Greater Cincinnati needs to change its development habits or risk further division along racial and economic lines.

        Sprawling growth has cost Cincinnati and its suburbs alike — making the region one of the most fragmented in the nation, according to regionalism guru Myron Orfield.

        Mr. Orfield this week unveiled his yearlong study of how Cincinnati compares with other metropolitan regions in growth. The study was commissioned by the local group Citizens for Civic Renewal.

        He concluded that a lack of regional planning has contributed to wasteful development, segregated housing, education inequality and other problems.

        While the report doesn't recommend specific actions, Mr. Orfield urges Greater Cincinnati leaders to study the findings with an eye to reforming tax laws and crafting a land-use plan.

        Current laws pit towns and cities against each other, not working together for the region's good.

        “All these municipalities are battling each other for tax base,” said Mr. Orfield, a Minnesota state lawmaker and urban planner. “The system that has been crafted says "protect yourself.'”

        Community leaders said the report illustrates a troubling pattern. Kevin Costello, executive director of the Boone County Planning Commission, said his community has worked hard to develop a comprehensive development plan to guide the Northern Kentucky county.

        But he realizes his county's growth plan would be more effective if it complemented a regional plan.

        “For a healthy region to exist, you have to have a healthy central city as well as suburban area,” Mr. Costello said.

        Mr. Orfield's report says unchecked growth hurts city neighborhoods as well as booming suburbs.

        Middle-class families leave poorer city neighborhoods to settle in new suburbs, which have difficulty paying for expensive roads, sewers and other improvements.

        Older suburbs ringing the city such as Madeira, St. Bernard and Cheviot perhaps face the biggest risk because they don't have many businesses that pay taxes.

        Nowhere are the economic and racial imbalances more pro nounced than in public schools.

        Elementary schools are a powerful predictor of a neighborhood's future, Mr. Orfield said, often foreshadowing increases in poverty and other demographic shifts.

        And in Greater Cincinnati's schools, poverty tends to be isolated in the city and nearby suburbs.

        Cincinnati-area schools have some of the widest disparities between haves and have-nots. Of the 25 largest metropolitan regions, only six had a higher rate of income disparity in public schools, according to Mr. Orfield.

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