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NEWBURGH, N.Y.-- For years, I’ve been writing about how great central cities and their suburban communities must coalesce and set joint strategies if they hope to compete in the new global economy. In the late ‘80s it was an outlier concept; today most mayors and county leaders trumpet the idea.
But what about the regions “in between” -- areas that share a geography, but have no big city?
A prime example is the great and picturesque Hudson River Valley, stretching 150 miles from Westchester County, N.Y., up to Albany, now approaching the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploratory cruise of 1609.
American history and culture run so deep here that Congress recognizes the entire valley as a National Heritage Area. Washington’s headquarters were at Newburgh through most of the Revolutionary War. The Hudson offered the path to the Erie Canal, connecting coastal America to the Great Lakes. Famed Americans built great mansions along the river’s banks. President Franklin Roosevelt was born at Hyde Park and maintained his home there through his presidency. America’s military academy sits atop a dramatic turn of the river at West Point. The age of computers was born at IBM headquarters in Armonk.
But can a region of 242 municipalities, nine counties, 2.2 million people but no city over 50,000 -- in other words territory where home rule is treasured as holy writ -- ever find a way to pull together in a tough, challenging 21st century?
How competitive can a region be if its narrowly-drawn town borders seal off poverty-plagued small cities from the affluence and tax base of privileged nearby communities? Or if elitist towns practice exclusionary zoning, throwing up barriers to new development that effectively bar new middle-income families, not to mention the poor? Or if income-hungry communities allow ugly commercial strips and huge, ugly billboards to despoil the roadways of a region of immense natural beauty?
And those are just samples of the Hudson Valley’s current challenges. It has to deal with pockets of severe traffic congestion. Many water and sewer systems cry out for repair. Some 250,000 Valley residents commute to metropolitan New York for their paychecks, but job opportunities are scarce for workers laid off from the region’s historic manufacturing plants.
As early as 1965, a number of Valley leaders, corporations at the fore, created Patterns for Progress, a regional think tank/advocate for economic growth that protects the environment. Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, a proponent of regional planning and using infrastructure to guide growth, was an early participant.
Now Patterns, its membership swelled in recent years to some 500 civic leaders, is embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious “Global Hudson Valley Initiative.”
The goal is to get the region to see itself as an interconnected whole, and then market itself as a recognized place of high value, ready to deal realistically with common problems and position itself effectively in the new global economy.
Even friends say the effort is a touch nebulous. So far it seems to lack broad support from elected officials. But there’s growing respect for the concept of shared stewardship, the visioning that’s engaged hundreds of citizens in broad series of meetings, and the intent to end up with a clear, widely-supported “Can Do” plan.
What might the “Can Do” plan be? One idea, emerging at a meeting last week, would be a 20- to 50-year vision for the shores of the Hudson, the region’s trademark and treasure. One reason the river retains its immense beauty is the vast amount of shoreline still undeveloped. But now there’s immense pressure for new construction. Could Patterns launch a Valley-wide campaign to envision different scenarios for the river’s development, then get a consensus to rewrite local land use plans to channel development so that the river’s character is retained?
That might be a “Can Do” strategy for the valley’s future, Michael DiTullo, Patterns’ president, told me. But whatever strategy is adopted, he said, “our new DNA says all systems are interdependent.” Indeed, Patterns has developed a new “Articles of Alliance,” now being signed onto by a broad range of citizens, that parallels pathbreaking concepts for successful regions identified by the national Alliance for Regional Stewardship.
New projects, the “Articles” declare, must work outside familiar silos, instead focusing on the connections among the economy, environment, equity and governance. A Hudson shoreline campaign, for example, could expand beyond zoning and land use rules to possibilities of new water-related industries, environmental and natural resource education in the schools and colleges, and opportunities for new housing that includes working families, not just the very- and near-rich. And it could employ modern computer based visualization tools to give residents a real choice, Alliance for Regional Stewardship president John Parr told a meeting late last month.
It’s a tall order. But to the degree it works, the historic Hudson River Valley will have strengthened itself dramatically through a new, inclusionary civics that builds confidence inside and commands respect outside -- a marker for American regions of all sizes and shapes.
Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com
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