I fondly remember talking to Bob Yaro in early 1990 and telling him that the map of regional organizations in Massachusetts looked like an explosion in a paint factory.  I wish I could say that things have changed for the better, but we still love to divide things up in New England. 

We have what may be a genetic imprint of throwing off authority imposed from higher powersalmost 250 years later, we still celebrate our attempt to create tea in the waters of our harbor.  This stubborn belief in bringing government closer to the people has its benefits: After all, our town meetings are the purest form of democracy in the world.  If you are registered to vote, you can be a member of your local legislative body for the evening and find yourself voting on budgets, land use controls, and police contracts.  But our regional sense is not so sharply honed.  Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson suggest in their Boston report that we are missing that "collaborative gene" that makes other regions work.  This makes regional stewardship a challenge.

This was apparent as I assembled my comprehensive reference work on sprawl for Greenwood Press (2006).  As I enlisted colleagues and friends from around the country to contribute articles, I was struck, once again, to discover how important the regional paradigm has become in the 21st century--and how far below the radar screen it is in many parts of the country.  We are living with organizational and institutional models that are often as old as I am (I turned 59 this year).  Despite the resurgence of regions as a topic for debate and an increasingly urgent focus, we still thrash around with limited models for governance.  We have created regional planning structures that are built on the policy framework of giving away other people's money. Then we fail to give these structures enough authority to behave responsibly, advocating the greater good over local self-interest. We peel off the "good stuff," giving roads, bridges, large scale infrastructure systems, and other regional systems to special districts or authorities with limited accountability to each other and to the collaboration and stewardship structures we espouse.  Moreover, these systems are not empowered to deal with the essence of sprawl -- land use, transportation, economic development, and environmental protection -- and they are even less equipped to take on the social dynamics of equity and the limitation of choice for people with limited resources.

In my treatise, I decided to take some of these issues on and enlist us all in a new dialogue about where we are going and how we can get there.  I am honored to have the opportunity to present a comprehensive case about sprawl, including all the usual critiques and apologetics, but to add to the understanding of its complexities. Having stewards like Neal Peirce, Bob Yaro, Myron Orfield, Curtis Johnson, David Rusk, Angela Blackwell, John Parr, Doug Henton, and John Melville as contributors has made this a much richer exposition than I could have done on my own.  Thanks to them, I also believe that we have broken new ground by taking on issues like property tax policy, social equity, social capital, immigration, and the ethical arguments.  It is my hope that we have given every steward a volume to use in their daily work on the issuethe book has a comprehensive bibliography, a glossary of over 700 terms, and a list of websites and resources to explore as needed. 

Let us go forth into the 21st century with more sophistication in our arguments, more inclusion in our local and regional stewardship models, and more sophistication in our insights into the challenges we face. This is a critical debate in American society that needs new language, new frameworks for inclusion, and full integration of the political, economic and social geography of regions to work. As Bob Yaro once said, "this is the work of decades."  What better time to begin.