Abstract
In the United States, the voluntary regional council is the dominant organizational form used by local, state and federal agencies to address regional issues. However, research addressing the details of their operations including their structures, processes and programs has been limited. This article reports on a survey of thirty of these regional councils that are located in large metropolitan areas. The findings indicate that these councils reflect a form of “soft regionalism.” Primarily, they facilitate, coordinate and energize, but they don’t have the more expansive capabilities of consolidations, regional governments and annexations.
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Notes
www.nctcog.org March 23, 2007
http://www.psrc.org/ March 17, 2007
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX: Portland, OR: Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN; Houston, TX; Kansas City, MO; and San Diego, CA operating with operating budgets over $60 m were not included in this average.
For example, the 1974–75 annual budgets for four regional councils presented in the table below (Washington, DC; Los Angeles,CA; Seattle, WA; and Detroit, MI) averaged $1.5 million (Wikstrom 1977, p. 73) and in 2006, the average budgets for these four regional councils was $18.3 million.
Wikstrom indentified four similar core activities in his study: forum for community planning/problems, planning and supporting joint planning, representation at state levels and regional review for federal programs (Wikstrom 1977 p. 97).
http://www.semcog.org/ March 18, 2007
http://www.crcog.org/ Mach 15, 2007
http://www.drcog.org/ March 15, 2007
http://www.morpc.org/ March 15, 2007
http://www.mag.maricopa.gov/display.cms March 15, 2007
http://www.mwcog.org/environment/overview.asp. March 21, 2007.
http://www.spcregion.org/ March 15, 2007
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Bryan, T.K., Wolf, J.F. Soft Regionalism in Action: Examining Voluntary Regional Councils’ Structures, Processes and Programs. Public Organ Rev 10, 99–115 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-009-0090-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-009-0090-y