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This Saturday a curious, and in some respects
historic, meeting will be held at historic Music Hall.
About 1,000 people will gather around 8:30 a.m.,
chow down on a free breakfast, then break up into groups of about
10. Participants will be seated at round tables, and each table
will have an electronic wand used throughout the day to register
votes on various ideas and proposals the meeting's moderators will
introduce. Laptops with wireless modems will let participants keep
tabs on results.
The proposals won't be pulled out of thin air.
They've already been culled from smaller brainstorming sessions
and civic gatherings held since October by the Hamilton County
Regional Planning Commission.
The voting session Saturday is more than an novel
approach to a public hearing. It represents an attempt to develop
a consensus on what would be the first comprehensive plan for all
of Hamilton
County since 1964.
It will be only that - a plan - but there's reason
to believe it will influence county commissioners and other policy
makers in the years to come. Part of the reason to believe that is
the $250,000 commissioners have already spent on this
unprecedented effort, which organizers have dubbed the Community
COMPASS.
Hamilton
County's commissioners are notoriously tight when it comes to
general fund dollars; if they help pay for a countywide plan they
are likely to pay attention to it.
There's more than altruism at work here.
In recent years an increasing number of corporate,
civic, religious and political leaders have been studying how
Greater Cincinnati works - and doesn't work.
It has played out in different ways, but to one
degree or another these studies have involved comparisons with
other cities that seem to be doing things right, and analyses of
what it will take to keep Cincinnati a vibrant competitor.
It's fair to say that most people who have
participated in these studies have come away with the realization
that Cincinnati is exceptionally polarized - politically,
geographically, racially, even economically - and that if we're
going to compete successfully in coming decades we will need to
act with a regional voice on a host of issues.
Indeed, many people have recognized as well that
doing nothing is a bad option, given the trends which are now at
play.
Consider: In the last 30 years Cincinnati has lost
nearly one-fourth of its population. But the central city isn't
alone: Hamilton
County, even with all the growth over the past decade in the western townships,
has lost nearly 80,000 people. Only one other top 25 metro area in
the
United States has greater racial and social segregation in
elementary schools than we do.
No one is banging the drum for uni-gov. But a lot
of people - the editorial board of The Post included - are
convinced that the region must find better ways to cooperate
effectively on such matters as transportation, education, land use
controls and environmental protection. That effort must start with
the 49 political subdivisions within Hamilton
County.
Saturday's session will explore four primary
themes: assuring economic prosperity, building collaborative
decision-making, embracing diversity and equity and balancing
development and the environment.
You don't have to register in advance to attend
Saturday's program, but it's encouraged. Call the Community
COMPASS hotline at 513-946-4505 or register online at
www.communitycompass.org.
It should be interesting, and will, we hope, be
productive as well.
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