GLUE: Great Lakes Urban Exchange

A new organization is taking regionalism to another level. GLUE, the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, is fostering conversation within and between cities in the Great Lakes Economic Region in order to foster cooperation and innovative strategies for revitalization:

Want to take the “rust” out of “Rustbelt”? Are you an advocate? A neighbor? A voter? A dot connector? The Great Lakes Urban Exchange needs your help to answer the question: what’s right and what’s wrong about my post-industrial city?

Join the movement for a “Rustbelt” Renaissance here on GLUEspace and via GLUE’s offline activities in your sticky city. Become a member, tell your story, and help us collect, cross-pollinate, and replicate good ideas. Welcome to the mega-regional family.

For more information, visit www.gluespace.org and attend a sticky cities meeting.

Regional Cooperation and Economic Development

A recent conference in Youngstown, Ohio, brought together planning and development professionals from each of three cities, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Youngstown, to discuss common challenges and opportunities for regional collaboration. The keynote speaker, John Austin, formerly of the Great Lakes Economic Initiative at the Brookings Institution, provided a look at the Great Lakes Region’s economy and how economic development can come from regional coordination.

Group talks of boosting Great Lakes economy
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Vindicator
Youngstown, Ohio

Elizabeth Township Governance to Change

You may have not read the recent story in the Post-Gazette about a man in Elizabeth Township who has proposed to decrease the number of township commissioners from 7 to 5 and move them from elected by ward to elected at large. You may not have read this story because you think that it has no relevance to you. You may be wrong.

Elizabeth Township, located south of McKeesport on the Youghiogheny River, had a population of 13,839 in 2000 (at the time of the last census). That makes Elizabeth Township smaller than some City of Pittsburgh neighborhoods (i.e. Squirrel Hill, Brookline and Shadyside).

Yet, in the current proposal for city-county consolidation, Elizabeth Township doesn’t have to change at all. It will keep on with its commissioners and its independent citizenry while the City of Pittsburgh, with 334,563 people, will be eliminated and rolled into the county.

Currently, Elizabeth has one commissioner for every 1,977 citizens. That’s a whole lot of government. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh has one Council Member for every 37,174 people. If the goal of reform is efficiency, as it is stated in arguments for city-county consolidation, which municipality discussed here is more efficient and which one should be considered for consolidation?