, audience member Marie Irish Keaney, 41, an advertising copywriter from Mount Washington, pressed Mr. Gallis to explain who or what would lead such regional unification, how it would be funded and to whom would the leaders be accountable.
Mr. Williams said those details would be decided with public input after more research.
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