Tuesday, February 16, 1999
Planner extols, coaxes Tristate
Regional thinking is his advice
BY JOHN J. BYCZKOWSKI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The biggest challenge faced by the Cincinnati metro area is how to deal with the declining population of Hamilton County, an urban planner told a crowd of 300 at the downtown convention center Monday night.
“We have a trend that's been established that we have got to deal with because that represents one of the biggest threats to the American metropolitan area,” said Michael Gallis, an urban planner and architect from Charlotte, N.C. “And too often the answer is just to move further away from the problem rather than solve it.”
Mr. Gallis spoke to a standing-room crowd of more than 300 at the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center. He has been hired by the Metropolitan Growth Alliance — an organization of primarily local business people — to foster greater regional cooperation.
He is 11 months into a 15-month process of creating what he calls “a new conceptual framework,” a way of visualizing what makes the region tick — where the assets are, where the challenges are and where the opportunities are — irrespective of state and county borders.
IF YOU GO
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Michael Gallis and the Metropolitan Growth Alliance will offer several more presentations on the development of a framework for understanding the region's structure. The meetings are free and open to the public:
• TONIGHT, 5 p.m., RSVP Banquet Center in Miami Township, Wards Corner Road and I-275.
• March 24, 5 p.m., Lakota West High School, I-75 and Union Center Boulevard.
• March 25, 5 p.m., Mason High School Commons, Mason-Montgomery and Tylersville roads.
• Final presentations of the Gallis report are being scheduled for late June.
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Microphone in hand, Mr. Gallis explained the more than 50 maps he and his staff drew, laying out patterns of growth and development in the Tristate area.
The Cincinnati metro area has great strengths, he said: the airport, the complex of universities, the cultural infrastructure of museums and theaters, a diverse economy and the river
valley. But, he added, Indianapolis, Columbus and Louisville — cities within a 100-mile-radius “super-region” — aren't standing still.
“That's the challenge for us: how we in fact meet that challenge within the competitive structure of the super-region,” he said.
The population decline is a particular threat, Mr. Gallis said. “It represents a specific issue here that must be addressed because the major medical, cultural, educational (and) environmental resources are all in the core,” he said. “If it continues to deteriorate, people continue to leave, and it becomes unstoppable. That's a very important key issue.”
If applause is any indication, the most popular issue of the evening was riverfront development. Mr. Gallis said he was told of the formation of a riverfront commission, but was surprised it's only looking at a small area of the downtown riverfront on the Cincinnati side.
“Let's hope somebody starts to look at the whole river and look at the pieces and the way it comes together. It is a great asset,” he said.
Mr. Gallis was asked his views on some local issues: a western Hamilton County development plan and urban sprawl, to name two. He deftly sidestepped them, asking people to use his framework to understand what makes the region tick.
“I would hope that this will be a forum for some of those questions to be raised, and that we can look at the issue of: How can we treat it not area by area, but what is the strategy for the whole metropolitan area, and how do we fit together?” he said. “I hope this will provide some of the framework for a better understanding of that.”
For some in attendance, Mr. Gallis' counsel isn't strong enough medicine to solve the region's problems. “What I believe it needs, unfortunately you have to castigate people,” said John Ellen bogen of Fort Mitchell. “Sooner or later, that principle of NIMBY — "not in my back yard' — is going to come up. We can talk for days and weeks and things will not move an inch. ... Have the guts to criticize. If you don't do it, we won't have a focus, and we'll continue to talk about NIMBY.”
Joe Pike of Edgewood essentially agreed. Mr. Gallis talked about the hundreds of political jurisdictions that make planning difficult. “The fundamental problem is not the jurisdictions, it's the philosophical differences people all over have,” Mr. Pike said. Some want no growth, “and others believe you grow or die.”
Jane Anderson of East Walnut Hills said she found hope in Mr. Gallis' framework. “Until we have this common language, common framework, we can't have any meaningful discussion,” she said.
“I think the fact that this many people showed up to think about this on a regional scope is great progress. This is a major breakthrough.”
Mr. Gallis makes another presentation at 5 tonight at the RSVP Banquet Center in Miami Township.
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