MetroPatterns

[MrsB]

Fellow Thinkers.
I am looking for a bipartisan group of people to work on reading and discussing Myron Ornfields MetroPatterns as it pertains to Connecticut Cities and suburbs. If you are interested I need 6 other people aside from my self. I would have copies sent to you. You’ll read and we’ll discuss it, look at how it pertains to us and CT. Our objective would be to break down the information into digestible parts for discussion with the average voter. If you don’t know what I am talking about but are interested, ask me, I will send you a brief synopsis of what metropatterns is. I warn you now it is a pretty academic hunk of Data but important and I think worthy of a hearty discussion.

Thanks,
MrsB

[Dr.Ken Sokolowski]

Mrs.B,
I'm game!
Dr.Ken

[OliverTwist]

This really sounds like it would be intellectually stimulating. You really got to get a life.

[GoldShield]

Hey, Twisted Oliver,
Sounds like the pot is calling the kettle black. Better stop sniffin' what you're spraying. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem: grow up!

[OliverTwist]

Hey Goldshield, if that topic sounds interesting to you, maybe you should take up bowling or start watching paint dry. There has to be other books that would satisfy this insatiable drive to lead anyone to discuss that boring topic. How about War & Peace or Economics 101.

[JoeSixpack]

Hey GoldShield, What time should you check back into "The Home"

[GoldShield]

Hey, Twisted Oliver and JoeSickPack,

I know that the following is waaay out of your league, but here it is for everyone else who is still able to think in this knee jerk world:

OUA [ Office of Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Hartford at www.oua-adh.org/ ] has been working with Ameregis and the Metropolitan Area Research Corporation (MARC) headed by Myron Orfield, based in Minneapolis. A report containing a selection of maps, the analysis and policy recommendations is now complete for the state of Connecticut (with details regarding Wethersfield and similar periburbs): www.oua-adh.org/Connecticut_Jan29.pdf

'Executive summary' of this report at:
www.oua-adh.org/Connecticut%20Metropatterns%20Executive%20Summary.htm

[OliverTwist]

Evidently I must have missed the big run on this topic. I sound like people are knocking your doors down to be part of this new underground group. Face the facts; I’m only saying out loud what everyone else thinking. Boring……….

Intellectual stimulating to me is watching a good Rambo movie and not sitting on a couch, sipping a latté and debating the Metro Patterns of the giant elk in mating season.

[standish]

I wholeheartedly agree. If regionalism made any sense on its own for Connecticut, it would have happened long ago. Larry Cohen has the right perspective on this topic: core cities have outlived their historical usefulness. They have begun to resemble their neighboring suburbs in regard to population density, concentration of industry, et al. Outmigration is actually not a bad thing. Thus, they become economically and socially competitive as the urban diaspora continues, the poor are more evenly distributed in suburban settings and/or more upwardly mobile and tax rates moderate due to lower demand on services.

Regionalism is little more than a scheme to establish a new tax-and-spend layer less accountable to local control and more redistributive. Don't let Wethersfield and surrounding towns be melded into Metro-Hartford!

[MrsB]

Glodshield,

Don't waste your breath on educating the masses. My intention was for a group of people to gather to put this huge document into a comic book format for the joe six packs and Twisted olivers of the area, so that they could be able to digest the information with their cheez doodles and tasty pizza tots with out too much brain freeze.

Apparently this was so threatening to them they decided to poke fun. So gentlemen, while you watch the town go to ruins form middle class flight and the rest of the country embrace these ideals of metro patterns to save their very butts form what is happening here, please feel free to turn up the Rambo movies so that the fake gun shots will drown out the real ones happening on your streets.

Don't worry guys; you relax while everyone else fixes it for you. And just so you know the reason this is not happening here is because New England has its head up it own rear. It is happening everywhere, and you need look no further than The Twin cities to have an example of how great it can be. Stop being so snobby and look at the big picture.

And Standish, if you insist on having the poor be suburbanized please don't try and convince people that it will cost less in services. Because when the poor fill in the gaps of middleclass flight in your town it does nothing but cause more white/upper middle class flight. Your schools have more literacy issues and more special needs students. You can pretend all you want but when people associate color with poverty, and they do, they move. To whiter and brighter areas. So have it your way you stay and fight over who gets a super stop and shop, be my guest.

[SenatorBlutarsky]

MrsB, way to play the "race card". Did you find 6 people to help you? I just finished watching paint dry on my wall and I'm looking for a good challenge.

[MrsB]

Smart mouthed comments, while making you feel big and tuff behind your monitor, are nothing but punk kid behavior all grown up. So make fun all you want, but please know that while you laugh others are making policy you will have to live by. This is happening in conservative and liberal states all across the nation. 22 to be exact.

And if you bothered to read the post that started all this banter, you will notice that I was looking for people from all sides for a discussion. Something like this but where we all know what we are talking about. In an ideal world you would have read the report and seen the video, then you would say it’s a bad idea and give reasons why. Now you have nothing but your witty one liners. Not fact, not logic. Nothing worth a discussion

[Gotcha]

Could someone explain what exactly is MetroPatterns. I can't really comment on something I don't understand.

[standish]

"MetroPattterns"is a distortion of statistics employed to create a "crisis" for which bureaucrats have the perfect remedy: another layer of government run by insiders and "experts", who, as Mrs. B points out, "make policy" without the democratic, direct control of local government.

[MrsB]

Connecticut Metropatterns are a regional agenda for community and prosperity in Ct. It is a plan that has been developed for each state by The Amergis Metropolitan research corporation, headed by Myron Orfield. It specifically addresses the hazards of growth for our state and the major cities in our state. Hartford being one of them. It looks closely on development. Congestion, population, education and economic development or the lack there of. Wethersfield is considered by this study to be an at risk town. That is the same category as Manchester and Newington. For comparison they classify Easy Hartford as a stressed town, and West Hartford and Glastonbury as Bedroom developing. There are 43 at risk towns in CT.

This is a complicated study to briefly explain. But fiscal reform in this way could
reduce dependence on local property taxes
reduce inequalities in tax rates and services
reduce competition for tax base
encourage joint economic development efforts
complement regional or sate wide land uses planning.


This is just one excerpt of the Metropatterns report you may find helpful in drawing your own conclusion.

“The state's fiscal system pits local governments against one another in a competition for tax base that needlessly undermines the character of local communities, wastes resources, discourages cooperation and increases fiscal disparities. In fact, the disparity between Connecticut's low-and high tax base communities increased by more than 50 % during the 1990's”<br>
“All places would benefit fir regional statewide reforms.
Cooperative land use planning can strengthen communities and preserve the environment
Tax and state aid reforms can stabilize fiscally stressed schools help communities pay for needed public services and reduce competition for tax base.
Enhanced roles for state government, council of government or other regional organizations can help solve regional problems while ensuring that all communities have a say in decision making.”