I have done some earlier research on Ohio's MPOs and provide it here for background. There are currently 21 Regional Councils in Ohio representing about 75% of the state’s population. A few of the councils, including MORPC (Columbus), OKI, (Cincinnati) and TMACOG (Toledo) are organized as Councils of Governments (COGs) as authorized under Chapter 167 of the ORC. The other agencies are formed through local intergovernmental agreement and formal agreement with USDOT to serve as regional Metropolitan Planning Councils (or MPOs). Transportation is the largest functional area of the Councils as federal funding provides a resource for regional agencies to serve as the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for these regions. Some focus exclusively on personal transportation while others include personal and freight. Some do surface only; some play a role in surface, maritime, aviation. Other functions include watershed preservation/clean water planning and funding, regional land use guidance/planning, economic development coordination and related

The National Association of Regional Councils (NARC)is the trade association for councils of government (COGs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). As an aside, NARC is hosting its annual conference here in Cleveland, June 15-17, 2010. NARC has some interesting data on regional planning strategies including a report on Best Practices for Integrating Land Use and Transportation, see: http://narc.org/uploads/landuseorkshopsummary0908.pdf

Until a few years ago, Chicago's MPO was created and managed largely by the Illinois Department of Transportation. A separate agency, NIPC, functioned as the six county region's land use and water quality planning agency It took about a decade of activism to achieve legislative restructuring of the Chicago area's MPO resulting in the creation of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, with its more independent source of funding.  See: http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/default.aspx

We certainly should be looking at more strategic regional land use/transportation approaches to planning/implementing development strategies for the greater Cleveland region. Some of the states with strong regional planning bodies include: Washington, Oregon, California. Others that have strengthened regional planning include: New Jersey, Maryland. MORPC does a great job and I have admired their work for some time. We really deserve a much better regional planning agency that can take on the tough priority issues, perhaps with County reform, we have some opportunities to pursue.

Cleveland Planning Director Bob Brown: “NOACA’s policies are so broad, they can justify most projects, even those that induce sprawl. I think a plan that strengthens the urban core and doesn’t have to please so many constituents would work better.”

When will NOACA get with the program that a strong urban core enriches the entire region? It is ludicrous. Like Thomas Mulready said years ago, when you step off the plane in LA, you don't say you're from Mayfield Village, Ohio, you say you're from Cleveland. Without a sustainable central city at its core, the region continues to sink. Let all those privileged to live in Hunting valley and Pepper Pike recall that the money they made or their forefathers made came largely from polluting industries that they left like so much junk in the city of Cleveland on the banks of the Cuyahoga and the shores of Lake Erie.

Everyday, businessmen who work in energy wasting downtown high rises litigating this and selling that, doctors who practice making folks well by treating the numerous diseases their car exhausts cause, professors who 'study' what needs to change drive their cars to and fro through the donut of poverty with nary a care. Now largely focused on seeking a way to make the sick they have abandoned well at a huge cost. Make the city healthy, make its people healthy. But do the people who live out there give a damn or do they just want to use Cleveland like a dump? "I'm OK, fine in fact, in the safety of my parking garage and office. Poverty, despair and desperation is just something I can bypass on the freeway or on a city boulevard that I zip along while listening to drivetime radio. No problem."

Discussions of regionalism languish and the city's services, schools and real estate market die on the vine while NOACA can barely send out an ozone advisory until the day the advisory is in effect is through (2:30pm).

NOACA is not too big to fail, but it appears it may be trying to serve too many masters. What other municipalities in NOACA's service area have launched a sustainable city effort? How many are reliant on their county governments to 'suggest' overarching toothless sustainability measures?

There are more potential walkable neighborhoods in Cleveland and the inner ring suburbs than in any of the outlying exurbs. When, as James Howard Kunstler pointed out in his talk at CPL on Sunday, exurbs die, folks will be seeking walkable tightly knit neighborhoods in the city.

Let's be a little forward thinking here, NOACA. What say you? Can you see the forest for the trees?