By Larry Jones
June 23, 2003

Rochester Mayor William Johnson led members of the Regionalism and Smart Growth Task Force in a discussion on the findings from a recent Conference survey of 72 cities. To gain a better understanding of mayors interest in regionalism and smart growth issues, Johnson said the survey was conducted to find out the most important issues to mayors in four broad areas: planning and land use policy needs; regional cooperation, personal and professional interest; and overall community needs.

Larry Jones of the Conference staff reviewed the findings from the survey. He said in the area of planning and land use, three issues were identified by mayors as the most important community concerns. These include dealing with the location of development and sprawl, traffic congestion and the preservation of open space. On regional cooperation, mayors identified strengthening the regional economy, meeting the needs for infrastructure and cutting traffic congestion as the most important reasons for pursuing intergovernmental cooperation.

With regard to issues that mayors are personally and professionally most interested in acquiring more knowledge in, four areas were identified: regional economic vitality, land use and natural resource planning, community and regional development models and sustainable development. In the last category, mayors identified education, municipal finance and homeland security as the most important overall priorities in their communities.

Jones also pointed out that responses were grouped by regions to determine if there was a difference between geographical areas. While there was a difference in how each region (using the U.S. Census Bureau's regional map — west, midwest, south and northeast) ordered its priorities in the four broad areas, there was a lot of overlap in the top three issues they selected.

Following the review of the survey findings, mayors discussed what the Task Force should do next. It was decided that since the survey has helped identify priorities, now the Task Force should identify best practices in each of the priority areas. Mayors agreed this could be a valuable information source for members and partners of the Conference. Johnson appointed a small working group, 2 members from each region, to collect, examine and put together a collection of best practices for the Task Force to consider at its next meeting.