MPOs in Different Area Codes
Some time ago I was complaining that the “middle tier” of the life we actually lead—neither local nor national—happens not at the level of states, but at the level of metropolitan areas. But while we have robust state governments, we’ve got pretty rickety structures at the metro level. Mark Muro has some ideas for improving things that don’t require unrealistic constitutional changes:
For example, the nation possesses 380 metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) that are already empowered–notwithstanding their variable quality–to engage in long-range transportation planning. Therefore, wouldn’t one way to thrust U.S. metros farther into federalism mix be to expand the MPOs’ role and responsibilities to mandate, say, planning and program alignment across a broader array of federal and state programs? Likewise, hundreds of other increasingly robust “metro” regional councils and other entities are also active, ranging from scores of councils of government (COGs) and myriad economic development districts (EDDs) to the metro mayors’ caucuses in Chicago and Denver; the older suburbs coalitions in Kansas City and Cleveland and Milwaukee; and the scores of other regional economic, civic, philanthropic, or environmental initiatives now working on regional problems. Shouldn’t these too be sought out, utilized more by Washington and the states, and empowered? Sure they should: Washington and the states should each seek out and work with the existing retinue of metropolitan actors as core partners in investment and program delivery.
In addition, Washington and the states should go farther and seek to stimulate the emergence of new metropolitan alignments. Perhaps the best way to do this is to stimulate multi-jurisdictional regional collaboration, say through federal grant competitions that reward such activity. That will inevitably coalesce new middle-tier governance entities. So why not apply—as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development does in the Notification of Funding Availability for its Neighborhood Stabilization Program—clear preferences for collaborative efforts? For that matter, why shouldn’t Washington apply a modest preference for multi-jurisdictional collaboration to essentially all of its activities, including dozens of the nation’s scores of categorical, block, and other grant flows? Such a “regionalism steer” would evoke much more metropolitan or quasi-metropolitan governance activity in U.S. regions. Such modest but clear pay-offs for cross-boundary cooperation would go surprisingly far toward producing more active “middle-tier” governance in America.
Good ideas. Another thing that occurs to me is that we could probably use more formal mechanisms for collaboration between House members whose districts all share a metro area especially if, as is often the case, the metro area crosses state lines.
20 Responses to “MPOs in Different Area Codes”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 am
We might well question the advisability of delegating yet more authority to unelected officials with no real way to hold them accountable and thus dig even larger cesspools of corruption at the local/regional government levels.
And where is your usual suggestion that we must raise taxes to fund their peculation?
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
You could also make the metropolitan areas into regular city states, medieval Europe style.
That would actually make some sense, but would be very impossible.
What did you mean Denmark was the gated community of Europe btw? You shouldn’t belive all the socialist propaganda you hear, you know.
/Limagolf
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Have to note that the Regional Plan Association (NY-NJ-CT) does excellent work that is often ignored by the bodies that have actual zoning power – that is, towns and villages.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:08 am
yes good idea
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
I wonder if the multi-jurisdiction nature of many successful metro areas is, in some ways, a feature not a bug. If you look at NY-CT-NJ, PA-NJ, VA-MD-DC, to name the few I can see from here, perhaps their success is in part because of the possibility of regulatory arbitrage.
Competition between jurisdictions should drive investment to the friendliest part of the region without significantly affecting the investment’s access to the rest of the region.
Dysfunctional jurisdictions (like Philly for years) will lose out to friendlier places (like southern NJ and the PA suburbs.) I don’t know if regional planning would put the breaks on that competition or accelerate it.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:50 am
Spending a great deal of time lately in ‘mutli-jurisdictional task forces’, I’ll just say if done well they’re useful, but if done poorly, they’re worse then useless. It takes quality leadership to make them work, and everyone willing to be a ‘team player’
As noted above, the largest obstacle is not the states, but the very localized existing power structures, either de jure or de facto.
I recall you complaining about New York Avenue near your residence; in my opinion, an empowered DC regional-based govenment entity would *completely* ignore your neighborhood’s wishes. It would make it an even busier thoroughfare, as the political center of gravity in the mechanism you decribe would be located in the population that wants to get through that neighborhood as quickly as possible when transiting from PG county to downtown or Virginia.
I would bet the three rocks* freeway would have probably gone through, if a single entity had the sole authority at the time.
*or whatever it was called.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
You could go further and note that in most cases State governments are Constitutionally established, but now vestigial, bodies. almost all key public functions are performed by cities or various forms of regional authorities (post authtorities, transportation authorities, water…etc.) or/and by the Federal government.
States are left, largely, with responsibility for state highways and for mental health services–and we can see how well those turned out–and sometimes for various other functions in regions where there are tiny or otherwise ineffective city or county governments. in other words, the preference is for localitites or national government. there is little real use for most state governments.
regionalism, by the way, does not necessarilly lead to highways, as Kilohe says. Regional authorities have very often been the key device whereby we have built and maintain transit systems, commuter rail lines, trains to airports, etc.
and the RPA, mentioned @3 above, is a notable example of a refional planning body that has been a strong advocate of regional rail. so strong, in fact that more than one of its proposals have seen the light of day. amazing but true.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
Looking at the converse case, the metro Honolulu area is not only in a single state, it’s in a single county with a single unified city & county government.
And even with that, there’s been all kinds of political obstacles to getting a train system built.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am
oops, i meant of course ‘poRt authorities,’ not post. sorry.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Matt-
HUD’s new Office of Sustainable Communities, pending funding, will be providing $100 million to metropolitan planning organizations to enable metro ares to set a vision for growth and then apply federal transportation, housing, and other investments in an integrated way in support of a broader vision. Additionally, the Sustainable Communities Initiative will be issuing $40 million in community challenge grants, which will be used to support metropolitan and local leaders to make market-shifting changes in local zoning and land use rules. All of this will be headed up by Shelley Poticha, a lifelong champion of smart growth.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Aren’t most of these sorts of organizations just coalitions of medium and large business and property owners and developers, trying to influence state and local policy for fun and profit?
City governments tend to be “rickety” in the sense that they are usually starved for funds, thanks to all the commuters who benefit from the economic and cultural vitality of a city but keep their tax dollars in the suburbs. I don’t know how you fix that, but I don’t think empowering regional associations of business elites is a very democratic solution to anything.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:00 am
bredan@7:
I agree that the green line would have come on service about 5 to ten years earlier as well.
There’s plenty of freeway projects in the NYC metro area, although yes at this point it’s all about rehabilitition and widening. I can’t remember there was a time growing up where there wasn’t major construction on the cross bronx, major degan, or LIE/BQE going between the two grandmothers’ houses.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 am
Count me skeptical: the COG model has proven itself almost completely incapable of dealing with the relatively straightforward problem of the Locust Horde.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Aren’t most of these sorts of organizations just coalitions of medium and large business and property owners and developers, trying to influence state and local policy for fun and profit?
That sounds like a Chamber of Commerce. From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_planning_organization#Governance
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
[...] in Washington starting to consider a substantial future role for MPOs — check out Mark Muro, Matt Yglesias, and Streetsblog coverage from last week for more on this — support appears to be growing for a [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I agree, especially about formalizing (and mandating!) cooperation among Congresspersons who share responsibility for a metro area.
It’s worth being careful though, or we could end up with a Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis — cool, and maybe useful for driving technological advancement, but it might lead to dystopian cyberpunk societal breakdown.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
[...] in Washington starting to consider a substantial future role for MPOs — check out Mark Muro, Matt Yglesias, and Streetsblog coverage from last week for more on this — support appears to be growing for a [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Tom Says:
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 am
Count me skeptical: the COG model has proven itself almost completely incapable of dealing with the relatively straightforward problem of the Locust Horde
==========================================================
Not to mention the zombie threat.
I’m very impressed Yglesias has finally figured out the existence of COGs and MPOs. Aren’t you, Adam Villani?
And Adam, what do you think about the legislature waiving CEQA for the new football stadium in City of Industry? I haven’t seen a news account yet that mentions Willie Brown was able to get the same deal for construction of AT&T Park back in the 90s
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:12 am
Yeah, I hope this means we see more posts on how to improve MPOs and fewer posts lamenting their lack of existence.
I think the statutory exemption for the stadium is pretty bogus. Even if it’s a good project and will get passed, it should still jump through the same hoops as everybody else. I hadn’t known that AT&T Park got the same sweet deal. Statutory exemptions should be used for projects that absolutely should not be delayed, not to make buddies with billionaires.
That being said, I think it’s exemplary that we’re not building the stadium with public funds. The NFL needs L.A. more than L.A. needs the NFL, and spending public money on a stadium is a loser’s deal for loser cities with inferiority complexes.
Let me also put my voice in with those who thing the Industry site is pretty good. A football stadium would be a giant hole of dead space if it were located downtown. And with NFL games being on Sundays I don’t see why the traffic should be anywhere near as bad as this project’s detractors are fearing (but wouldn’t it be nice to have an EIR to find out?) Also, locating this out to the east could be seen as a savvy move to capture crowds from the IE, Orange County, and San Gabriel Valley. In a sense, the more central parts of L.A. already have two major football teams, USC and UCLA. (Speaking of which, the state ought to sell the Coliseum to USC).
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:22 am
What if there was a US Green Bank with $10 trillion in it? And the US Green Bank said to New York State, “New York, would you like a High Speed Rail link between Buffalo and New York City? We will give you $12 billion to build it, and if you get it done in 2 1/2 years or less , and it meets specs, we will give you a $4 billion dollar bonus.”
Is this un-Constitutional? Seriously. What is stopping us from doing this other than the fact we are not allowed, as a Nation, to have our own bank?