Real regionalism needs to be restored By Paul Bray tom-up” planning, but state staff reviewed and January 10, 2012 decided the allocation of most of the funds. The hoopla was Maria Bartiromo, a CNBC anchor, announcing the winners in Albany. Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd failed in the 1930s when, as a state senator, he advocated re- The regional planning councils produced gionalism for the Hudson River Valley. Gov. proposals to fund a mix of projects, including Nelson Rockefeller failed with regionalism in projects not funded, like the Albany convention the Hudson River Valley when he created the center and a $25 million computer request from Hudson River Valley Commission in the 1960s. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The Rockefeller Institute tried and failed to es- In contrast, the real economic development tablish a regional plan for the Capital Region going on in New York is the $4.4 billion invest- in the 1990s. ment, announced in a governor’s press release Regionalism in a state like New York rarely on Sept. 27, by an international tech group led happens. Home rule means that every city, town by IBM and Intel for the development of the and village has almost exclusive zoning and next generation in computer chip technology. planning authority, key to economic develop- In includes $400 million in state funds for the ment, and few municipalities are willing to Albany College of Nanoscale Science and share. Engineering. Gov. Andrew Cuomo approach has been to Alain Kaloyeros, chief executive of Albany dangle $200 million for four regions to compete Nano, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for $40 million dollars each, and an additional were in the vanguard of the effort to lure the $800 million for individual project applications multibillion dollar, public-private computer before regional councils of local figures in busi- chip development. ness, higher education and organizations. Even Since New York lost the competition in the with that money, The New York Times said it late 1980s with Austin, Texas, to get Sematech, still “could prove more difficult than his earlier a consortium of computer manufacturers, successes with legalizing same-sex marriage Kaloyeros has been organizing strategic moves and passing a tough state budget.” that brought Sematech from Austin to Albany Cuomo succeeded with a “regionalism Nano College. The nano college did not exist lite,” using smoke, mirrors, and hoopla. The before him. His genius has made the University smoke-and-mirrors included the fact that the at Albany into a force that links high tech cen- $800 million was from existing funding pro- ters of excellence throughout the state. It also grams, like the Environmental Protection Fund, links research for the next generation computer being grafted onto a new vehicle for their alloca- chip among Albany, East Fishkill, Yorktown tion. The governor talked a lot about “bot- Heights, Utica and Canandaigua. 1 While Cuomo brought regionalism into the workforce housing programs and regional sunlight, Kaloyeros found a way for New York tax-based sharing. to be a world-class competitor in computer State planning in New York was started by chips and nano-tech. Gov. Alfred E. Smith in 1926 and reached its Yet, let us not ignore that the overall archi- peak in the 1960s. New York had the best state tecture for regionalism and state planning for planning entity in the nation. economic development, healthy communities, It all died in the 1970s, however, and has infrastructure, social equity and environmental not been revived. With its passing went the quality is missing. The regional councils are fine skilled planners who shaped the vision, analy- as advisory bodies, but regionalism needs real sis and guidance that once helped the Empire regions (not the bureaucratic regions of the state State be the greatest in the nation. economic development agency) and full-time planning professionals monitoring and com- We need to have real regionalism and state prehensively addressing regional issues. planning back in New York to regain our excel- lence. The Capital Region has a regional planning commission, but with limited authority for anti-sprawl controls, regional fair share 2.