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In alt cases we have film ed the best available copy. University Microfilms International 300 N. Z EEB RD., ANN ARBOR, M l 4810G 8212470 Wandschneider, Philip Ralph MICHIGAN REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS: POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COLLECTIVE ACTION Ph.D. 1981 Michigan Slate University University Microfilms International A STUDY IN THE 300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, M I 48106 PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V . 1. Glossy photographs or pages______ 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print______ 3. Photographs with dark background______ 4. Illustrations are poor copy______ 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy______ 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page______ 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages 8. Print exceeds margin requirements______ 9. 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Other ^ ________________________ __________________________________________ University Microfilms International MICHIGAN REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS: A STUDY IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COLLECTIVE ACTION By Philip Ralph Wandschneider A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Agricultural Economics 1981 ABSTRACT MICHIGAN REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS: A STUDY IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COLLECTIVE ACTION By Philip Ralph Wandschneider This study is a response to concerns about the nature and role of a new and evolving set of government agencies, the Regional Planning Organizations. Regional Planning Organizations The (RPOs) have been constructed to meet a perceived need to "coordinate11 and ’plan" local government activities. Examples such as conflict over reve­ nue and public service responsibilities for new industries or malls, conflict over pollution, and "urban sprawl1, indi­ cate that the perceived problems are real. RPOs to help resolve them, especially when But how are (Michigan) RPOs have no powers to tax, regulate or administer programs? Their only authority is that of reviewing certain local applications for federal grants. Against this background this study had two purposes: to discover and describe RPO organizational, behavioral, and performance characteristics, and to develop a concep­ tual framework to analyze the major organizational issues raised by the RPOs: review. regionalism, planning, and project Philip Ralph Wandschneider The theory was developed in two chapters, examining basic principles of organization, one the second addressing specifically the issues of regionalism, planning and project review. Reliance was placed on Simon's model of behavior under limits of uncertainty and imperfect cog­ nitive capacity. Planning was defined as having two aspects: a degree of central organizational control and a process of systematically bringing anticipations of the future into current decision making. Data were collected through direct interviews of participants in all 14 Michigan RPOs. Interviews were open- ended to suit the explorative nature of the study. A small survey and review of RPO documents supplemented the inter­ views . An early chapter described the basic RPO programs, RPO organization and territorial dimensions. The descrip­ tive and theoretic base provided an opportunity to explore numerous organizational issues. Major results concerning RPOs included the relative propensity to engage in '‘compli­ ance," "information," or "service" planning. What appeared to be simply planning to comply with federal mandates, out to be a complex phenomenon. turned For example, nominal com­ pliance planning often involved funding redirected towards substantive RPO concerns. The major activity of most RPOs was found to be the research and education role of 'informa­ tion" planning whose implementation depends on local consent Philip Ralph Wandschneider and federal support. Provision of consulting services was especially important in rural RPOs. The bulk of the study comprised an attempt to trace the causes and impacts of these different planning behaviors. A key variable determining extent of impact was the cre di ­ bility (legitimacy) of the RPO. Legitimacy was found to vary positively with RPO age and urbanness, the rivalry of multiple urban centers. affected the RPOs' inversely with Legitimacy also one formal authority, project review. While some studies have found that the voluntary nature of the RPO makes effective review impossible, this study found that some RPOs' review processes led to project m o d i ­ fications, though rarely to overtly negative reviews. This impact was attributed to the economics of information p r o ­ cesses and the extent of RPO legitimacy. The study concluded with a discussion of policy alternatives in the form of seven scenarios of RPO/regional organization. A general conclusion was that the RPO did not represent a simple centralization ment) or decentralization aspects of both. (from local govern­ (from federal go v e r n m e n t ) , but Moreover, an evaluation of three rival theories of governmental organization produced guide to choose the ideal system. of factual propositions value propositions. 110 simple Each theory is a mix (some supported in this study) The final shape government and (and RPOs Philip Ralph Wandschneider in particular) should take depends on further knowledge about the factual assertions and a policy decision about which value propositions are preferred. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The words contained in this thesis represent hours of pain and support, pleasure to me, but they also reflect the encouragement, journey was and sacrifice of many others. The long, and I have too many to thank. First, I must thank the dozens who patiently gave their time to help me understand the Regional Planning Organizations. They are too many to name here, may be found with the references. so a list But despite the imper­ sonal appearance of a list, each individual's insight and interest are warmly remembered. Secondly, I must try to thank my academic gurus. Foremost intellectual spurs on my committee were Jim Shaffer and Al Schmid. I may not have acknowledged it gracefully in the course of events, but I learned much from them that still shapes me. Bob Solo and Warren Samuels, though less frequently consulted, taught me much. Larry Libby, Roy Black and Al Schmid not only provided intellec­ tual succor, but were friendly ports of call. to thank my fellow graduate students. uate education, at least for me, I can't begin The quality of grad­ is perhaps more a function of debate and camaraderie with peers than it is formal training. I thank all my friends. I thank also my family. Derek who knew not, nor will ever know, what caused his father's frustrations. Mary, who shared directly in the burdens, in the joys of this enterprise. And but only indirectly Only love can see one through that. Finally, I must thank those who bore the general disorganization and tracked through the incomprehensible scrawl I pass off as handwriting to type the many drafts of this thesis. ciated . Their skill and friendship is warmly appre­ TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF T A B L E S .............................................. ix LIST OF F I G U R E S .............................................. xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1 Problem Definition and Motivation for the S t u d y .................................... 1 Preliminaries ................................ Regional Planning Organizations ........... Objectives of the S t u d y .................... Scope of Study: Institutional Questions . . Scope of Study; Examination of Michigan's Regional Planning Organization ........... Methods and Methodology ....................... 1 5 7 8 12 14 Standard Scientific Method .................. 14 Other Scientific Methods .................... 18 Application tothe S t u d y ...................... 2 0 2. REGIONAL PLANNING: NATIONAL TRENDS AND ISSUES . 23 Regional Planning Organizations: National T r e n d s ............................................ 23 Regional Planning Organizations: Review of Issues Developed in the Literature 27 3. Arguments of Proponents .................... Critical Studies of Regional Planning ... 27 30 Conclusions and Implications .................. 39 MICHIGAN'S REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS: D E S C R I P T I O N ....................................... 43 Introduction Part One: Major Activities of Michigan Regional Planning Organizations ........... iv 43 48 V Page A-95 Project Notification and Review S y s t e m ..................................... Land Use and Housing P l a n n i n g ........... .................. Transportation Planning Criminal Justice Planning ................ Water Quality Planning ..................... 51 56 60 65 72 Part Two: Organization and Control of the Regional Planning Organization . . . . 76 Legal and Policy F r a m e w o r k ................ Summary: Description of the Major Features of the Organization and 76 Con- Control System in Regional Planning Organizations ........................... 98 ......... 100 Part Three: Geosocial Dimensions Origins of R e g i o n s ..................... General Geo-Social Characteristics . . . . 101 105 Conclusion: Description of Regional Planning Organizations ..................... 4. 115 INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS: A CONCEPTUAL FRAME­ WORK FOR STUDYING COLLECTIVE ACTION . . . . 116 Introduction .................................. 116 118 Part A: Individual B e h a v i o r ............ The Individual Basis of Collective B e h a v i o r ............................... Models of M a n .......................... Human Nature: Summary and Implications for R e s e a r c h .......................... Part B: The Transition from Individual to G r o u p ................................. Review of the Standard M o d e l .......... Other Approaches to Social Organization An Expanded Model of Social Organization Significance of Primary Organizational Modes to Current R e s e a r c h .......... Part C: The Situation: Conditions of Human I n t e r d e p e n d e n c e ................. 118 120 134 140 140 . 142 . 144 150 151 P e r f o r m a n c e ............................ 152 S i t u a t i o n ............................... 153 Relevance to Research ..................... 154 vi Page 5. Part D: The Overall Structure of Orga n ­ izations and I n s t i t u t i o n s Conceptual Framework: Summary of Appli­ cation to Regional Planning Organizations .............................. 164 THE APPLICATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK TO REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGIONALISM, PLANNING AND PROJECT R E V I E W ......................... 16 7 ................................ Introduction Internal Processes ......................... 16 7 16 8 Internal Organizational Process of RPOs: Information Processing ................ Organizational Goals: Preference Artic­ ulation and Conflict Resolution . . . . ........... Incentive and Control System 169 174 Boundaries and Functions of RPO: R e g i o n a l i s m ................................ 181 Boundaries and Regionalism .............. Other Relevant Literature ................ 181 18 9 RPO Activities: Regional Planning and Project Review ........................... 6. 156 16 8 196 Theory of P l a n n i n g ....................... Project Review ........................... 201 20 3 S u m m a r y ....................................... 210 ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL PLANNING IN MICHIGAN: RESULTS OF A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY . . . . 212 Introduction ................................ Planning and Project Review in Michigan R P O s ....................................... Compliance Planning ....................... Service Planning and Local Assistance . . Organizational Planning .................. Information Planning ..................... Committee Coordination .................. Central Planning ......................... Control Planning ......................... Behavior and Its Causes: The RPO Opportunity S e t ............................ 212 214 217 232 244 245 250 257 263 287 vii Page Functional Assignment ..................... Institutional Environment ................ Historical Development .................. Population Boundaries ..................... Commodity Characteristics ................ 288 2 92 314 334 354 Internal Organization and Control of the R P O ..................................... 373 Functional Activities ..................... System Maintenance Activities ........... Information Processing System ........... Collection Choice in the Regional Planning Organization .................. Control and Incentives Within the Regional Planning Organization . . . . Conclusion: Regional Planning in M i c h i g a n ................................ 7. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS . . . 374 375 381 392 424 430 434 Introduction ................................ Purpose of the S t u d y ....................... Description of Michigan Regional Planning Organizations .................. 434 434 Major P r o g r a m s ........................... Organization of Regional Planning Organizations ........................... Territories of Regional Planning Organizations ............................ 43 9 439 444 446 The Conceptual Framework .................. ......... Results: Activities and Impacts 44 7 44 8 Compliance Planning ....................... Service Planning ......................... Committee Coordination .................. Central and Control Planning ........... Control Planning ......................... 449 451 455 45 7 458 Results: The Regional Planning Organiza­ tion's Opportunity S e t .................. 463 Functional Assignment ..................... Institutional Environment ................ Historical Development .................. Population Boundaries .................... Commodity Characteristics ................ Summary: Internal Organization and Control of the R P O ..................... 463 46 5 46 9 4 72 4 75 480 viii Page C o n c l u s i o n s .............................. 4 90 Activities and Impacts .................. Opportunity Set and Internal ........................... Organization Overall Evaluation ....................... Implications. Some Policy Alternatives . Implications for Regionalism, Planning and Project R e v i e w ................ 514 Reflections and Projections ................ 490 495 4 99 503 517 RPO Follow-Up Questions .................. 517 The Case Study M e t h o d ................ 518 Research Design ........................... 519 Data Collection Methods .................. 522 LIST OF R E F E R E N C E S ..................................... 526 LIST OF I N T E R V I E W E E S .................................. 537 ......................... 538 APPENDIX A. Interview Guide APPENDIX B. CUPPAD Organizational Structure APPENDIX C. Southeast Michigan Council of Govern­ ments Organizational Structure . . . 543 Southcentral Michigan Planning Council Organizational Structure ........... 544 Goals of Regional Planning Organizations ......................... 545 Questionnaire for Followup Study of Regional Planning Organizations . . . 546 APPENDIX D. APPENDIX E. APPENDIX F. . . . . 542 LIST OF TABLES ......................... 3 Prescriptions for Regional Organization Based on Three Institutional Models ......... 11 Michigan's Regional Planning Organization 45 Regional Airport Example . , . Planning Programs of Michigan and Nationwide Regional Planning Organizations .............. 49 Michigan Regional Planning Organization Activities ....................................... 52 Major Regional Planning Programs and their Sponsoring Agencies ........................... 53 Transportation Planning Characteristics of Michigan Regional Planning Organizations 64 . . . "208'1 Water Quality Planning F u n d i n g ........... 74 Characteristics of Membership and Staffing by RPO ........................................... 83 Representation in Michigan Regional Planning Organizations .................................. 86 Summary of Financial Support for all RPOs 1974-1978 by Governmental Source .............. 92 Estimated Regional Council Funding Sources: FY 1976-77 ....................................... 93 Estimated Regional Council Funding Sources: FY 1977-78 ....................................... 94 Geosocial Characteristics of Michigan's Regions ......................................... 107 Types of Regional Planning Organizations . . . . 113. Comparison of Organizational Principles . . . . 147 ix X Table 4.2 Page The Four Idealized Primary Organizational P r i n c i p l e s ..................................... 148 Assumptions in Three Models of Jurisdictional B o u n d a r i e s ..................................... 190 5.2 Size and Citizen E f f e c t i v e n e s s ................. 192 5.3 Summary of Some Propositions about Juris­ dictional B o u n d a r i e s ......................... 197 6.1 Types of P l a n n i n g .............................. 216 6.2 Summary: 222 6.3 Levels of Planning by Type of R e g i o n .......... 223 6.4 Stated RPO Goals; 246 6.5 RPO Role and F u n c t i o n s .......................... 28 9 6.6 Emphasis on Local Assistance 321 6.7 Comparison of Transportation Planning Organization .................................. 324 6.8 Selected Size Characteristics 336 6.9 RPO Local Assistance Versus Type of Region 6.10 Relationship between Urbanness and Type of RPO A c t i v i t y .................................. 34 4 Organization of Transportation Planning and A-95 versus Rival Urban Centers ........... 352 5.1 6.11 Programs and Activities ........... Results of a Survey . . . . ................... ................. . . 338 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 The Scientific M e t h o d ............................ 15 3.1 Map of State Planning and Development Region 47 3.2 Organizational Chart of Typical Regional Planning Organization ......................... . 3.3 State Planning Regions 3.4 Bivariate Comparison of Population Dimensions of R e g i o n s ....................................... Ill 3.5 Trivariate Comparison of Population Dimensions of Regions ......................... 112 4.1 Overall Model of Collective Choice ............ 158 4.2 Internal Structure of Organizations ............ 16 5 6.1 Organization of the Chapter and the SituationBehavior-Performance Framework .............. 213 Comparison of Planning and Committee Coordination ................................. 255 6.3 Typical A-95 P r o c e s s e s .......................... 384 B.l CUPPAD Organizational Structure .............. 542 C.l Southeast Michigan Council of Governments Organizational Structure .................... 54 3 Southcentral Michigan Planning Council Organizational Structure ..................... 544 6.2 D.l xi .......................... 80 103 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION I doubt whether even our public edifices— our capitals, state houses, courthouses, city halls, and churches— ought to be built of such permanent materials as stone or brick. It were better that they should crumble to ruin, once in twenty years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the people to examine into and reform the institutions they symbolize. Nathaniel Hawthorn, The House of Seven Gables, Chapter XII, 1951. Problem Definition and Motivation for the Study Preliminaries Change and complexity characterize modern life. Everyday we read about newly uncovered carcinogens, energy crisis, excessive taxes, and a host of other ills. the inflation, unemployment Management of change, complex­ ity and the problems which accompany them often requires that we mobilize additional resources or employ new tech­ nology. But technology and money are never wholly adequate and are sometimes counterproductive. Behind technology and expenditure lie questions of institutions. lectively discover our problems? How do we col­ How do we achieve agreement on which problems are important and who will receive benefits 1 2 and who will pay the cost? and losers.) (There are almost always winners Once we resolve our differences, how do we make our institutions perform the tasks we assign them, and how do we monitor and evaluate them to assure that they perform as expected? performance; lescence; There are questions of institutional of institutional innovation, change and obso­ of institutional evaluation and design. These are the questions which lie at the heart of this study. Consider a more specific issue. Two proximate metro­ politan areas both have growing demands for air traffic. They must choose between one central facility (with possible savings in total capital costs, greater frequency of service, etc.) and two separate airports (with greater local pres­ tige and savings in ground transportation c o s t s ) . If they choose a central facility, where will it be located? Their decision will depend partly on the perceived costs and benefits of the alternatives, but the final outcome will also depend on how the choice is made and implemented. For instance, imagine that there are the following four alternatives with the preference of cities A and B as shown in Table 1.1. If the citizens and politicians in each city can only influence their own city's actions they will probably each build an airport. airport Each city hopes to have the only (alternatives a, b ) , but would also prefer to build its own even if the other city is going to build one (t). No w suppose that communication is opened between the two 3 TABLE 1.1. Regional Airport Example Alternatives Preference Rankings Rank City A City B a. One airport, near A 1 a b b. One airport, near B 2 m m m. One airport, in middle 3 t t t. Two airports 4 b a n. No airport 5 n n cities. They may negotiate to solution m. stalemate as each seeks to hold out for the nearby airport location. and negotiated settlement, They might also (strategic bargaining) Besides independent choice a third choice process might be for the decision to be made by a consolidated regional dec i­ sion body. Such a body would throw out the two airport solutions immediately, and might quickly reach the middle location solution. natives In conclusion, (two airports, then, anyone of the alter­ stalemate, central regional airport) might come about, depending partly or the institutions through which choice is made. Consider another issue involving public transit in metropolitan areas. Should bus transit be focused on the central business district or flair out in a grid keyed into major urban corridors. Central businesses and the central city would like to have the focused system, while many outlying patrons and businesses would like the grid with its 4 greater direct access to peripheral areas. Those seeking to control growth might be torn— wishing to help the central city but also wishing to replace auto transport with bus lines. The outcome again depends partly on the costs and benefits and partly on the distribution of preferences. But it also depends on the institutions of the decision process: whose preferences are included and how they are aggregated. Finally, a general set of issues facing metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas alike include growth, and resource development. residences, highways, go? land use, Who decides where factories, sewer lines, and water lines should What about new regional malls or major new industrial plants: school, who gets the tax base; who has to provide new sewer, transportation, and other public services; and who bears the brunt of increased traffic flow, pollution, and unsightly strip development? there is an interdependence. For instance, increased In these cases if community A lures a new factory, nearby communities may need to increase their public expenditure for public services. Perhaps for a new mall or new factory less new public infrastructure would be required in community A than community B. Or p e r ­ haps a mall in community A would change the character of a pleasant residential area, whereas community B has commer­ cial space available. When each community makes these decisions in isolation it does not consider either the impacts on its neighbors or alternative strategies which would involve its neighbors. There is potentially a 5 different outcome depending on whether the question is con­ sidered by an individual community or by a neighboring group of communities as a unit. These are only a few of the thorny issues confront­ ing citizens and public officials in Michigan and throughout the country. What distinguishes these issues is that they all have cross-jurisdictional implications. they involve rivalry between jurisdictions, In some cases in others there is simply an opportunity for both sides to benefit, if an avenue of cooperation can be found. In most cases the dynamics include dimensions of both cooperation and competition. But in all cases the choices made in one jurisdiction will affect those living in others. language of economics, there are externalities; In the some posi­ tive, some negative. Regional Planning Organizations Cross-jurisdictional issues bring us to the prin­ cipal focus of this inquiry. The specific issues cited above are some of those which have recently been on the agenda of Michigan's Regional Planning Organizations (RPOs). The Regional Planning Organization was specifically created as an institutional means for tackling regionwide issues. 1 Created in two cases through local initiative, and in the other 12 Michigan cases through local, state and federal actions. See Table 3.1 and Figure 3.1 for a list and map of Michigan RPOs. 6 Fundamentally, governments. RPOs are confederations of local They are a means by which governments can come together and discuss issues of mutual concern. Regional Planning Organization tional tools to work with: The has basically two institu­ (1) a professional staff; and (2) the authority to review many local applications for federal grants. The review authority usually includes the authority to relay the RPO evaluation to the funding agency, although in some cases it includes the right to veto. In short, then, a regional planning organization is a meeting place for representatives of local governments and a professionally staffed planning agency. (Chapter two contains a detailed discussion of the structure and function of the RPO.) But, with few formal powers, it is not clear how the RPO fits into governmental structure and what lever­ age it has on the issues it is charged to address. The R P O 1s vague activities contribute to the puzz l e­ ment and not insubstantial hostility that surrounds them. Extreme opponents see "regional government" as part of a general trend toward big government which is depriving the individual of his freedom (The Independent A m e r i c a n , 1976) . Less strident antagonists believe the RPOs to be wasteful "red tape." These people find the RPO mostly innocuous but nonetheless annoying. As one interviewee noted, some local politicians tolerate the RPO because "it c a n ’t do much and it keeps the Feds satisfied." Ironically, in one case 7 the Regional Planning Organization is accused of doing too much, and the other of doing nothing. Proponents of regional planning organizations view them as antidotes to the duplication, fragmentation, lack of coordination and lack of foresight in local government (e.g. ACIR, 1973). This viewpoint has a forceful champion: the federal government. The federal government, through financial support and other incentives, has been the primary patron of the emerging RPOs. Also, Michigan has been one of the leading states in supporting substate planning and development organizations mainly through the efforts of recent governors (Milliken, 1974). Objectives of the Study In summary, there is a set of issues and an organi­ zation designed to address them. (cross-jurisdictional issues) There is a situation and one institutional response 2 (the Regional Planning O r g a n i z a t i o n ) . effect the RPO operates is unclear. How and With what This ignorance of RPO operations inspired the empirical research agenda of the present study. of the RPOs The objective was to discover the activities (in M i c h i g a n ) , the expected impact of the RPOs, the actors w h o participate in RPO decisions, and those fac­ tors which influence RPO activities and hence impacts. Given limited resources, 2 the research priorities must be Besides RPOs there are other possible and actual institutional responses to cross-jurisdictional issues (con­ solidation, intergovernmental contracts, autarky, for example). 8 chosen. This study focused on RPO activities and the link to factors which influence them. A deep understanding of RPOs or any other organiza­ tion cannot be gained by empiricism without theory to inform it. One must have a conceptual skeleton on which to hang the empirical flesh. Therefore, another major objective of the study was to develop a guiding theoretical framework. The search for a theoretical framework of institutional behavior raises two points. First, in looking for an insti­ tutional theory, and moreover in studying an organization such as an RPO, one implicitly assumes that: tions make a difference; by policy. and (a) institu­ (b) institutions can be modified The second point is that the construction of an institutional theory involves all of social science. Just as the complete empirical examination of the RPO is beyond the scope of this study, so the elaboration of a full insti­ tutional theory is beyond its scope. Therefore, the examination of the theory of institutions will focus on elements relevant to the major activities of RPOs. In the next two sections the conceptual and empirical scopes of study are explained. Scope of Study: Institutional Questions The general question of institutions is large: how do we organize society* first to resolve our conflicts and settle on goals, and then to achieve those goals. (Of course, life is a continual conflict which precludes a n y ­ thing other than temporary "solutions.") Several formulas have been devised to guid e institu­ tional choice in government. Three traditions currently have the mos t influence on the issues of local governmental organization which are of interest in this study. (1) the reform tradition; p ol icentrism (2) community control; (Bish and Ostrom, 1973; Wikstrom, The y are: and (3) 1977). T he reform tradition argues for consolidation and professionalism. C o nsolidation is urged in order to reduce confusion in voting, eliminate duplication and fragmentation, and streamline administration. Larger units can also be expected to gain economies of scale. P ro fe ssionalism is urged on the basis of the need for specialized training and some insulating of good administration from politics. The community control movement criticizes large, cumbersome and non-responsive big government. Wha t is needed according to this model is small political units, which would be closer to, and therefore more responsive to, the people. The policentric position stems from a public choice approach with roots in economic theory. It claims continuity with the "balance of power" and "social contract" political sovereignty presumption of economists, and melds it with notions of public goods, production functions, organizational efficiency of the market. prescription for multiple, interlocal contracts. and the The result is a specialized units coordinated by Small consumer governments might 10 purchase services from larger and competing producer govern­ ments. The efficiencies of the market place can be brought to g o v e r n m e n t . One task of this study will be to evaluate these models. Another part of the study will be an effort to formulate elements of an alternative approach. The present study, however, cannot consider all aspects of governmental organization: it will concentrate on three issues related to regional planning organizations. First is the issue of regionalism. RPOs are one possible response to the existence of cross-jurisdictional issues. (2) Other possible responses include: (1) autonomy; bargaining and intergovernmental mutual contracts; intergovernmental grants; higher (state and federal) solidation. (3) (4) transfer of functions to agencies; and (5) regional co n­ Regional planning organizations represent a complex approach with elements of bargaining, regulation, intergovernmental transfers, and consolidation. How do RPOs operate and what is their expected impact? Planning is the second issue. Planning is supposed to "rationalize" the approach to problems. mean: What does this what is the function of planning and how does it operate? (RPOs engage in regional planning and also provide technical assistance to local units.) Once the arena has been agreed on issue) mented. and the decisions made (planning) (the regionalism they must be imple­ The third issue is therefore one of authority. 11 RPOs' major institutional tool of implementation is project review. Essentially, (the RPO) in project review, a planning agency evaluates projects for which local units of govern­ ment are seeking federal g ra nt s - i n - a i d . The authority of the reviewing agency may vary from the right to comment to the right to choose which projects will be funded. In summary, the major institutional issues of the thesis involve the processes and potential impacts of region­ alism, planning, on these themes.) and project review. (Chapter 5 will center These issues can be highlighted by con ­ sidering them from the vantage point of the three formulas for institutional reform. The comparison is premature at this stage, but shows both the difference the model makes and something of the policy issues involved (Table 1.2). TABLE 1.2. Prescriptions for Regional Organization Based on Three Institutional Models Issue Prescriptive Framework Reformism Community Control Policentrism 1. Regionalism Consolidation: regional go v ­ ernment Local autonomy Bargaining 2. Planning Central plan­ ning Local decisions 7 3. Project Review Too weak, stronger controls Local control 7 need 12 Scope of Study: Examination of Michigan's Regional Planning Organization As noted above, the major empirical effort was geared toward documenting what it is that RPOs do and then attempt­ ing to link those activities with influencing factors and to the extent possible, impacts. Within this broad approach a number of more specific policy questions will help shape the research agenda. A decision maker, contemplating RPOs, might ask such questions as: A. B. C. Geographic boundaries 1. Are the present regions too big or too small or just the right size? 2. Is the configuration of the regions the best? What about cities that are split between regions, communities that orient across regional bou n­ daries, and the impact of physical features such as river basins? Programs 1. Should each program have a separate set of boun­ daries and a separate organization? What is the advantage or disadvantage to lumping land use, transportation, water quality, economic develop­ ment and criminal justice together? 2. The regional planning organizations currently plan mostly for physical resource use. Criminal justice fits least with this orientation; eco­ nomic development is also different. Should the RPOs concentrate on physical resources, perhaps even divest themselves of criminal jus­ tice? Or should the RPOs and such human resource planning agencies as Aging, Substance Abuse, Health and others join in a comprehensive agency. Activities 1. Should RPOs be technical consultants, regional planners or both? 13 D. E. 2. What role should RPOs play in the system of governmental expenditures? Should categorical and block grants be dropped altogether in favor of revenue sharing thus giving RPOs no role? Given grants, should the RPO review role be continued, expanded, or decreased? Should RPOs be given authority to allocate regional grant budgets? (They have such authority in criminal j u s t i c e .) 3. Should RPOs concentrate only on planning, or should they be given expanded implementation powers? Two candidates for expanded powers are: (1) police power: ability to require compliance of a member unit; and (2) expenditure power: ability to operate a program such as a regional transportation or waste system. 4. What changes might be made in other governments (the country) to change RPO performance. Representation 1. RPOs are agents of whom? Local governments? State governments? Federal government? Local developers? Environmentalists? Who should they represent? 2. Present rules of representation are established by each RPO by interlocal agreements. Represent­ atives are generally appointed by member governments. Should there be any direct repre­ sentation? How can citizens get directly involved? Should there be state mandated requirements? 3. Should RPOs continue to be voluntary or should participation by area governments be required? Operations 1. What is and should be the relative role of staff and officials? 2. Should officials be paid? 3. How should the RPO be financed? By local dues and state grant as is currently the case? Should the state role be increased? Should RPOS be given either taxation power or power to secure mandatory contributions? 14 F. Trends 1. What do the trends appear to be in all these matters? 2. How do RPOs differ, if at all, they seem to be headed? in the directions Methods and Methodology Standard Scientific Method The methods of the current research are somewhat unorthodox, and some justification for the approach taken is therefore warranted. Most academic work is presented in a standard framework of hypothesis formation and empir­ ical test. This approach is based on a specific concept of how scientific knowledge is gained which, explained shortly, for reasons to be is not appropriate for the material of this dissertation. In the usual concept of the scientific method, knowledge is gained through induction general to the specific) and deduction (inference from the (inference from spe­ cific premises to conclusions using the rules of l o g i c ) . The general method combines these two approaches into what Braithwaite framework. (1953, p. 261) terms the hypothetico-deductive Hypotheses are deduced from higher level hyp o­ theses and other premises. The higher level hypotheses have been inductively established while the other premises are often simplifying assumptions. The deduced, lower 15 level hypotheses are then tested. be diagrammed. World of Mathematics (Logic) The ideal method can 3 1. Theories, assumptions 2. ---------------Predictions Deduction (Hypotheses) Additional premises £ O k C o 'H 4-1 rd U 4-1 U g g H M-l n > —------ - A p p lle a n t and Federal Agency 385 the staff usually appends its analysis of the project plus a drafting of the R P O ’s formal "comment." The RPO officials depend partly on the staff analysis in determining their action. Thus, staff may critically analyze two or three projects and suggest minimal comments on all others. In either process two or three then, there is oppor­ tunity for staff to process information: tracking down additional items, decision-making officials. digesting it, etc., for the use of the But there is also opportunity for officials to delegate decision making to the staff. Staff can participate in decision making in three explicit ways. First, officials can use staff to screen the impor­ tant from the unimportant. amount of trust. This involves some moderate Note that not only must officials trust the staff's professional honesty, it must trust that the selective perception of staff will not deviate significantly from the official view of the world. Second, the official can follow the staff's recommendation as to the disposal of "controversial" projects. This involves a higher degree of reliance on professional judgement and honesty. The height of official delegation of decision making to staff occurs under review process four. Here staff actions hold except as appealed by applicants. (In the one case where this p r o ­ cess operated for awhile, officials did received information about the nature of the projects and their disposal.) The presumption in this process is that most issues raised in projects will be matters over which professional judgements, 386 and thereby planning standards, should hold. Note, however, that appeal was relatively easy (at least in Region One's v e r s i o n ) , so that conflict could be surfaced to the po l i ­ tical arena fairly quickly. The third process by which staff can explicitly enter the decision process is in the pre-comment negotiation stage. In fact, all RPOs reported that most conflicts were handled by telephone calls or informal conferences before any formal decision was entertained. Many times a potential conflict would dissolve with these initial information exchanges. But, in other cases staff might point out con­ flicts with federal requirements or established regional policy. In some cases staff acted as mediators between local units. Besides processing information and exercising explicitly delegated authority, staff might enter the decision process surrep ti ou sl y. By virtue of their training and the time they spend analyzing a project, staff will be more informed about a project than the typical official (excepting, perhaps, an official of the jurisdiction from which the application c o m e s ) . The asymmetric information position can cause staff to influence the outcome without explicit delegation of authority, either passively or actively. An example given earlier was the deliberate use of a "constructive comment" worded so that the RPO planner knew that federal agencies would be alerted. The example cited was of a development project geared to higher income residences. 387 The potential for passive influence was illustrated by a witnessed debate between a staff member and a committee official. The staff member perceived an issue to be one of standards and therefore within his planning competence as to what "adequate" standards should be. The official p e r ­ ceived the question to be one of a tradeoff between clean water and the cost of cleaning the water. A planner with the best of intentions selectively perceives something to be a "planning issue," which the politician believes to be a political issue. Criminal Justice In a previous section the criminal justice budget allocation or project selection process was described. Four stages were listed: screening; LEAA. (1) project generation; (3) formal budgeting; and (2) (4) grant application to Staff play a role in all three RPO level stages. In the first stage they relay to local units the availability of money, the priorities of state and federal agencies, the odds that projects of certain sorts will not get funded. Planners sometimes also suggest a project based on their judgement of need and chances of funding. (Theoretically, a project could be generated out of the planning process, although no informants suggested that it very often worked that way. "Planning," as noted earlier often consists of ad hoc project selection.) At the project generation stage, staff may play information dissemination, decision or 388 information impacting roles. The last role takes place when staff vary the amount of "advertising" they do about grant availability. The second stage in many regions is explicit or tacit screening. Potential applicants are encouraged or discouraged to continue the process based on the "fundability" of their project. Most staff would at least discourage a project that they were certain would be turned down at state or federal levels. One example was an edu­ cational rehabilitation/counseling project that staff felt LEAA would consider a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare project (education). In some cases, staff acted independently in screening, but within a sphere mutually developed with the officials In other cases, (the Criminal Justice C o u n c i l ) . staff consulted informally with officials: the chairman or members of the executive committee of the Criminal Justice Council. While some RPOs passed through almost any project that came through the door, others were obviously more selective. the screening stage Evidence of the effectiveness of (or the screening plus generation stage) is that, in several RPOs, when it came time to move to the third stage, formal budget allocation, there was nothing left to allocate: the money needed for projects reaching the allocation committee equaled the allocation for the region. In cases where something is left to allocate, staff still may play a role similar to that which they play in A-95 review: staff analyzes and comments on the proposed 389 project. Most staff claimed they did not seek to influence the process but occasionally were asked and gave their opinion (explicit de l e g a t i o n ) . to pushing certain projects, tems" components Others admitted candidly such as those containing "sys­ (implicit information i m pa ct ) . In the final stage the regionally approved project is reviewed by state and federal agencies. Staff may have one final chance to play information and/or influence roles. At this stage they are perceived to be advocates for the project, placing their professional skills behind winning higher level approval for the local project. To summarize, staff involvement in the A-95 review and criminal justice project selection i l l u s t r a t e : : (1) their role as information specialists; (2) their sometime role as "experts" with explicitly delegated authority; (3) their influence (intended or not) and through the impact of information asymmetry. Another aspect of the information processing system is a continuing tension between the informed staff and unin­ formed but responsible officials. As noted above, officials with limited time and background often do not read through three-inch agendas that represent three man-months of work. The staff are frustrated by this ignominious end to their labor. Officials are frustrated by the volumes of seeming gobbledy-gook they are asked to digest. 151Recall the importance of codes such as profes­ sional languages described in the theory chapter (Chapter 4). 390 Several methods were reportedly employed to ease the information transfer and diffuse the tension. One common method was executive summaries or division between technical and non-technical reports. Again, this provides opportunities for intended or unintended information impacts. Another method employed in Region 12 was to have staff make mock presentations to other staff to improve their communi­ cation skills. Finally, several informants reported that increased mutual trust and understanding developed over time so that planners came to know what information officials needed, and officials came to trust that planners would tell them what they needed to know. In summary, officials depend on staff for information services such as summaries, briefings, agenda preparations, and interpretation. Officials are thus at a relative infor­ mation disadvantage to staff. This provides opportunities for staff to affect the outcomes, and it provides occasions for conflict and trust between staff and officials. A final characteristic of the information system is the creation of the committee system partly to compensate for officials' For example, limited information processing capacity. 152 legislatures are broken up into committees such as the banking committee or the agriculture committee. The legislature delegates some of its authority to the committee. 152 The committee system also is a method for provid­ ing unequal participation in the decision process. Some interests can be represented at one level, some at another. See following section. 391 This enables subcommittee members to: on each topic; and they can also (1) spend more time (2) accumulate a greater fund of specialized knowledge. RPOs also break up into subcommittees for purposes of knowledge specialization and time conservation. Distri­ bution of information along committee lines can be expected to affect outcomes just as distribution of information between staff and officials did. One area in which a number of committee designs were tried was in the water quality participation program. territory, Some RPOs divided committees by some by function, technician or citizen) some by member type (official, and some had no subdivisions. The informant in one with no subdivisions said that detail work was done in smaller informal groups. An example of the impact of committee structure on information and thence on representation was given in a small RPO which initially had territorial committees but later consolidated. The infor­ mant said that technical people dominated the combined committee. When the committees had been composed along smaller territorial lines, there were people who could cha l ­ lenge a given technician based on local knowledge. wide setting, however, In a the technicians could appeal to gen ­ eral technical assertions. The debate became one on "technical" issues between experts rather than factual issues between knowledgeable local people. 153 153 It is not This change in type of committee and debate was also accompanied by a falling off of attendance by general citizens, perhaps partly due to the high transaction costs of travel (Faas", 1977),"as well as the chance in level of debate. 392 known how this translated into impact on the water quality plan, but one can hypothesize some impact. These are some of the information aspects of the committee structure. I will discuss committees at greater length in the context of RPO organizational choice: the preference aggregation/conflict resolution system. Collective Choice in the Regional Planning Organization The processes by which individual preferences are converted into the organizational choices and thence to organizational action in the RPO are ungainly and eclectic. Two key concepts from the theoretical framework will help untangle the choice process disucssed in this section. First is the preference aggregation mode, and second is the matter of decision costs. The section begins by discussing the RPO's principal aggregation modes. Decision costs will enter as a recurrent theme as the material develops. Aggregation Modes in RPOs RPOs, being quasi-government, have a collective choice structure with some aspects of the committee--social contract mode of preference aggregation. does not, however, The RPO process fit the pure model of direct or even representative democracy. Externally, best described as a confederation. the RPO is perhaps Internally the RPO is organized along the committee lines typical of a represen­ tative government. In addition, there are some peripheral elements of direct citizen access. 393 Staff Participation Before discussing in detail the committee mode of collective choice operating in the RPO, some mention of the secondary mode of aggregation should be made. This discus­ sion will be brief since the material was largely covered in the discussion of the information processing system. The participation of staff in general and the RPO executive director in particular, operates through trust and authority aggregation modes. on More precisely, the staff input rests (1) information asymmetry; to trustworthy subordinates; (2) delegation of authority and cials to the planner's expertise (3) acquiescence of offi ­ (authority). Examples of conscious and unconscious use of planners superior informa­ tion base were given in the information section. The issue of staff credibility and the trust relationship was also discussed. Finally/ mention was made of the role of planner expertise in, for example, criminal justice (LEAA program) project selection. Since the degree of staff participation in o r g a n ­ izational choice depends on the balance between their influence via information asymmetry on the one hand, and grants of authority based on trust or authority on the other, the significance of staff input can be expected to vary between programs and RPOs. In fact, tion did appear to vary significantly. prior section on information, staff participa­ As noted in the some RPOs allowed the staff considerable discretion in their screening and preliminary 394 review functions. In other RPOs there was close official supervision of staff actions. These relations changed over time. In one RPO the A-95 screening authority was removed from a planner who was perceived to be "too vigorous" in his application of pla n­ ning principles. In another RPO the A-95 duties were promoted from logging in and coordinating dispersal by a clerk to screening by a top-level planner. The RPO where the planner was removed from A-95 supervision illustrates the importance of trust and author­ ity grants between staff and official complements. RPO the staff is split into two camps. In this In one camp is the development staff who apparently have the confidence of the officials. They perceive the RPO role to be that of expe­ diter of federal grants and provider of support to t h e regional business community. mostly physical planners, The other camp, comprising finds that their "planner's phil­ osophy" of controlled growth runs at odds with the official philosophy. They appear to be tolerated as necessary evils by the "facilitators." What impact they have on the region seems to come through exercise of information asymmetry advantage. One example given earlier is of a coded message sent to federal officials about the income level of the beneficiaries of a proposed project. Planners also suggested that they could sometimes use their superior knowledge of federal regulations to press for actions they favored. 395 In contrast, some RPOs demonstrated the workings of trust and authority grants to planners. For example, in Region 12 all project review involves an interplay between staff and officials. two-stage process. First, Review is accomplished in a regional policy is established and a point system is developed from the stated priorities. At this stage both staff and officials are involved. Offi ­ cials have final authority but staff suggest agenda of issues, point systems, etc. At the next stage a particular project is evaluated in light of the point system. Staff assigns the points, which obviously involves some discre­ tion and therefore a grant of some authority to staff. Officials review the point assignment to assure that it has been "properly applied." Clearly this allows officials an opportunity for adjustment of project rankings based on additional political considerations. But still, officials are constrained by the pre-established priority system and the particular point count assigned by staff. One director described how a similar system had worked in a New York RPO which he had previously directed. He described meeting with the chairman to discuss the agenda before a meeting at which a project in the c h a i r m a n 1s area was to be considered. The chairman did not even ask how his project came out in the ranking. Officials did revise the ranking produced by the staff evaluation, but did not change the ranking of the chairman's project (it was number three). 396 A nother example of the trust relation is in criminal justice in Region Eight. The tenure of the criminal justice director is the length of the program. The relationship between the council and the director has become very informal. The program is run on a consensual basis with council and director each acting within tacitly defined spheres. Trust and credibility are partly a function of time. A recurrent theme among staff was the growth of trust over time. In several cases staff 208 water quality program eyes of the officials. reported that their work on the had enhanced their status in the Another point made several times was that officials who were "anti-region" often became defenders of the RPO after some time. One final aspect of the staff participation in the RPO decision structure should be mentioned. have two goal structures. RPOs actually The first is the process of determining regional policy through the planning and review activities discussed earlier. R P O ’s internal work agenda. dependent: The second establishes the The two are, of course, inter­ internal goals are instrumental to policy goals. While policy goals are implemented through regional pla n­ ning and review/budgeting functions, they are developed in the work activities described in the Overall Work Plan which has been described previously. is a program budget for the RPO. (OWP) In essence, the OWP 397 In general, OWP. staff play a large role in compiling the Earlier in the chapter OWP development was discussed in the context of the impact of federal financing on the RPO agenda. Without repeating this discussion we merely highlight the finding that the OWP is determined in negotia­ tions between federal agencies and the RPO. Within the RPO, staff are primarily responsible for the OWP. One reason is that they are knowledgeable about the availability of fed­ eral financing. Another reason is that they have the time, whereas the officials, constrained. officials operating on a voluntary basis, are Of course, the OWP must be approved by the (either the executive committee, mission, or b o t h ) . the regional com­ But the staff perform the detail work and, with their knowledge of federal funding, define the agenda of feasible RPO activities. Formulation of the OWP is treated as a central acti­ vity by staff. Usually the chief planner or director will oversee the work and may do much of the actual drafting of the document. One chief planner had the OWP as his prin ci ­ pal responsibility. In Region One the program areas put together budget proposals which are then negotiated out with the director and top staff and then compiled into one docu­ ment. Only then does the OWP go to the official (except that program supervisors may consult with their respective advisory c o m m i t t e e s ) . Staff participation in RPO decision making may be summarized in three findings. First, staff have some 398 leverage on the basis of their possession of a superior data base, their technical training, and the (paid) they have to devote to the business of the RPO. time Second, this leverage may be employed within the policy decision processes of the RPO (such as A-95 review) or in the agenda setting drafting of the OWP. staff (at the RPO level; overall federal agencies are important). ment, The latter is dominated by the Thus, whatever else may be the s t a f f ’s involve­ they inevitably participate in setting the overall direction of the RPO activities. Third, while the staff have their information leverage and their input into the OWP agenda, the degree to which staff participate in the organizational choices of the RPO ultimately depends on grants of authority from officials based on trust and defer­ ence to expertise. The Committee Mode of Pref­ erence Aggregation in RPOs As noted in the introductory paragraphs of this section, the primary collective choice structure of the RPO has three aspects: of local governments; (1) externally it is a confederation (2) internally i t ’s organized in a committee/subcommittee; and (3) it has some mechanisms for direct citizen access. The main topics will be the rules of representation and agenda control rules of these three s u b s t r u ct ur es . The key features are the rules of repre­ sentation associated with the confederal nature of the RPO, and the agenda control rules regulating the relationships 399 between the various committees and subcommittees. discussion the organization charts For this in Figure 3.2 and Appen- dicies B, C, and D will prove to be useful references. Rules of Representation In Chapter 3 the major policy bodies of the RPOs (the executive committee and the regional council) described. were Table 3.6 shows the membership distribution. Table 3.7 shows the rules by which members of the policy committees are appointed. To summarize the representation scheme, delegates are appointed to the regional council by member jurisdictions according to rules established in the bylaws. RPOs are not subject to the requirement of one person-one vote. The executive committee comprises a subset of members of the regional council which includes the officers. Its structure is established in the bylaws with membership selected by the regional council following the procedures in the bylaws. example, A typical procedure, for has the chairmanship rotate between major member jurisdiction delegates. In its present configuration, eration. the RPO is a c o n fe d ­ This confederal nature raises the question of which units shall have membership and with what weight. The United States, for example, adopted the compromise solu­ tion of one house with weighting by population, one by jurisdiction. this issue. In the case of RPOs there are two parts to One is whether weighting should be by popula­ tion or jurisdiction (or financial c o n t r i bu ti on ). Another 400 is how to incorporate the various levels of local govern­ ment. Considering the second question, townships, villages and cities are all territorial constituents of counties. This can lead to conflicts such as occurred in Region Six. The two largest communities in the region are in one county. The original representation scheme had delegates appointed from three counties and the central city. the second largest city, VJhen East Lansing, sought to join the RPO, the two more rural counties felt that the two cities plus the urban county would tilt representation to urban interests. The eventual outcome was that East Lansing was given representa­ tion which was taken from the urban county. use this method. Several RPOs In Region Three one county is not a member, but all of that county's "share" of delegates has been allo­ cated to units within the county's jurisdiction. This will create conflict should the county seek to join the RPO. Another approach that RPOs take to this issue of territorial overlap is to simply grant votes to all willing to sign up as members (this involves paying d u e s ) . In the more populated regions the policy may soon lead to curabersomely large regional councils. Two secondary policies deal with the decision costs of large membership. that smaller units are represented in blocks in Region O n e ) . One is (for example The second is the creation of the executive committee as the operating body of the regional council. These two policies also change the weighting scheme. quasi-population weighting is achieved by a three-tier A 401 representation structure. sented in blocks. delegates. Small jurisdictions are rep re ­ Intermediate ones have their own Large ones are given multiple delegates. Fur- t h er em or e, the executive committee can have a different weighting scheme than the regional council much as the Senate is different from the House. descriptive chapter, As reported in the the executive committee tends to drop smaller members and increase the county and large city representation (see, for example, Appendix D ) . Aside from the issue of territorial overlap, the major finding regarding weighting is that representation is by jurisdiction adjusted to some extent for population and also adjusted for dues-paying membership (see Table 3.7). On the other hand, membership tends to be concentrated in the hands of the largest jurisdictions (counties and cities), especially in the executive committee. The pa r a ­ doxical result is that the largest, mo st populous jurisdictions are most well-represented but that rural pop u­ lations tend to be more heavily represented than urban. As an example, consider Region Six. members included three counties, township at the time of research. The regional council two cities, (urban) But the two more rural counties had a total of 10 delegates urban township) and one (one assigned to the to 10 from the cities and urban county. Another example cited in Chapter 3 is Region Five where the three counties are the principal members but the urban county with four times the population has a delegate edge of only nine to eight. 402 Two possible explanations can be advanced for this finding. One is that state certification requires: minimum number of counties to participate; (1) a (2) a minimum proportion of the population to participate; and (3) the three largest cities to have access to membership. These rules give counties and populous cities a strategic advantage in the negotiations that establish the bylaws. The second explanation is the strategic phenomenon of exploitation of the large by the small described by Olson (1971). Forming an RPO in a region qualifies all jurisdic­ tions in the region for continued eligibility for a federal grant. Once the RPO is formed by large units, small units have gained a principle benefit of the RPO without cost. They can freeride: withhold membership, and avoid paying dues. their incentive to join is reduced because Furthermore, (1) the RPO has had little impact on their activities in the past; and (2) the rules of representation set up by the founding members gives control to the larger m e m b e r s . The second reason means that there is a reinforcing feedback loop to the large member bias. In short, small jurisdic­ tions have little incentive to join an organization which has little power; exercise little control; (1) (b) over which they can expect to and (3) from which they gain a principle benefit without joining. Evidence supporting this Olson-style strategic situation comes from the fact that local assistance planning in many regions is subsidized by the RPOs from their grant 403 monies. The RPOs provide various free and cut-rate planning and management services to member units as selective incen­ tives (Olson's term) to induce membership. Staff explicitly corroborated the hypothesis that subsidized local assistance is provided as an incentive to membership for smaller juris­ dictions. The current study was not detailed enough to gather material on additional consequences of the structure of representation in RPOs. Additional studies aimed at dis ­ covering the impact of the representation structure on nitty-gritty planning decisions would b e 1useful. An example is Mullen's study of the impact of membership rules on per­ formance (1974). Mullen found that a rule requiring allocation of delegates to cities increased the likelihood that the RPO collective choice process would allocate plan­ ning funds to employment impact programs. Unfortunately, the quasi-experimental design could not experimentally (through controls) or statistically eliminate such rival explanations as that more urban RPOs tended to allocate more planning funds to employment impact programs. In any case, findings. the current study is limited to general To summarize, ture cf representation it was discovered that the struc­ (1) gives rise to urban-rural conflicts such as occurred in Region Five and Region Six; and (2) leads RPOs to employ selective incentives to induce parti­ cipation by small members. One possible specific impact of the rules of representation surfaced in the study, but it 404 must be treated as very tentative. Some staff informants suggested that the bias to rural representation lead to a relatively lower role assigned to land use controls in the 208 water quality plans. Moving beyond the question of weighting the second major issue of rules of representation for RPOs raises deeper questions about the role of RPOs. RPOs are currently confederations, agents of their constituent jurisdictions (constrained by other forces, notably the federal go ve r n m e n t ) . As such, the input from an individual citizen is filtered through the two-stage process of election of officials of a jurisdiction who in turn appoint delegates to the RPO. The officials of the RPO thus owe allegiance to a particular jurisdiction, and the interests collectively aggregated in that jurisdiction. One would hypothesize that different behavior would emerge from such a confederation versus a directly elected regional body. The analogy is to the United States under the Articles of Confederation United Nations) (or the current and the unitary government of France as the two extremes with the current federal structure of the United states intermediate. As these examples show, more than representation is ultimately at issue. little regulatory and no taxing power. The RPO has Like the U . N . , its chief instrument of implementation is recommendation, chief authority the goodwill of its members. its The issue, then, is where in this spectrum of possible configurations one wishes the RPO to fit. One institutional element that 405 places the RPO to the U.N. end of the spectrum is the appointment of members by jurisdiction. pire, other things equal, What might trans­ if delegates were directly elected as with the European Parliament? Would behavior be differ­ ent? Since the study provides no comparison unit with direct election (the regional council council of Minneapolis- St. Paul has such a direct e l e c t i o n ) , we can only note the findings under the indirect representation scheme. The evidence is ample that RPO officials do act in the interests of their jurisdictions. in the chapter, For example, as reported earlier criminal justice allocation schemes typically have jurisdictional boundaries as a primary criterion. Transportation allocation also strictly follows jurisdic­ tional boundaries. A-95 review is typically mild. The mild A-95 review may be partly attributed to the simple desire to not jeopardize funds coming into the region. If this is the motivation then, direct election would presumably not alter the outcome. The chairman of Region T h i r t e e n 's asser­ tion that no negative comment would emanate from the RPO while he was chairman testifies to this motivation. However, the mild A-95 review motivation may also be due to logroll­ ing: you don't veto me, I won't veto you. be the case in Region Three, This seems to for example, where Battle Creek and Kalamazoo appear to have tacitly agreed to keep the RPO role limited so as not to interfere with each others inde­ pendent actions. Whether direct election would modify 406 behavior in Region Three must remain an object for future exploration. One would expect that the behavior would depend partly on the specifics of representation: at-large versus by jurisdiction. The criminal justice example probably provides the clearest example of boundary orientation. allocates funds to the region. tically has some spending power. The LEAA program Therefore, the RPO theore­ This is one instance where the RPO does have potential governmental power. that a major, The fact sometimes the major, criterion is jurisdiction, would seem to be solely a result of jurisdictional repre­ sentation. Again one speculates that changed behavior would depend not only on direct election but also on the district­ ing of the electors. In summary, then, the indirect representation of the citizen is part of the confederal structure of the RPO. It appears to contribute to the operation of the RPO as an agent of the constituent units analagous to the U.N., as opposed to an organization with a regional perspective. The question of which is to be desired is, of course, a matter for public choice. Internal Organization: Agenda and Amendment Control Rules Beyond the representation of the citizenry through their local governments, there are also provisions for direct citizen access. Before discussing direct access however, an antecedent topic is how the decision-making authority 407 operates within the R P O 's internal organization. To begin to understand who has access to what lines of power, requires understanding of two features of the internal committee structure: the relations between the various committees (agenda and amendment control rules and procedures) and the representation scheme of these secondary committees. reword, the central policy committees and the executive committee) To (the regional council have two methods by which they can control secondary committees: appointment of membership and restriction and oversight of subcommittee action. remainder of this section will be occupied with, The first, a discussion of the general functions and operations of the committee system. Then, a discussion of the committee con­ trol methods. Functions and Operations of RPO Subcommittee Systems The subcommittee system serves two purposes. It helps officials counteract high decision costs and it allows for a distributed system of representation. topic discussed will be decision costs. The first Earlier it was noted that staff were hired to conserve on official informa­ tion processing time and to supply expertise. (It was also noted that the information system provided staff's major point of access to the decision structure of the RPO.) high decision costs remain. committee, For one thing, But the larger the the more time needed for transactions between members and for individual members to address their fellows. 408 In the case of RPOs, informants repeatedly observed that small committees "work" best. Most RPOs have executive committees to chop the typical 45-member regional council down to a workable 12 to 2 0 {see Table 3.7). Several executive committees had subsidiary administrative or steer­ ing committees, often informal. size for face-to-face discussion. These provide even smaller (They also provide opp or ­ tunities for discussing agenda strategy and evading open meeting laws; but the extent to which they are put to these 154 uses could not be determined in the present study.)' Another way that subcommittees reduce decision loads is through delegation and specialization. By breaking up the total information field into subfields individuals may more easily master the material. Thus, one official special­ izes in transportation policy while another concentrates on water quality. Figure 3.2 outlines a typical organization chart for an RPO and shows the functional specialization of subcommittees. Usually specialization is along the lines of major federal programs: transportation A-95, criminal justice (LEAA), (UMTA and F W H A ) , housing and land use 701), and so on. (HUD Other schemes include major groupings such as physical resource and human resources, or major activi­ ties such as local assistance and comprehensive planning. In creating a subcommittee, a parent committee and its officials are inevitably delegating some of their 154 Since the RPO is not a government, but an agent of governments, it's not clear whether the open meeting law applies. 409 decision-making power. It was earlier noted that the degree of control retained by the parent committee depends partly on representation and on agenda control procedures. functioning as a conserver of decision costs, operate to distribute representation. Besides subcommittees Therefore, there are two avenues to the topic of representation in subcommittees. Internal Rules of Represen­ tation in RPOs RPOs typically have four kinds of committees aside from the regional council and its immediate offspring, the executive committee. First are proper subcommittees com­ prising some subset of the regional council committee) membership. (or executive These include housekeeping committees such as budget, personnel, and nominating committees. The highest level policy subcommittee in substantive matters are also often such proper subcommittees. If an A-95 review committee exists separately from the executive committee or the regional council it would be such a subcommittee. four-member RC2 The (Regional Clearinghouse Review Committee) of Region One is an example. Region Six has a transportation policy committee which, aside from some exofficio members, is such a committee. The second type of subcommittee found in RPOs is the official or policy subcommittee with membership recruited from outside the regional council. For example, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council includes sheriffs, police chiefs, prosecutors, judges and so forth. Transportation 410 policy committees often are made up of representatives from the major jurisdictions within the metropolitan "study area." 155 In the case of transportation and criminal jus­ tice, the subcommittee may contain little or no membership in common with the regional council and any overlap which exists may be simply the accidental result of overlapping directorship. These special cases will be discussed in greater length shortly. Usually, however, the policy sub­ committees will be some combination of regional council membership and expanded membership. Typical examples are some water quality and transportation committees. A trans­ portation committee may be expanded to include representation from the area transit authority, officials, prominent citizens, for instance. Other local and important agency officials might be invited to join water quality committees or OEDP (Overall Economic Development Program) committees. The third major kind of subcommittee is the tech­ nical subcommittee. There is, for instance, transportation technical committee. quality technical committees. invariably a There were often water Such technical committees are typically chaired by staff members of the RPO. Membership on the transportation committee would include staff of the county road commissions and city planning departments. Water quality committees would have representatives from local 155 The urbanized area. transportation planning. See earlier discussion of 411 units' planning staff, planning commissions, federal agencies such as Soil Conservation Service, and university faculty. Note that while the information process has already been described as a point of access for staff, here RPO staff are formally included in the RPO decision structure. The transportation technical committees, likely to be influential. in particular, are Most informants said that the technical subcommittee was the "working" level of the RPO. The policy committee will often either accept the action of the technical committee, modify it slightly, or send it back to be reworked. Policy committees will often not involve themselves with the detailed working out of a plan element. The fourth kind of subcommittee is the citizens' advisory committee, often called a task force. A separate section will later be devoted to direct citizen access to the RPO, and the citizen advisory committee is the major avenue of direct access. Examining the committee system described above, it is clear that the committee system goes beyond a subcom­ mittee qua specialization system. In fact, many of the subcommittees are far larger, with far higher decision costs, than the regional council or executive committee itself. Such committees, for example water quality and criminal justice, will often have their own subcommittee systems. Quite clearly the principle function of many of these com­ mittees is to expand the representation of interests within 412 the RPO. This observation immediately leads us to the questions of control: representation and ag en da-amendment. The chairman of the RPO together with the executive committee hold formal power of appointment to the subcom­ mittees. In fact, however, appointment is often in the hands of others. Besides appointment by the chairman, committee members may be (1) suggested by staff; appointed directly by local jurisdictions; by the committee itself. For example, (2) (3) self-selected criminal justice com­ mittees are generally the result of staff suggestions and, most importantly, committee self-selection. In such cases the RPO chairman merely ratifies the decision. The other major links between committees and between committees and staff are agenda and amendment control pro ­ cedures. Agenda control refers to formal and informal control of the domain over which the committee has com pe ­ tence. One aspect of domain is the subject matter: justice, transportation, so on. criminal physical planning, A-95 review and But another aspect is the particular decision role that the committee has. discussion below) For example, public hearings (see generally are held on plans or documents drafted by the staff, whereas executive committees would more likely decide what elements would go into a plan in advance of drafting by staff. Clearly reacting to a drafted plan gives different opportunities than communicating at earlier times. ings For example, (informal hearings) in Region Six river basin m e e t ­ were held to discuss the 208 water 413 quality plan. By the time the meetings were held the larg­ est part of staff resources— time and mo n e y — had already been devoted to the plan. The potential for substantive changes in the plans via the river basin meetings was there­ by sharply curtailed. Another example of this interface between timing and decision-making leverage is found in the regional coun­ cil-executive committee connection. Typically, regional councils meet one to four times a year; executive committees meet monthly. Moreover, raising decision costs regional councils have more members, (see Table 3.7). In line with these different characteristics comes different decision-making roles. ects, Where the executive committee oversees ongoing pro j­ the regional council gives final approval. the regional council is the superior committee. Nominally In fact, most informants reported either that the two bodies were equally "important" or that the executive committee was the principal seat of power. example. A-95 provides the arch-typical Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines spelled out in circular A-95 place limits on the time clear­ inghouses projects. sion. (RPOs) and other units can have to comment on The cycle is 30 days with provisions for exten­ When the regional council meets quarterly or annually it clearly cannot realistically take part in the A-95 review process. Most federal programs have similar time lines, although A-95 has the shortest cycle year planning t i m e s ) . Therefore, (water quality had two- either the RPO has to 414 organize its own planning cycle to mes h federal time lines with regional council meeting intervals or the executive committee must become the defacto policy body. In addition to the agenda control procedures which define which committee acts on which topic and when, there are also procedures which define the binding force of the daughter committee's decision on the parent committee. example, citizen "task forces" are advisory. For The committees higher in the hierarchy have limitless formal power to amend (or ignore) the citizen committees' findings. X3 6 In con- trast, A-95 may be settled by its own committee with only a point of information (that is not subject to action) on the agenda of the regional commission. The regional corn- missxon may only act xn cases of appeal for example. The features of representation, note 157 agenda control, and amendment control together define the relations among the committees. Depending upon these features a subcommittee may be quite independent in its domain, or it may be com ­ pletely subsidiary to its parent committee. The most ineffectual committees seemed to be the citizen advisory committees discussed below. The most independent committees were those in transportation and criminal justice, indicated by the dotted lines connecting them to the executive com ­ mittee in Figure 3.2. 15 6 In practice opinions vented xn citizen task force meetings may represent influential groups whose preferences must be accounted for. 1c7 t See description of A-95 procedures under dxscussion of information system. 415 Both transportation policy committees and criminal justice committees tend to have their representation selected outside the regional council-executive committee process. Transportation policy committees usually contain representa­ tion by jurisdiction. Therefore/ the respective jurisdiction (e.g., center city, urban township) "slot" directly. appoints members to its An exception is the transportation c o m ­ mittee of Region Six which is a true subcommittee of the regional council. Criminal justice coordinating councils (their most common name) are self-perpetuating bodies. Representation is by invitation of the committee itself. Exact details vary among RPOs, but membership invitations, under the constraints of federal guidelines, made to "balance" ally. are usually the committee geographically and function­ In some regions staff have a significant input into nominations for committee membership; in others the com­ mittee chair and the committee itself (or a subcommittee) controls the process. Rarely does the regional council of the RPO becomes involved, except perhaps to send over one or two of its own members to sit on the criminal justice council. In both transportation and criminal justice the sub­ committees usually have exclusive control over their domain. Their agenda includes all phases of all programs within their purview. Moreover, the regional councils usually do not possess effective amendment power over whatever issues from their nominal subcommittees. 416 The independence of the criminal justice and trans­ portation subcommittees from the regional council structure is both a symptom and a cause of the programatic separation of transportation and criminal justice from the main struc­ ture of the RPO. Some of the underlying causes of the separation have been discussed earlier in the chapter. These factors may be briefly summarized. A primary factor m ust be the historical development of the programs discussed earlier. Criminal justice and transportation both had inde­ pendent prior histories. The geographic and functional boundaries of the programs also plays a role. is largely urban rather than regional. Criminal justice is generally oriented to a different set of institutions: Transportation courts, police, and so on. (county-based) Finally, there may be an information asymmetry i m p a c t ,especially in the case of criminal justice. Criminal justice is a field which expli­ citly recognizes professional expertise: prosecuting attorneys. judges, police, Professionals in criminal justice have both superior information and the authority of acknow­ ledged expert status when juxtaposed to general government officials. According to informants, the generalists of the regional commission do not seem to think it within their competence to question the judges and other professionals of the criminal justice system. In summary, the RPO committee structure is a complex scheme of functional specialization and augmented represen­ tation. It is characterized by four types of subcommittees 417 of the regional council and executive committee. These include proper subcommittees, policy committees with aug­ mented or specialized official representation, technical subcommittees, and citizen advisory committees. The c o m ­ mittee system is bound together by internal rules of representation/appointment, agenda control, and amendment control rules. These were not detailed, but some important relationships were noted. The current study did not detail the relationships between committees and between committees and planning activities to trace down the substantive impli­ cations of the committee structure. This section on the RPO collective choice processes will be concluded with a more extended look at the direct participation processes. Representation: Access Direct RPOs have some provisions for direct access by indi­ vidual citizens to their decision structure. is provided by: members; and Direct access (1) committees and task forces with citizen (2) formal hearings; (3) informal, (4) surveys of public opinion. 158 open workshops; These activities are A fourth direct process places nonofficial private citizens directly on the regional councils. Some of the appointed representatives of a jurisdiction are nonofficials. Jurisdictions are restricted in h o w they may choose these outside representatives by HUD requirements for population balance and EDA requirements for representation by industry, labor and commerce. The casual impression gained by obser­ vation at meetings suggests that these representatives tend to represent geographically wider constituencies but func­ tionally more narrow interests (for example a minority group or i nd us t ry ). A check to see how closely they follow the 418 federally encouraged, Protection Agency, sometimes mandated. The Environmental in particular, encouraged an extensive participation program in the 208 water quality planning pr o­ cess . Informants were almost universally disappointed with the results of citizen participation programs in general and in water quality in particular. A typical example was an RPO which is abandoning using citizen task forces sory citizen subcommittees) areas. (advi­ excepting in two high-interest The replacement program will be a public relations activity consisting of presentations at civic clubs and the like. Note that while citizen task forces were only advisory to subcommittees or regional councils, they did provide a two-way communications link. All RPOs experienced what they felt were low levels of participation in hearings, task forces and workshops. Informants typically reported six to twelve people attending. This low attendance level came despite relatively open access. Attendance invariably picked up, however, toward the end of programs when financial and management issues became explicit. Staff commonly complained about the diffi­ culty of getting "front-end input." While staff informants reported that the quantity and quality of input from the various direct access citizen participation programs was generally low, there were some voting patterns of others from their constituency would set­ tle this. Since they would tend to be less tied to juris­ diction and more to their interest group, one would expect a difference. 419 exceptions. Task forces and committees composed of technical people were one exception. For example, several of the water quality planners said that their technical committees were essential. In Regions 10, 12, and 14, among others, the planning staff relied extensively on knowledgeable infor­ mants to provide the data base for their plans. Another example of a direct access program perceived to be viable and useful was a nonmotorized transport (biking, walking) task force in Region Six. These examples provide some insight into the factors underlying direct participation and staff perception of direct participation. One feature is that what planners want out of participation may be different from what parti­ cipants want to interject. An indication of staff perceptions of what constitutes a good citizen committee is that common favorable reference to water quality committees, technical ones. especially Even when the committees were of small size, some staff reported that quality was good from such c om m i t ­ tees. Clearly, staff are looking for technical information from certain committees. They seem to see the citizen role as one of providing "input" to the planning process. Citi­ zens are not perceived to be contributors to decision making. Two other facts support this conception of the staff's view of citizen "input." One is the complaint heard a few times about citizens occupying valuable meeting time with trivial complaints. Without a detailed survey of such issues it is not possible to do more than conjecture, but it 420 seems that staff are looking for citizens to either ratify planning decisions or suggest technical alternatives. If there was an interest in citizen preferences some means of generalizing the "trivial" complaints would be sought. Another supporting fact is that comparatively few opinion surveys seem to be conducted. While opinion sur­ veys are imprecise preference revelation t e c h n i q u e s , they do tap something of underlying feelings. quality planning process, for example, 159 In the water few surveys were con­ ducted, while massive post-planning hearings and citizen meetings were held. Implicitly the staff were taking their cues on goal functions from: system of the RPO; and (1) the official committee (2) the EPA and state guidelines. The citizen's meetings were venues for presentation of already drafted plans. Staff did notice and complain about what they called the lack of front-end input followed by "bitching" at the hearing stage. They attributed lack of citizen turnout (except for technical people) to indifference and laziness. The planners have struck a grain of truth. Based on the concepts of costly information one would expect that few citizens would undertake the effort to become informed and then to participate in timely deliberations on technical and long-term planning issues. 15 9 Furthermore, one would expect Opinion polls reveal what people say they will do, not what they in fact will do. 421 that technically trained citizens would be more likely than others to get involved since they have already obtained a knowledge base and thereby lowered costs of participation. (On the other hand, some technically trained citizens would be expected to have high incomes and thus potentially high monetary opportunity costs of involvement.) A similar effect occurs in the case of highly motivated citizens. Where the issue is important to a citizen, he is more likely to be willing to bear the costs of participation. Thus, the non­ motorized transport task force is lively because it is occupied by motivated people. Similarly, my impression and that of some informants was that environmentalists and farm­ ers had higher than average rates of attendance, although again corroborating evidence was not collected. Besides the question of participation costs, there is one more factor which helps to account for the observed participation pattern. Note that participation in citizen committee meetings really was quite low. Informants usually reported a dozen regular participants to a c i t i z e n s 1 "task force" in regions with hundreds of thousands of people. There are two sides to the participation equation. the cost side described just above. side. The other is the benefit What can the average citizen expect to gain from par ­ ticipating in a water quality citizen committee. thing, tantly, One is impacts are diffuse and long term. For one But more impor­ the RPO in general and citizen task forces and committees within the RPO have very little power. Citizen 422 committees were usually explicitly labeled citizens' sory task forces or committees. were exactly that: advisory. advi­ And their recommendations They were not binding as the plan passed up the RPO committee chain regardless of the v o t e . ^ 6^ A typical pattern was that citizens' committee reported to a technical committee which in turn reported to an official or policy committee (sometimes a subcommittee of the regional council, usually a committee of other of f i­ cials in the region together with members of the regional c o u n c i l ) , and finally to the executive committee and regional council of the RPO. Clearly the potential citizen partici­ pant is far removed from the center of power. In cases where a combined committee cal or citizen-technical-official) (citizen-techni­ a citizen had input to a more powerful committee, but his voice competed with the more "powerful" voices of the expert or the local official. An illustrative incident will help impart a flavor of the direct participation process and its relationship to staff and officials of the RPO. One of the smaller, n o r ­ thern RPOs had a single combined citizen-technical water quality advisory committee which was quite active throughout the planning process. Over one particularly controversial issue the committee and staff split. Staff reported both 16 0 The committee, then, has little formal power. The citizen committee does provide a point of access for citizens who are influential (through political, economic or infor­ mal power). Thus, a citizen's committee may have some informal power by virtue of (1) the access it gives; and (2) the characteristics of the committee membership. 423 alternatives to the policy (official) committee. sory committee members felt betrayed. The advi­ From their perspective their preferences had been disregarded. From staff's per­ spective, their "input" had been relayed to the decision makers along with staffs' own professional judgement of the best solution. A final feature of the direct access processes of the RPOs is that in general an average citizen may not just walk up, as it were, varies greatly. and use them. The degree of access Hearings and informal hearings such as those which come at the last stages of the water quality programs are open to anyone. In contrast the standing advis- ory committees are usually by invitation. 16 X Invitations are broadcast quite liberally, but usually come through org an ­ ized groups such as chambers of commerce, Sierra Club, and so forth. Compilation of the invitation list seems to be a staff function, so here is another avenue where staff may intentionally or inadvertantly affect the RPO decisions. In summary, direct participation appears to be a limited mechanism for an average citizen to have his prefer­ ences represented in the RPO decision process. First, his contribution is likely to have limited credibility unless he can establish credentials as an expert. Second, it is time consuming and therefore likely to be worth the parti­ cipation costs only to people with strong interests. 161 Third, But not always. Region Two gave voting rights to anyone attending two successive meetings. 424 the direct access devices such as hearings and advising commission appear to have little clout within the overall organizational structure tee re l at i o n s ) . (committee system and staff-commit­ Fourth, a citizen may not know about, or be invited to participate in, some of the direct access pro­ cesses. These conclusions are, however, quite tentative and a more detailed study of direct access in particular and the preference aggregation processes of the RPO is needed. Control and Incentives Within the Regional Planning Organization The final system of the RPO which will be discussed is the internal control and incentive structure. The first half of the chapter covered the area of the R P O 's impact on its environment. This section discusses internal processes only. The major question of internal control is that of managing staff to best achieve the goals of the RPO. Norm­ ally staff are hired in the typical employment contract of the enterprise system. Sometimes, however, sultants are purchased by contract. services of con­ The theory of Chapters 4 and 5 pointed out that in a complex world the employment contract has advantages for ongoing work with local idio­ syncratic qualities. The employment contract also provides a quick, cheap adjudication process to resolve conflicts over changing circumstances through the use of the authority of the superior. In contrast, the consultant allows one to 425 purchase specialized services without having to set up a management, recruitment and training program of one's own. For the most part, RPOs have their own staff. two biggest exceptions are The (1) the pass-through of money to "study area" staff and to operating agencies in the transpor­ tation program; and (2) the extensive use of consultants in 2 08 water quality planning. The transportation issue involves the politics of control as well as the economics of organization. This section will therefore focus on the pure employment consultant issue revealed in 2 08 planning. Description All but one of the liberally funded, originally desig­ nated, RPOs made extensive use of consultants. Only one of the "1976" agencies did, and it was the most liberally funded of this second group. Consultants typically conducted the technical modeling efforts and sometimes the sampling programs. Some RPOs hired consortia of consultant firms, who did virtually all the technical planning. staffprovided communication, In-house coordination, oversight, and ran the participation process. Analysis With this pattern in mind, l e t ’s turn to the argu ­ ments made by informants for and against consultants. First are the arguments of those in favor. Time, experience and expertise were the major wa t c h ­ words of the pro-consultant arguments. Planners said that 426 they hired expertise; "that is what consultants are for." They also suggested that the experience of consultants was a reason. Consultants might be doing many plans. firms worked on three or four plans in Michigan. factor was time. Several Another It would take time to "gear up" staff. These three factors (time, experience, lapse into one theme: start-up costs. expertise) all c o l ­ One of the major arguments for the employment contract over the service p ur­ chase is the cost of continually starting up new employees (Chapter 5). But in the case of a short-term technical task, the start-up cost factor rebounds to the benefit of consultants. They absorb the start-up costs and spread them over a greater number of planning projects. Having taken the start-up cost advantage away from employment, the increased hiring flexibility of the consul­ tant becomes attractive. The discussion of the RPO's finances in an earlier section revealed the advantage of reduced staff fluctuations which accrue to the use of consul­ tants. The RPO can limit temporary upward swings in their staffing, while maintaining a smaller, but more stable staff. Stability is part of an environment that allows RPOs to keep competent, security-seeking staff. Another perceived benefit of using consultants in some RPOs is that it lowers the required staff size and so reduces staff visibility. In regions where politically RPOs must maintain low visibility, this is an advantage example, Region T h r e e ) . In other regions, is desirable and was sought out (for the staff exposure (Region F o u r t e e n ) . 427 The disadvantages cited in hiring consultants cen­ tered around expense, development. communication, control, and RPO This last is an almost inverse of the start­ up argument cited above. The advantage attributed to hiring staff rather than consultants is that the skills, once gained, would be available within the RPO. Hiring consultants was also characterized as fast but expensive. Partly, this expense is a matter of the type of technical activities the planning involves. But part is support for the overhead structure and profit of the consult­ ing firms. Whether there is a net cost or savings from hiring consultants depends partly on th e administrative sav­ ings gained by the RPO in shifting these functions to the firm. Such factors as the cost of searching for and train­ ing employees, personnel management, and the degree of "unused capacity" existing in the RPO administration enter into the net outcome. The experience of several RPOs also indicates that contract management can be costly. Region One informants noted that extensive contracting requires sophis­ ticated contract administration capabilities. Contract management costs bring up the set of issues involving communication, control and coordination of acti­ vities. The largest complaints about consultants came in these areas. Communication and coordination between RPO and consultant could be a real problem. The consultant could falter on timing, or quality and the RPO had limited imme­ diate redress. Ultimately it might win a civil suit, but 428 this would do it little good in meeting EPA time tables. In contrast, one of the advantages of the employment rela­ tion is that control is immediate, disputes are quickly handled through the hierarchy. There are a number of areas other than time tables where the lack of control issue came up. One RPO reported that consultants would "shop around" until they found some­ one who would "sign off" on a particular activity, then they would do no more, even if it were unsatisfactory. Consul­ tants also tended to use standardized approaches. The RPO has limited means to compel them to specialize their product to the needs of the region. be incompetent, Furthermore, if they prove to it may be difficult to break the contract. Employee relations allow detailed adjustment to the local situation and to ongoing developments. Another coordination feature involves the ability of in-house staff to piggyback water quality activities (for example) with other RPO activities. They can use water quality results in the other programs and vice-versa. Another problem area is communication. Consultants might have trouble making the numerous meetings a n d 1h e a r i n g s . (They may also not be accessible for technical discussions.) Furthermore, they may be less able to communicate with local citizens and officials than staff. This is another instance where they don't have the specific skill or knowledge an in-house staff would have. 429 In conclusion, the major arguments against the use of consultants are those which favor hiring staff directly. The employment contract allows more refined adjustment to local conditions and needs, and to ongoing developments in an uncertain world. The arguments for consultants have to do with the economies on start-up and the stabilizing of RPO staff. The arguments given by informants can be restated as follows: 1. Hiring consultants economizes on start-up costs for specialized activities. Highly technical, short-term activities are one such case. Another would be short-term labor intensive programs (pro). 2. Leveling out staff size makes possible a more stable and hence attractive environment (pro). 3. Contracts with consultants are more costly to adjust than employees are to direct in respond­ ing to changing environments (con). 4. Indigenous staff develop skill and knowledge spe­ cific to the local situation which cannot be duplicated by short-term consultants (con). Given these observations, the overall evaluation of the use of consultants in 208 planning seemed to be "neces­ sary but not satisfactory." While one or two informants expressed clear satisfaction, most had some complaints. A key variable in success seemed to be the degree of communi­ cation and rapport established between RPO and consultant. This was, of course, a partial function of distance. experience of one or two demonstrated, tance could be overcome, the arrangement. The however, that di s­ if communication were built into The most important factor was that the consultant be willing and able to communicate and make 430 adjustments. Other significant features were simply the technical skills and experience of the consultants. If they turned out not to have them, their primary advantage o b v i ­ ously failed. In summary, the study corroborated theory. Consul­ tants were used and were found indispensable for specialized technical tasks. They were also found to present problems of communication aid control as expected. Communication is impaired because consultants may be spatially removed, but more importantly because they are not tuned into the idio­ syncratic local needs. Control is impaired because the incentive of promotion for a job well done cannot be used and because adjudication must be referred to the costly and time-consuming court system. Conclusion: Regional Planning in Michigan This chapter has presented the results of inter­ views with informants in all of M i c h i g a n ’s fourteen RPOs. Key informants were staff planners and RPO directors. Annual reports, RPO budgets, a Michigan State Department of Manag e ­ men t and Budget survey, and other documents and observed committee meetings supplemented the interviews. The chapter was organized around the theoretical framework developed in Chapters 4 and 5. The first half of the chapter reported on the activities of the RPOs and their impacts as perceived by the informants. vities were found Six kinds of acti­ (and these empirical categories corresponded 431 well with the theoretical ones developed in Chapter 5): (1) Compliance planning consists of planning documents done to satisfy federal requirements or win planning grants but not expected to be implemented (or in paper repackaging of po s­ sibly implementable plans done to satisfy these requirements) Compliance planning was found to be a subtle topic, with impacts such as money reallocated to substantive projects by the RPO, provision of information which has later u n a n ­ ticipated effects, and the very existence of RPOs which later mature to substantive activities; (2) Service planning consists of offering RPO expertise to member local units. It provides an alternative to hiring consultants or building their own planning department for local units; (3) The main activity of many RPOs is to serve as the planning research and development instituion for its region ning) . (information pl a n­ Without being a focus of decision making, the RPO influences decisions about resource use by virtue of the information about alternatives and consequences it discovers: population projections, toxic substance problems, water shortages, and even street name conflicts; ground­ (4) The fourth type of activity for the RPO is to provide a venue for local units to negotiate matters such as transportation project compatibility or joint criminal justice communica­ tion systems; (5) The fifth activity is for the RPO to serve as the institution for making collective regional decisions regarding things such as water quality enhancement strategies and bus system design. This "central planning" activity was 432 found to exist in only a limited man n er and not in all RPOs; (6) Finally, RPOs have a small set of instruments of c o n ­ trol: A-95, TIP/AE, OEDP and LEAA budgeting. These instruments were found to be used in a bargaining climate rather than a hierarchical climate: out to influence projects under A-95, but the RPOs do turn for example, contrary to some expectations. The second half of the chapter discussed the deter­ minants of RPO behavior. The institutional environment and history of the RPO were seen to have a number of i nfluences. For example, federal agencies were found to influence the RPO planning agenda through planning grants; but the control was found not to extend deeply into the details of planning. Regarding history, the sequence of program development was found to influence the planning orientation (HUD information planning; EDA service p l a n n i n g ) , and the degree of program integration into the RPO (transportation, criminal ju s t i c e ) . The geographic setting, urban or rural, was also found to influence the RPO approach. Rural RPOs stressed local assistance, economic development and downplayed RPO review authorities (with one major expensive project r e v i e w ) . Urban RPOs pursued information planning, downplayed local assistance (excepting especially Region Two) and tended to be more willing to employ project review authority. However, project revie w authority and the integration of transporta­ tion planning also seemed to be inhibited when there were major rival urban centers such as in Region Three. 433 A major part of the chapter discussed the internal characteristics of the RPOs. This section began with a discussion of the various management strategies RPOs employ to cope with their perennially meager and uncertain budge­ tary environment. For example, RPOs pursue grants, use internal reallocations, "piggyback" planning activities, use VISTA and CETA personnel, hire multi-purpose staff and some­ times use consultants. The information processing system is a major system in the RPO. The A-95 and criminal justice screening systems and their implementations were discussed. Next, the methods by which preferences are aggre­ gated was described. RPOs have a complicated committee structure which helps officials specialize in certain areas of knowledge and allows the representation of a wide range of interests. The criminal justice and transportation co m­ mittee systems are often autonomous structures. The chapter concluded with a discussion of the internal control system in the RPO: desired tasks accomplished. how the RPO gets its The major issue in this area is when and to what effect consultants versus employees are used. In the next chapter these observations will be plumbed for implications and a number of policy alternatives regarding the possible future of RPOs will be discussed. The final chapter begins with a lengthy summary of the prior parts of the paper so that the chapter can be read indepen­ dently . CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY, C O NC LU SI O NS , AND IMPLICATIONS Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to summarize the study and to suggest major conclusions and implications for policy and theory. In the first section the study objec­ tives and descriptive material of the first three chapters will be reprised. Next, a brief section will summarize the conceptual framework. The third section will examine the major findings of the study. A fourth section will draw some conclusions and analyze possible policy options. Next the issues of regionalism and planning will be briefly considered. Finally, some brief comments about future research will conclude the chapter. Purpose of the Study The premise of this study is that regional planning organizations were developed as a response to interjurisdic­ tional interdependence. The major purpose of the study is to analyze the institutions which have emerged in response to this mission: what they do, how they do it, and what effect they have. Chapter 2 described the emergence of the RPO's nationally, and Chapter 3 added specific details of Michigan 434 435 RPOs. trends: RPOs represent a culmination of three historical increased intergovernmental grants from federal to local sources, local confederations of governments called COGs, and the reform movements of regionalism and planning. The COG movement represents a felt need at lower levels of government for increased communication among local units, especially in urban areas. ceived common interests. Evidently there are some per­ The planning and regionalism movements have both local and national advocates. Advocates believe centralization and systematic decision making will increase local unit capacity to deal with problems which have outgrown smaller units. Finally, the federal govern­ ment has sought various means of implementing its expanded fiscal contributions to local governments. Revenue sharing lacks accountability to federal interests, categorical grants create enormous information needs. Giving aggregations of local units a screening role in the review process could reduce federal information loads while ensuring quality and strengthening local government from the reform perspec­ tive. The outcome is the RPO, a regional confederation of local governments, which plans and also reviews federal grants to local governments within its jurisdiction. The RPO is supposed to review federal grants, increase communication and plan in such a way that local government's capacity to anticipate and solve common issues is enhanced (and federal interests are s e r v e d ) . This raises the q u e s ­ tion of what kinds of issues are involved. Units can be 436 interdependent in one of two basic ways: they can have an opportunity to combine for mutual gain, or they can be in conflict. Most real-life situations involve both. Quite a number of situations were described in the course of this manuscript. One situation which is mostly mutual gain is the combination of two users to get a lower cost supply of some discontinuous or decreasing cost product. RPOs are used as providers of planning services by many local units. Note, however, of conflict, that even this situation is not free for there remains an issue of how cost reduc­ tions are shared. Who pays what price? In the case of the RPOs the issue is further complicated in that planning assistance is also granted to some local unit either (1) as a means of attracting membership and thereby enhancing legitimacy (a selective incentive); or (2) as a means for the RPO to further its own ends of implementing plans it has drawn up. The outcome for who pays what price for what service is not clear, but the smaller units appeared to _ 162 receive net transfers. A set of examples of what appeared to be mostly mutual gain were the multijurisdictional projects in criminal justice. These projects were facilitated by the RPO nego ­ tiation structure and the LEAA grant system. included detective units, Examples training units, and communication networks. One must bear in mind that they may lose el se ­ where. For example, large units seem to have greater influence on RPO decisions. 437 In other cases substantial conflicts existed. example, For in one region there is a debate over the existence and placement of a regional airport. Each city would like to have a regional airport located close to it. (Additional parties are landowners located near the suggested sites.) What one gains, the other loses. tial mutual gain however. There is still some p o t e n ­ A single, centrally located airport may be an improvement over two separate airports, though each city views it as less desirable than their most preferred outcome: the regional airport next to them. In this case the issue has not been affected by the local RPO. Another conflict story involves transit. Should a bus system comprise spokes emanating from a hub in the central business district, or provide a transportation grill- work across the metropolitan area. One alternative enhances the prospects of the central business district and promotes centralized development. of different groups. The other enhances the interests This issue is being addressed by the local RPO. Finally, consider the impact of information alone. As part of the HUD 701 planning process demographic pro j ec ­ tions are made. These projections are used by other federal agencies when they evaluate future needs and award grants to local units. Therefore, the seemingly innocuous projec­ tion of data hurts some and aids others. To the extent that projections are accurate they may also lower the overall cost of the facilities built by reducing the need for 438 construction in underserved areas in later years and avoid­ ing building capacity never used in other areas. This last example is an especially good illustration of the subtle impacts of RPOs: they involve potential resource savings, and gainers and losers, but all impacts are indirect and often extend over periods of time. Given the mission of the RPO as described above, the principal objective of the study was to discover: what impacts RPOs have; in; (1) (2) what activities they engage (3) how they carry out these activities; influences their behavior and activities. and (4) what The ultimate goal is to inform interested decision makers about the cur­ rent behavior and performance of the RPOs and how performance could be changed, if desired. Three major issues bear on the RPOs: planning and project review. issues are those of: In more general terms the (1) governmental organization espe­ cially jurisdictional boundaries; making; and regionalism, (3) control. (2) systematic decision Chapter 5 contained an analytic discussion of these issues in the RPO context. Later in the chapter I will return to these issues. A secondary objective of the study was to develop a conceptual framework for the study of organizations and institutions. This conceptual framework occupied Chapter 4. 439 Description of Michigan Regional Planning Organizations Chapter 3 described: (1) the major federal programs with which RPOs are involved; and (2) the organization of RPOs; (3) the territorial dimensions of Michigan RPOs. Major Programs Table 3.4 shows the major federal programs and their sponsoring agencies. It is also a handy reference to the acronyms by which programs and agencies are known. A brief summary of these programs follows. A-95 Project Notification and Review System Office of Management and Budget establishes sub-state units (OMB) Circular A-95 (regional) clearinghouse. (local and otherwise) Governmental applying for most federal grant programs must submit notification of their intent to apply for a grant to the sub-state clearinghouse in the affected area. The clearinghouse must circulate these notices to other governmental agencies which might be affected by the proposed project. The clearinghouse may review the proposal and comment on the project. At the time of the study, 12 of the 14 Michigan RPOs were designated A-95 clearinghouses. The federal agency retains complete authority over whether or not the grant will be awarded. 440 Land Use and Housing 701) Planning (HUD Under Section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954 amended) (as grants are given to area-wide planning organizations for the purpose of comprehensive regional planning. In Michigan the state administers these funds together with the state's own planning grant. grant) The HUD 701 (and the state are relatively unconstrained sources of funds for the RPOs. Recipients are required to take environmental and historic preservation features into account in their planning. Also, 50 percent of more of the membership on their policy committee must be local elected officials. Finally, recipients have been recently required to include land use and housing "elements" ning program; in their comprehensive plan­ that is, they must submit some sort of plan document in these two areas. All 14 RPOs received HUD 701 grants. Hud 701 funds are used in a variety of ways. Some RPOs, especially newer ones, are developing land use and housing plans or comprehensive plans. consists of tives; Such a plan generally (1) a statement of regional policies and obj ec ­ (2) existing, projected, and desired land uses; and (3) a set of recommendations for implementation. Other RPOs use the HUD 701 funding to do land use planning in support of other program areas, with water quality being the most recent major area. Regions Two and Eleven) Finally, some RPOs (notably use HUD 701 funds to help construct 441 local land use plans. The regional plan may then be derived from the local plans. Transportation Planning Transportation planning is sponsored by two federal agencies and the Michigan Department of Transportation. The state grant is nominally intended to support a long­ term planning program called the Michigan Action Plan {Michigan Department of Transportation, 1974). It is intended to mainly support planning in rural areas to complement the urban orientation of the federal programs. The money is actually used to support a wide variety of transportation planning depending on local priorities, including special projects and local assistance. This is the only transportation money nonmetropolitan RPOs receive. The Urban and Mass Transit Administration and the Federal Highway Administration supply planning grants to designated regional planning agencies on a formula basis. Designated agencies, called Metropolitan Planning Organiza­ tions (MPOs), must include a census-defined urbanized area. Nine of Michigan's RPOs are designated RPOs. agencies require a short-term long-term planning process. The federal (TIP), medium-term (TSM) and A special aspect of transpor­ tation planning is that local transportation projects receiving federal grants must be listed by the RPO on its annual supplement to the short-term plan. The RPO there­ fore has nominal authority to veto funding for local projects by excluding them from the "Annual Element." 442 Criminal Justice Planning The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) provides planning funds to RPOs through the State Office of Criminal Justice (OCJP). These funds have been declining at a rapid rate in recent years. 16 3 Criminal justice plan ­ ning began as a separate enterprise in Michigan but was incorporated into the RPOs by the g o v e r n o r 1s executive order. Major activities under criminal justice include planning-budgeting, local assistance and financial adminis­ tration of federal grants. Criminal justice is the only area in which RPOs are involved in direct administration in Michigan. Planning activities tend to be perfunctory or special-problem oriented. The emphasis is on the p r o j ­ ect grant process and technical assistance. The project grant process consists of allocation of money to the region by formula. is allocated. The RPO has a major say in how the grant money Therefore, criminal justice is the one area in which RPOs have a program budget over which they have considerable control. Economic Development Ten of Michigan's RPOs are designated to receive planning money from the Economic Development Administration. This money, while modest, has few strings and supports an RPO program which tends to focus on local services such 16 3 Recent legislation has terminated LEAA and di s­ tributed its functions to other agencies. 443 as data services, community development and organization, grant searching, and prospecting for firms to locate in the region. The economic plan, ment Program plan. (OEDP) is more of a reference source than a EDA, like LEAA, local projects. the Overall Economic Develop­ also has a grant program to support However, unlike LEAA the grant money is awarded directly by EDA. The RPO provides input through a three-category ranking procedure (and of course the A-95 process). Water Quality Water-quality planning was the largest single acti­ vity by budget in most RPOs from about 1976 through 1978. (It is authorized under Section 208 of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments.) All RPOs participated, but one group was funded at higher levels and with no match require­ ments (the requirement for most programs is 20 percent local f u n d s ) , while the other group had lower amounts and had a 10 percent match requirement. was an example of architypal tives, collect data, recommendations. 164 Water-quality planning planning: specify alternatives, and make The planning was at the adoption state while this research was conducted. 164 establish objec­ See Table 3.6 for budgets. 444 Summary To summarize, RPOs are involved in a number of p r o ­ grams largely sponsored by federal agencies. Major activities are local assistance, planning and project review. There are four project review-budgeting programs: A-95, transportation annual element, criminal justice allocation, and economic development prioritization. most inclusive, The A-95 is the covering most federal programs (transporta­ tion for e x a m p l e ) . Organization of Regional Planning Organizations M i c h i g a n 's RPOs are formed by interlocal agreement by participating local governments. State requirements under the Regional Planning Commission Act (PA 281 of 1945) and the state grant certification requirements provide the general framework, but they allow a wide variety of organ­ izational approaches. Some key features are that RPOs are granted none of the usual governmental powers (taxation, spending/administration, and police power/regulation), they must include 50 percent of the population of a state-deline­ ated planning region, representation must be 50 percent elected officials but is otherwise unrestricted, compensation may be paid officials of the RPO. and no Another important point is that courts have ruled that RPOs are agents of local governments and not governments. Therefore, they need not follow the one-person, one-vote rule. 445 The specific organization of a given RPO is cod i­ fied in a set of bylaws. organization. 16 5 Figure 3.2 shows a typical RPO Member local units appoint delegates to a regional council. Representation is generally accorded each dues-paying member with qualifications to more delegates to more populated units; and represent smaller units by blocs (1) grant (2) sometimes (see Table 3.8). The regional council usually appoints an executive committee which has fewer members, meets more frequently, many of the RPO policy decisions. and makes Counties tend to be heavily represented on regional councils and especially executive committees. The officials hire an executive director and a staff of planners. Most directors and staff are trained as pla n­ ners, though a variety of backgrounds are represented. actually do the research and draft the plans. Staff They also often screen projects for A-95 and provide input into the other review programs. The regional council also has a subsidiary committee structure. Committees include (1) subcommittees of the regional council or executive committee itself; committees with extended membership (2) policy (in the case of trans­ portation and criminal justice there may be little overlap with the regional c o u n c i l ) ; (3) technical advisory com­ mittees; and i (4) citizen advisory committees. Often criminal /■ r See Appendices B, C, and D for actual RPO organ­ ization charts. 446 justice and transportation policy committees are effectively independent of the regional council. Finally, RPOs are financed by dues, state grant, and federal planning grants with the bulk of the money coming from federal sources (up to 80 percent; see Table 3.9). Federal grants usually require matching funds and are tar­ geted toward a specific program area (see above). Thus, the availability of federal grants is a major determinant of RPO planning focus. Territories of Regional Planning Organizations The territorial configuration of Michigan's RPO follows state-delineated planning districts. The planning regions were developed in a state study which attempted to define "communities of interest.11 the configuration shown in the map After two modifications (Figure 3.1) was estab­ lished. The regions are quite diverse, ranging from the 8.9 million people of Region One to the 50,000 in Region Eleven. Based on size of population, density, and urban­ ness four types of regions can be identified. (Detroit metropolitan area) Region One is in a class by itself. are two regions with large land areas, Next large population concentrations, but also large rural areas. Third come the majority of regions in southern Michigan, with m ed i u m ­ sized urban centers and associated hinterlands. Finally, there is a group of northern regions with generally low 447 population densities and sizes. Some differences in behav­ ior of RPOs were expected to correlate with differences in geography. The Conceptual Framework In Chapter 4 a framework for studying institutions was described. nature. The study of institutions begins with human Institutions are the product of human behavior: people making collective choices in strategic situations. People are intendedly rational, but have limited capacities. The limited capacity is more crucial the greater the com­ plexity and uncertainty of the situation. Among the strategies for responding to uncertainty and complexity are habits and standard operating procedures, (minimax, satisfice), and deliberative, decision rules evaluative processes (planning). People are also innately and experientially social. They seek approval, friendship, love, leadership. M a n ’s social nature and his rationality form the basis for his social organization. He organizes through strategic behavior involving exchange and threat. He also organizes through social mechanisms involving authority and affinity. institutions he organizes, he tends to perpetuate: The in the face of uncertainty he prefers the proven success to the u n k n o w n . Using this repertoire of behavior and organizational capacity, man responds to the situation before him. Part 448 of the situation is rooted in the nature of the commodities he p r o d u c e s , distribues and uses. Commodity characteristics and social characteristics create interdependencies he responds to with collective action. One form of collective action is the creation of an institution. An institution, in turn, provides the social framework for further collective action. An institution can be defined as a set of stable patterns of human inter­ action bounded by population, commodity and function. Population and commodities are also mapped into space to form geographic boundaries. The boundaries assigned the institution in the course of collective action are its jur­ isdictional boundaries, Internally, its assigned domain of competence. institutions bind their population together through three processes: aggregation systems, information systems, preference and incentive and control systems. An organization is a form of institution character­ ized by a self-conscious goal formation process and elements of a hierarchical incentive and control system. RPOs are o rg a n i z a t i o n s . Results: Activities and Impacts The principal activities of RPOs are planning and project review. In the first half of Chapter 6 these acti­ vities were analyzed using the concepts described in Chapters 5 and 6. The topics were compliance planning, service 449 planning, information planning, committee coordination, control planning and regulation without planning. 166 Compliance Planning RPOs were found to operate under two conditions which motivated some perfunctory activities. On the one hand federal regulations sometimes condition grants to local units on the existence of some areawide planning body. These regulations induce local units to join the RPOs irre­ spective of their desire to join a local government confederation per se. The power of this incentive was shown by its role in motivating the resolution of severe conflicts over membership and hence the survival of the two RPOs. The second condition is the great dependence RPOs have on federal planning grants. to "paper plan" These can induce RPOs (put together a plan from pre-existing data) or to do studies which no one intends to use. The general impact of these two incentives is that: (1) planning resources may be consumed without effect; local units remain eligible for federal grants; RPOs exist than would otherwise; discussed separately) and (2) (3) more (4) an issue to be RPOs planning agenda is greatly influ­ enced by federal priorities. 166 Planning is defined as the systematic attempt to bring anticipations of the future to bear on present decisions. Planning by an organization also implies some hierarchical control so that once a strategy is selected it can be implemented. The various categories of planning dis­ cussed in this paper represent differing degrees of planning as systematic decision making and planning as central con­ trol, See Chapter 5. The extent of compliance planning could not be d i s ­ covered by the methods used in the current research. The impression gained was that compliance planning was large in only a small number of RPOs, but probably cropped up from time to time in all. Two examples will illustrate the grounds on which this impression was reached. Region Three illustrates the existence of an RPO based largely on a desire to fulfill state and local requirement. Region three had only one staff planner at the time of research. It engaged in no A-95 review activity. Furthermore, portation research was in the hands of area trans­ "study committees of the two major metropolitan areas and the criminal justice operation was separate in location and action. Region Three is a minimal operation. Clearly, The other example is a pipeline study done in one RPO solely in order to gain a planning grant which employed staff and produced surplus funds for other activities. (The planners felt that the study was unnecessary.) The topic of compliance planning turned out to be more subtle than the general impacts suggested above. Sev­ eral factors which modify these results were discovered. One is that informants believed compliance planning to be on the decline. Another is that often compliance planning to fulfill a requirement in one area was accompanied by a diversion of the resources from their nominal project to a higher priority, substantive activity. is that information is never neutral. A third factor Thus, while criminal 451 and economic development plans often seemed to be compiled for the purpose of fulfilling regulations rather than for planning, the documents became reference tools with infor­ mation value and impact in the region. Finally, it must be pointed out that sometimes events beyond the control of the RPO qua organization might turn an intended substan­ tive plan to a compliance plan after the fact because implementing agencies did not follow through. Compliance planning must be analyzed not as a plan ­ ning phenomenon but as an organizational phenomenon. One expects that agents will treat federal and other grant requirements as constraints while seeking their own objec­ tives. Thus, it is not surprising that RPOs comply with planning requirements perfunctorily while diverting resources to their own goals. In some cases this diversion consists of using resources in one area while nominally committing them to the intended area. In a more profound diversion, the whole RPO is mostly established to qualify the local units for federal grants. Service Planning All RPOs were found to supply some technical ser­ vices to constituent units. The amount and kind of services varied between programs and regions. In some RPOs (Regions 2, 11, 12) technical assistance was a major area of activity. In others (Regions one and six, for e x a m p l e ) , the RPO con­ siders itself a regional technical information clearinghouse 452 but otherwise downplays assistance. Aside from information, major assistance areas were technical planning assistance, grantsmanship, and community development. Grantsmanship activities were typical of economic development and criminal justice; planning assistance of land use; and community development (community organization and prospecting for industrial expansion) of economic development. Assistance was sometimes supplied at cost under contract but more gen­ erally it was subsidized or free. RPO organization of efforts in Regions Five and Six to emplace multijurisdic­ tional "911" communication systems illustrate both community organization and grantsmanship aspects of local assistance. In Region Six the criminal justice planner reported that this activity took about 80 percent of his time for a year. The 911 communication system project is also a c o n ­ venient illustration of the notion that local assistance may be tied into RPO regional planning efforts. Implementa­ tion of regional plans was one of three kinds of reasons informants reported for regional planning organizations to be supplying services to constituent units. The 911 example shows how the RPO can become' actively involved in bringing regional plans to fruition through grantsmanship and community organization. persuasion, Along with project review and local services are, in fact, the only tools RPOs have for implementing regional plans. The other two rationales given for local assistance activites were: (1) to supply a service that would be 453 otherwise unavailable or very costly; and (2) to enhance the credibility of the RPO in the eyes of local units. these reasons comport well with theory. Both The first rationale is based on economies of scale and certain organizational economies. Because planners are discrete, the planning production function is discontinuous; furthermore, specialization is possible. some These two factors imply econo­ mies of scale in the planning production function. Furthermore, RPOs have some advantage over private con su l­ tants in that: (1) overhead of local planning can be shared with regional planning; (2) RPOs are familiar with local technical and political conditions; able for update, followup, etc. and {3) RPOs are a v ai l­ In short, the RPO combines the advantages of having its own staff with hiring a con­ sultant for units not large enough to support a planning staff. Moreover, the R P O 's services are often subsidized! The fact that more rural RPOs tend to be assistance oriented supports this hypothesis. The urban units of Region One have their own staff or can hire consultants. Finally, the use of implementation to lend credibil­ ity to the RPO supports two conceptual notions. First is the hypothesis that the RPO must generate a sense of commu­ nity if it is to implement any of its plans. A sense of trust must temper local unit self-interest if there is to be support for community standards. Furthermore, while large units have an incentive to actively support the RPO lest their withdrawal leads to RPO collapse and loss of 454 federal grants, the absence of small units does not threaten the existence of the RPO although they affect its moral weight: its legitimacy. So, subsidized technical assistance is offered as a selective incentive to induce widespread membership (Olson, 1971). For example, some RPOs offer the first X hours of consulting free, with more time avail­ able at cost. Thus, small members get "something for their m o n e y ." Information Planning The major apparent function of RPOs is to act as a "think tank" for its constituent units. is research, Its major activity its major implementation tool, persuasion. The water quality planning of all RPOs illustrates. Staff and consultants spend literally millions of dollars research­ ing existing data, surveying, building models and pursuing other research activity. At the end, the RPOs have a plan which suggests what might be done to improve water quality. In few cases will the RPO be involved in any direct imple­ mentation. The plans designate other "Management Agencies" (mostly existing local g o v e r n m e n t s ) . and update plans. RPOs will monitor They may have some role in detecting variations from the plan under their review authority. RPOs have been the medium by which the plans have been drafted, but other institutional means will be employed for implemen­ tation. Conceptually, the information planning of the RPO represents organizational collaboration at the information 455 processing and sometimes the preference aggregation level. The RPO is used by the confederation of local units as an institutional agency for combined research. In some cases the committee processes of the RPOs are also used to reach a region-wide policy decision. planning. This was labeled central In other cases negotiation between local units is direct or non-existent and the RPO is bypassed as a de ci ­ sion structure. However/ even when the RPO's collective choice processes are bypassed, of the the information planning RPO may have an impact through information impact. For example, RPO planners may use the information generated in regional planning in their technical assistance efforts. A specific example is an industrial land use study in one RPO which changed the nature of grant requests made by local units to the EDA. Each unit had to consider how its request for an industrial park supporting grant would hold up in light of the regional study. Committee Coordination The research found two forms of regional decision­ making taking place under the auspices of the RPO. is the First planning process which the RPO is formally organized to do.Here the RPO engages in research and then its c o l ­ lective choice processes are used to bring about decisions. In the second case the RPO creates a venue for information exchange and mutual adjustment between local units. this second process, labeled committee coordination, In 456 individual units adjust their actions based on negotiation quite apart from any planning process. Of course, plans are usually developed in an atmosphere of negotiation. difference is not sharp in reality, The but it's useful to c o n ­ sider the two processes separately because if one looks only for the planning process one may miss the informal negotiation process. To reiterate, the distinguishing fea­ tures of the committee organization process are: (1) the lack of a joint information-planning process; and (2) the lack of a centralized organizational strategy. policy is the outcome of regional planning, A regional a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements the outcome of mutual adjustment. The committee coordination process was found to be a prominant feature of the criminal justice budget all o­ cation process and the transportation review process. In both cases informants suggested that allocation was not based on a systematically developed regional strategy, but the allocation was changed as individual members adjusted to one another. The committee coordination mode at first would seem to rule out any but Pareto better changes. Sense of comm u­ nity and threat can, however, change the negotiation dynamics. In the criminal justice procedure, standards were applied to projects. for example, professional 457 Central and Control Planning Committee coordination is contrasted here with p r o ­ cesses by which a central agent systematically collects and processes information and reaches a collectively binding decision. The decision is made systematically, and it is made through the collective choice process of a central body. In the case of the RPOs, the central body is a c o m ­ mittee so that its decisions are the result of negotiation among its members. powers, Where the central body has control it is termed control planning. An example of how central planning works in the RPO is given by the water quality planning program. Here the RPO is the means by which information is systematically processed so as to generate alternatives and their possible consequences. RPO. The choice of strategy is made through the The next stage is implementation. RPOs have little direct power over implementation so the nominal central plan may revert to a compliance plan. Where local units begin altering their resource decisions to accommodate to the plan, such as by the purchase of vacuum sweepers or the alteration of zoning ordinances, we have a case of implemented central planning. While the research phases of RPO planning were easy to observe, the implementation phase was largely beyond the capabilities of the present study. of impact could be felt, however. example, Some indications In water quality, for administrative agencies were being created and 458 federal agencies were vowing to support the plans. Another case was a transit debate in one region over a hub and spoke versus a trunkline-feeder line bus system. Here, system­ atic planning had produced alternative strategies by which transit development could be guided. Control Planning RPOs have few means by which to directly control resource allocating decisions. They do have a set of auditing-budgeting tools called project review. four project review programs: Notification System; There are (1) A-95 Project Review and (2) OEDP project rankings; portation TIP/Annual Element veto power; and (3) trans­ (4) criminal justice grant allocation. The A-95 process grants the RPO power to review and comment on local unit applications for most federal grant programs. The use of A-95 varied widely among RPOs. Some did little more than pass along notices of intent to governments and agencies in their region as required by law. Others devoted much effort to reviewing proposals. Review was not always with a strict eye to implementing regional plans. In some regions and for some projects in all regions a guiding regional plan typically would not exist. Staff would sometimes still review on the basis of professional judgement. of reviewing on "merits" Some RPOs had a general policy loosely defined. Thus, for example, staff in one RPO felt free to comment on the cost or quality 459 of a project contractor. Many RPOs reported that a primary goal in review was to make a project more fundable, either by improving its quality or by packaging it so as to enhance its desirability to the federal agency. Although the A-95 authority gives the RPO no formal power some impact was observed. For one thing, some infor­ mants felt that federal agencies did pay attention to the local input. This corroborates the expectation that a removed center would use locally generated information. In any case, local units were seen to expend effort to avoid negative comments. In particular, projects were altered in negotiation between applicant and RPO or applicant and another local unit rather than risk an unfavorable com. 167 ment. A final aspect of A-95 influence is that staff were often more involved than officials. taken up later.) For example, was to avoid negative comments, (This topic will be even where official policy staff could alert federal agency personnel to an issue by the wording of their c o m ­ ments. One case in which this device was used was in a project destined for high-income housing whereas federal priorities were for low and moderate income housing. In summary, A-95, while lacking formal authority, is still able to have an impact because it changes informa­ tion. I t s 1 impact is understood by the RPOs and so it is 16 7 These findings concur with others reported recently in the literature. See literature review in Chapter 2. 460 only used where RPOs intend to have an impact. In a later section I will describe the tendency to logroll and how this is overcome. Another control tool held by the RPO is OEDP project ranking. Nominally the formal authority granted the RPO through OEDP is greater than through A-95 since regional projects are ranked rather than just considered one by one. The OEDP ranking, however, is not binding, so again the process only works through its information impact. The RPO controls no budget, all allocation decisions are made by the federal agency. Therefore RPOs can easily have more project dollars in their first of three categories than will ever get funded. In this atmosphere projects are reported to be "wish lists." Having a project listed facilitates but does not guarantee funding. Logrolling seems to dominate; no one wishes to deprive another unit of a chance to get funded. One informant likened the process to a "s catte r gu n," a bunch of projects are listed hoping one will hit. Clearly the incentives operate to maximize the number of projects rather than to reduce them. Note that the OEDP process seems less connected to the planning process than A-95 and it seems to be less demanding of the projects. What leads the OEDP process to be less rigorous than A-95 is a matter of conjecture. projects are unlikely to get funded, Perhaps, since OEDP the regional implica­ tions of the project can be safely ignored. In contrast, 461 A-95 occurs at a later, more serious, stage of discussion, when probabilities for funding are higher. The TIP/Annual Element provides a veto to RPO trans­ portation planning. {Projects coming up for inclusion in the TIP/Annual Element are also subject to A-95. reviews are normally considered as one.) The two The list of pro­ jects on the TIP/AE are nominated by operating agencies. They already have arranged federal grants and allocated their own budgets to cover project costs. take from one project and give to another. The RPO cannot The observed behavior for transportation review in RPO was the "committee coordination" process noted above. In general, each o p e r a t ­ ing unit separately planned and developed its projects. But the RPO committee process associated with RPO transpor­ tation planning in general and TIP-AE review in particular, served as a venue for agents of the units to negotiate on items of mutual interest. Informants reported that changes were often made in project design: timing of construction, widening a street to the same width as a neighboring juris­ diction, and so on. Still the TIP/AE veto is a very real formal power and as such can become the object of power play. Six for example, In Region opponents of an interstate highway loca­ tion and residents who opposed making a neighborhood street into a major arterial used the RPO framework to advance their cases. Thus, while the TIP/AE process may be described as a negotiation process, process, rather than a full-blown planning it is negotiation under threat. A majority vote 462 in the regional council can kill a project. Thus, a coali­ tion can arise to successfully oppose the sponsoring local unit. Finally, the criminal justice grants program of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration operates through regional budget allocations based on a populationcrime formula. to allocate. In this case the RPO has an actual budget It can take from one project and add to another. The consensus of informants was that in most RPOs, in most cases, the budgeting process tended to surface '“better projects," where better is defined by professional standards. One outcome of the system which is probably different from what would be obtained under the usual direct categorical grant system, is more interjurisdictional p r o ­ jects . The interjurisdictional 911 communication systems were mentioned above. training programs, Other examples included combined detective units, narcotics units, and multijurisdictional "sting" operations. However, as with the transportation process, the system seemed to be one of committee coordination rather than planning. That is, committees negotiated to pass on the relative merits of projects, but the projects were gen­ erated by individual units or ad hoc syndicates of member units. The projects themselves were not typically the output of a systematic research and development process. 463 The conclusion is that the regional budget brings about changes in projects (more multi jurisdictional, higher quality judged by professional standards) more but does not lead to a systematic, planned approach to criminal justice in the region. Results: The Regional Planning Organ­ ization's Opportunity Set The above paragraphs summarized the findings concern­ ing the R P O s 1 major activities and their impacts. A remaining question is what factors condition the RPOs' action? What is the opportunity set, the situation and institutional environment, within which the RPO acts. Six features of the opportunity set were identified: (a) func­ tional assignment; (c) (b) institutional environment; historical development; (d) population boundaries; commodity characteristics. In addition, and (e) the internal organ­ ization of the RPO conditions the interactions of the individuals which comprise the organization and so the organization's overall activity. Functional Assignment What role is the RPO assigned in the general scheme of governance? above. By and large the R P O 's role has been defined Its major components can be quickly reviewed. The federal government grants the RPO money and license to engage in regional planning: to be the federally recognized and subsidized local agency of systematic, collective decision 464 making. The federal government also grants auditing/budget­ ing power over certain federal grant programs. Local governments are officially creations of the state. The state's grant to the RPO is significant for what it is not: in Michigan the RPO is not allowed any of the standard governmental powers such as taxation, re gu ­ lation, or even spending. RPOs are not, and cannot be, g o v e r n m en ts . Finally, the constituent units of the RPO grant or withhold from the RPO legitimacy as representative of local interests and arbiter of intra-regional conflicts. The local units also interact with the RPO to obtain services through grant or exchange (contract). This inventory of the RPO's functional boundaries tell the main story of what RPOs can and cannot do. They can plan for the region or for individual local units. can review grants. They And they can provide an institutional basis for collective regional action where desired by the local units. is that: The two major implications of this inventory (1) the RPO does not stand as a superior body to the local units; and that (2) the RPO's activity depends to a large extent on the legitimacy it is granted by its c o n s t i tu en ts . Regarding the issue of hierarchy, appears, trol. the review authority at first, to be an instrument of hierarchical con­ Closer examination shows that: (1) A-95 grants no control other than access to information flow; and (2) the 465 RPO's confederate structure limits the veto and budget authorities of transportation and criminal justice. The review power becomes a part of a threat system in a negoti­ ated situation. Local units may threaten to exit; the collective body (the RPO) may threaten negative review. Threat systems are generally unpredictable and unstable. The issue of legitimacy will be considered later under sense of community. Institutional Environment An important aspect of the R P O s ' opportunity set is the nature and actions of other actors. is the grants of power discussed above. Part of this Two other aspects are RPO financing and the rights and actions of others. RPOs possess no independent source of funds. Th e r e ­ fore, they must direct their activities in such a way as to generate financing. sources: government Their financing comes from three federal agencies (roughly 80 p e r c n e t ) , the state (8 p e r c e n t ) , and local dues 16 8 (12 p e r c e n t ) . Federal grants influence RPO behavior in two areas. The RPO's planning agenda must be adjusted to the availability of federal grants. Secondly, federal grants have specific "strings" or requirements attached to them. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires that 50 percent or more of the delegates on regional councils be locally elected officials. 168See Table 3.9. The 466 influence of the federal government, then, is that the planning agenda must be drafted with consideration of the availability of federal funding and certain specific things are required of the RPOs. A side product of this structure is that most RPOs have some staff with consider­ able expertise in grantsmanship. This expertise is often made available as a service to local units. The state and local financial contributions are not generally tied to specific planning programs. The two together, however, generally define the total budget of the RPO, because most federal grants require a local match. 16 9 Often the state and local share just reach the amount required to match federal grants. In this environment it might seem that the federal government can dictate the planning agenda for the RPOs. Three factors work to mitigate federal control. One factor is that RPOs can choose which grants they will go after. In point of fact all, water quality grants. for example, Still, chose to apply for 208 some RPOs seemed to be serious about applying for grants selectively, others clearly applied for everything that came along. The second factor which mitigates federal influence is that RPOs can create broad planning categories like "intergovernmental relations" 169 in their planning budget which A major exception was a large portion of the 208 water quality grants. 467 allow them flexibility to meet local needs. 170 For example, when the issue of a regional mall came up in Region Six, the RPO was able to free up money for a quick study. This example also illustrates the RPO's limitations, however. If a costly, in-depth, study had been desired, would have had to, at a minimum, agencies, the RPO get approval from federal and possibly look for a new grant. Occasionally local units will feel strongly enough about a program to fund it directly. An example is the county funding of town­ ship planning in Region Eleven. A third factor is that while federal grant availa­ bility may influence the broad direction of planning, the details of planning are left open. Some evidence, with respect to the federal impact on the planning agenda is that, when directors were asked what changes they would make in their current activities, the changes suggested were generally slight shifts in emphasis. Most directors felt that they could make the federal grant funds align fairly closely with local priorities. The second major category of the institutional envi­ ronment is the rights and actions of other actors. The cast of characters differs from program area to program area. Two or three major results will be summarized here. 170 This flexibility depends partly in turn on the willingness of agencies like HUD to fund broad categories and/or the inability of federal agencies to closely super­ vise the RPOs, to prevent them from "optimizing to the m e a s u r e s ." 468 Land use and water quality present a graphic case because, on the one hand, they are quite interdependent (runoff is a major determinant of water quality) yet they have some significant differences in their institutional patterns. Land use is traditionally viewed as the center­ piece of the private property system. What collective control is exercised outside the market infrastructure is through local governments. In contrast, water has tradi­ tionally been viewed as a common resource, for example. nent. in navigation State and federal regulation is more promi­ Given these two different institutional views, the RPO might be seen as a more centralized agency in the case of land use and a more decentralized one in the case of water quality! In land use RPO action seems to lean toward compliance planning or local assistance. In water-quality planning it appears that RPO-drafted plans will be influen­ tial. The federal agencies appear to be willing to back up the RPO plans. (This probable impact must, however, remain conjecture as the program was not far along at the time of the study.) In other words, the federal agencies appear to be ready to decentralize authority to the RPOs. Another major institutional feature is the county orientation and professional specialization which charac­ terizes the criminal justice system. county court, county prosecutor, The importance of the sheriff and so on, to what informants called a county system. consequences for the RPO are: leads Some of the (1) the tendency to allocate 469 LEAA grants on a county basis; (2) the appointment of c r i ­ minal justice council members according to county (and s pecialty); (3) the tendency for RPO staff to have widely different relations with local units from county to county. The county orientation of criminal justices has been part of the rationale behind a movement to separate crimi­ nal justice planning from the RPO. has three county councils. Region One, in fact, Those who favor county-based planning see the principal task to be coordinating the system at the county level. For example, the 911 communi­ cation systems referred to previously were county based. On the other hand, the RPOs have given rise to a number of intercounty projects. Furthermore, the sparsely popu­ lated counties in the North could not support a planning/ grants coordination establishment at the county level. They have the choice of regional level, state level or nothing. Historical Development One feature of institutions is that they are a product of their history. Two kinds of historical events have shaped the development of the RPOs. Programs have had sequences of events that condition their characters within the RPOs, and individual RPOs have experienced unique fea­ tures which have shaped them. One major feature of program development is whether an RPO was originally sponsored by the Economic Dev e lo p­ ment Agency (EDA) or the Department of Housing and Urban 470 Development (HUD). One difference is that HUD emphasizes official participation and the role of the RPO as an agency of local governments. EDA emphasizes participation by important segments of the economic system. Thus, Region One, a HUD-based RPO, has a regional council composed of 100 percent local officials. Region Twelve has a regional council composed of the executive committees of its county economic development committees. The economic development committees are appointed in turn by county councils, but they are appointed to represent the chamber of commerce, labor, and so forth. Another difference is that HUD has emphasized c om­ prehensive planning; EDA has emphasized community organization. EDA-based regions have a history of service, while HUD-based regions have a history of planning and research. Therefore, the historical origins of the RPO have partially influenced the present RPO's orientation to providing services or doing regional planning. Two programs which had independent existences prior to the creation of the RPOs were transportation and crimi­ nal justice. This appears to have had an effect on the degree to which the program areas have been integrated into the RPO. In the case of transportation, some regions have completely autonomous staff and policy committees; others have autonomous policy committees but staff housed with the RPO; only one has completely integrated transportation into the RPO. The concrete impact of this nonintegration was 471 not clearly demonstrated. autonomous, However, where transportation is the policy committee is usually recruited from the urbanized area. Thus, one principal difference is the degree to which rural interests are represented in trans­ portation planning. Another factor is that transportation planning is cut off from general concerns such as land use. Criminal justice is also an area which existed inde­ pendently. Some staff were still quite bitterly opposed to integration with the general RPO. Separatists argue that they receive no benefit in services or peer cross-fertiliza­ tion with the mostly physical planning staff of the RPO. Furthermore, the RPO uses criminal justice money to support general overhead. Integrationists argue that locating in the RPO prevents their capture local courthouse, point. by either the state or the permitting them to take a regional v i e w ­ Furthermore, some report to be net beneficiaries of location in the RPO. Again the impact of the RPO's incorporation of criminal justice is hard to ascertain. It may have hindered RPO influence because of lack of c o n ­ tact with the criminal justice system; it may have increased RPO influence through enhanced independence. Besides the program histories, each RPO has its unique sequence of development. Two examples illustrate how the specific events of particular RPO environments can put their stamp on the nature of the subsequent RPO. Region Twelve has probably the best reputation among RPO staff statewide. It is perceived to be engaged in pr ac ­ tical planning which gets implemented and to be innovative 472 in supplying services and generating grants. Informants credit much of the current shape of the RPO to the dynamics of an executive director. The second major example of idiosyncratic events is in Region Two. When Region Two was created the planning staff from the city moved to the RPO. The RPO has since had a contract to provide the city with planning services and this has broadened out to a general emphasis on provid­ ing local services. Population Boundaries Chapter 3 described the origins of the geographic boundaries of the current RPO regions. The particular poli­ tical economy of an RPO's region was found to influence RPO activities in four major ways. Size The population size of the RPO had a number of effects. One impact is that less dense regions seemed to have RPOs with greater emphasis on local assistance. This result is consistent with the economies-of-scale arguments cited earlier. Another impact of size is that RPOs with larger p o p ­ ulations had larger budgets and larger political clout. For example, Region One was able to have all its sponsoring federal agencies come for a one- or two-day conference to work out the planning budget. Another example is that Regions Five and Six were able to get large-scale special 473 criminal justice grants. However, one must also note that Region 12 was successful at obtaining special grants based on its reputation. Another impact of size is that large geographic regions have higher transaction costs. It is costly for officials to come to meetings and planners to travel to project sites. A low-density region has to spread this increased transaction cost over a smaller budget, compounding the problem. thereby The transaction cost impact of size affects location of meetings, and according to Faas (1977) affects participation. Types of Regional Preferences The geographic character of the RPO was also found to accept the types of activities of the RPO, although this area was not pursued in as much depth as was originally hoped. One major relationship discovered was between urban­ ization and the more rigorous use of A-95. Presumably, urban regions have a greater incidence of interdependence and thus more felt need for A-95 communication. It was also found that the first two locally initiated RPOs were highly urban and that urban RPOs tend to be more likely to emphasize implementation over compliance planning. Unfortunately, there were not resources to establish detailed links between a region's economic characteristics and its planning agenda. however, One illustration of this link, is in Region Eleven. Much of the activity of the 474 RPO is centered around community organization in response to the closing of a mainstay to the regional economy, a military base. Preference Homogeneity Theory suggests that the more homogeneity, fewer political externalities. the There was evidence of con­ flicts between rural and urban interests. For example, Regions Five and Six had conflicts over rural-urban repre­ sentation. In other cases the more rural counties of large urban-centered regions {Seven and Eight) disconnected from the RPO. seemed somewhat However, homogeneity did not emerge as a major theme, where rivalry did. Rivalry is considered next. Sense of Community We have noted that aside from project review the major tool of the RPO is its legitimacy among its consti­ tuent units. emerge? The question is, how does trust in the RPO The extent of possible distrust is revealed by some officials in many regions who felt their mission was to be a watchdog against encroaching regionalism and fed­ eral control. The evidence is that time and interdependence are two essential ingredients in building sense of community. The trust in the two oldest regions (One and Six) is revealed in their ability to pursue rigorous A-95 review. (But note that they still cannot overcome grave conflicts-) 475 Region Six also contains a single urban core and its hinterland. One informant from another RPO characterized it as an ideal region. There is a sense of interdependence which of course includes some conflict. Region Three is a contrast in that it has two rival urban centers. The two centers feel greater competition than they do interdependence. The RPO is kept very weak. Grand Rapids. Originally, Another case was Muskegan and the two were to be in one region. They were separated and this has led to a tighter sense of community within each successor region according to infor­ mants. On the other hand the regions still have cross- jurisdictional conflicts; some have been resolved. Transportation for metropolitan Grand Rapids is handled through Region Eight. Other conflicts are simmering. So one gains in ability to resolve internal conflicts through enhanced sense of in-group community. But the cost may be a decreased ability to resolve conflicts across regional lines. The contrasting example of Region Three suggests that perhaps the separation of Regions Eight and Fourteen was a net gain in RPO capacity to resolve conflicts. Commodity Characteristics A final exterior conditioner of the opportunity set of RPOs is the nature of the thing they have to deal with. On the one hand there is the nature of planning. I have already discussed the nature of the planning production process and possible economies of size in other sections. In this section we shall concentrate on the nature of the 476 program areas. For instance, the nature of externalities which arise in land use and water quality. Land Use Land use often generates externalities. the spillovers are direct, the market Sometimes sometimes they operate through (pecuniary e x t e r na li ti es ) . A common interjuris- dictional conflict occurs when a business such as a mall wishes to locate in an area. the tax base. Some jurisdiction will get The distribution of costs for supplying infrastructure will not necessarily be the same as the dis­ tribution of tax revenues. The example of the regional mall in Region Six illustrates that RPOs may not be effective instruments f o r conflict resolution in these cases. The incentives which inspire "municipal mercantilism" are very strong. Another form of land use interdependency is the cum­ ulative effect of individual decisions leading to "urban sprawl." Each individual seeking an ideal single-family house contributes to the "congestion" of the land with low-density uses. In this type of case the RPO, through its influence on zoning practice, may have impacts, but these impacts are too difficult to trace in a short-run study. Trnasportation One of the primary characteristics of the transpor­ tation system is that many of its elements are characterized 477 by joint impact up to a point of congestion. use does not detract from another. One person's Two other factors may further complicate interdependence however. One is that traffic patterns create externalities in the way of annoy­ ance to pedestrians, aesthetic disturbance, and their effect on commercial patterns. Finally, users of the same system are grouped at different levels; interstate. local, commuter, Each has different preferences. 171 In this setting transportation responsibilities have been assigned to a combination of multiple governmental levels and private enterprises. But, in general, no single jurisdiction has been assigned to the commuter level which crosses local jurisdictions. niche. The RPO is presumably intended to fill this But it has no operational funds and little regula­ tory authority (except the TIP/AE v e t o ) . If the RPO were the effective level of conflict resolution for some problems one would expect changes. Two examples found in the study were a proposed highway to serve commuters which was to cross Michigan State University in the Lansing area, and the regional airport case in Region Three. role. In neither case has the RPO played a significant If the RPO had regulatory authority the effect would be different in each case. 1 7 1 In the airport case there would But a joint impact good can only be provided at one level so some group's preference must prevail, while others lose. A roadway provided to suit local preferences will not have the qualities commuters or interstate truck­ ers want, for example. 478 be a "centralization"; "decentralization" in the commuter case a probable from state to regional level. Economic Development The nature of economic development is clouded in theory and practice. The key question from the RPO perspec­ tive is the existence of a local geographic dimension to economic development. If the local economy depends entirely on national economic forces, the RPO and local governments can be expected to have no role. Perhaps a local area can expand economically due to its own efforts at the expense of others. Here we have the case of municipal mercantilism: each local jurisdiction trying to win jobs and tax base. The location of the regional mall and the general rivalry over industrial parks are examples. The study indicates that RPOs have an insignificant role in resolving these conflicts. The system is entirely one of each jurisdiction out for its own. If economic development does have a regional base, it probably revolves around the urban-centered labor market and commercial trade patterns. might be some net gain. Under these conditions there Economic development might be posi ­ tive sum rather than zero sum. If so, the present lack of impact of the RPO represents a potential net economic loss to the region as a w h o l e . Even if development were posi­ tive sum, conflict, of course, would remain. 479 Criminal Justice Some elements of the criminal justice system exhibit economies of size in production units and communication systems) ple, (for example, narcotics and spillovers (for exam­ lack of drug enforcement in city A affects township B ) . There exist opportunities for lower unit costs and there exist conflicts over externalities. Previous sections have detailed how the criminal justice grants and committee sys­ tem of the RPO has responded to this situation. Water Quality Water quality is the joint outcome of the hydrologi­ cal system and the human use pattern that generates pollutants. dependencies. The overall system is one of multiple inter­ In particular, its pollutants from upstream; a downstream region may receive an upstream area may not be able to capture the benefits of its cleanup. RPO boundar­ ies were drawn with consideration given to social systems but not water systems. Thus, one would expect externali­ ties of the downstream-upstream type. In fact, several RPOs experienced frustration because they "inherited" their water quality problems. Overall, however, by boundary mismatch did not seem great. conflict caused Three factors were speculated to have reduced the interregional conflict. First, the regional boundaries were large enough to con­ tain many of the river basin systems and so the downstreamupstream interdependencies. Second, the RPOs are attuned 480 to the political jurisdictions which have to implement plans. Third, standards were set by state and federal agen­ cies, thereby preempting local conflict. The next question is how the intraregional conflicts were resolved. It appears that if federal regulations and grants provide control and resources plans will be imple­ mented. If left to their own devices, the intraregional conflicts will largely remain in the pre-plan configuration. Examples of these intraregional conflicts were low-flow augmentation and land use controls. The RPO has served as an institution to allocate some of the burdens in improving water quality, but only under federal mandate and with the promise of federal controls and grants. In short, the model is one of central specification of standards, and decentral­ ized specification of means. Summary: Internal Organization and Control of the RPO The last part of the results chapter analyzed the internal organization of the RPO. two kinds of activities: The study explored the functional and system maintenance; and the three kinds of internal organization processes: information system, preference aggregation system, and incentive and control system. Functional Activities The actual acts of planning were not directly stud­ ied. The focus of the study was on general processes and impacts of planning rather than details of planning. These procedures were discussed in other sections of the study to the extent that there was an observed connection to the eventual impact of the RPO. System Maintenance Activities The principal finding regarding system maintenance activities surrounded the difficulties the RPOs sometimes had in conditions of budgeting uncertainty. RPOs were found to exist in an environment of uncertainty about: (1) long-range funding of the RPO and the various program areas (2) current budget allocations given changing planning co n­ ditions; and (3) cash flow. These environmental uncertainties caused the RPO management director and the executive committee) (generally the to adopt a number of strategies to protect the R P O 's existence. short, had to plan for its own survival, The RPO, in as well as to carry out its functional mission of planning for others. The strategies adopted by the RPO can be grouped into three categories: financial management strategies, operational strategies, and personnel management strate­ gies. The RPO responded to uncertainty with a number of financial and budgeting strategies. Most RPOs had equity accounts or surpluses to cover cash-flow shortages. Some responded to the instability of federal grants by ove r ­ budgeting so that programs could be dropped that were not really counted on, but new grants could be quickly seized. Short-term changes in planning needs were handled mostly by 482 open categories or transfers between categories (sometimes requiring official granting agency c o n c u r re n ce ). Long-term uncertainty gave rise to pervasive grantsmanship activities. Some RPOs have fulltime staff devoted almost solely to grants seeking (often including advising local u n i t s ) . Operational planning activities were also directly affected by uncertainty. Some RPOs stretched out their project budgets so as to reduce fluctuations. (For exam­ ple, an RPO would deliberately stretch out its water-quality grant.) Sometimes an RPO pursued local contracts as a means of building a broader financial base would also "piggyback" studies. (diversifying). RPOs This would free up funds for internal reallocation by getting double output from the piggyback funds. Finally, RPOs adjusted their management of personnel to their financially uncertain future. Some stretched d o l ­ lars by using subsidized VIS TA and CETA employees. adopted a policy of looking for broadly trained, Others "flexible" planners who could shift between programs as federal m o n ­ ies changed. This strategy obviously detracts from efforts to develop specialists. Finally, RPOs could even the peaks and valleys of hiring and firing by contracting with c o n ­ sultants when a large, short-term, program like water quality came up. In summary, the environmental uncertainty faced by the RPO caused management to accommodate the RPO's behavior. The type of planner hired course of planning (consultant, (duration, category) flexible) and the could be affected. 483 Information Processing System Since planning is, in one of its principal aspects, a matter of systematic information processing, mation system of the RPO is central. the infor­ Through information asymmetry and cost impacts it also interacts with the collective choice process. The main elements of the infor­ mation system in the RPO were found to be: (1) the hiring of staff as information specialists and experts; delegation of authority to staff; and (2) the (3) the use of com ­ mittee specialization. The role of staff as information specialists was most clear in the A-95 process and the criminal justice process. advisors. In both these cases staff acted as screens and In A-95 they often separated the trivial or technical from policy questions, to overburdened officials. reporting only the latter Such a screening role inevit­ ably means that staff influence outcomes. may be through: Staff influence (1) deliberate manipulation of information; (2) acknowledged delegation of authority from official to staff; or (3) unconscious selective perception on the part of staff. One key question is how to distinguish techni­ cal matters from policy matters. For example, do water- quality standards refer to technical matters of biological parameters or policy questions of how much money will be spent to purchase what impact. Of course, both value and fact are ineluctably intertwined and their separation is a matter of decision and/or selective perception. 484 The committee system also develops partly from infor­ mation needs. Subcommittees allow officials to specialize, thus limiting the range of knowledge they must master. Subcommittees also reduce the size of the decision-making group and hence decision costs. Again these aspects of the information system influence the decision structure. Expertise and delegation to subcommittees creates informa­ tion asymmetries ripe for exploitation. In the RPOs it was observed that executive committees often had power as great or greater than its nominal parent committee, the regional council, due to committee size and meeting frequencies. For example, A-95 is on a 3 0-day cycle. The executive com­ mittees meet at least monthly and invariably have the decision-making role in A-95. Collective Choice [Prefer­ ence Aggregation) System The collective choice mechanism of the RPO is com­ plex, because the RPO is a hybrid creature. choice emerge. Two levels of The RPO is a confederation of local govern­ ments so there is the external question of how the local governments are represented in the RPO. Then there is the question of how the RPO as an organization makes decisions internally. There is also an element of direct citizen participation. representation: eracy; The net result is four sub-systems of (1) representation to the RPO as confed­ (2) staff role within the RPO; within the RPO; and (3) official role (4) direct citizen access. 485 The staff role is tied to their role in the informa­ tion system and so can be quickly reviewed. Staff participate indirectly through their impact on and use of information flows. Staff also participate directly, either as trusted servants delegated responsibility or as experts supported by professional authority. In A-95 and criminal justice both roles were witnessed. Representation of local units to the confederation RPO is neither strictly by jurisdiction nor by population. The study found that the typical scheme was to allow each (dues-paying) member jurisdiction a vote. Some allowance for population was made by awarding extra votes to large jurisdictions and by representing smaller jurisdictions, such as townships, through blocs, In general, it was found that the structure led to the representation of large units such as counties and cities but was biased toward rural units. The paradox can be illustrated by reference to Region Five. Representation is basically by county. The most populated county has a slight delegate edge but has a population difference of four to one. sentation of large and rural units one-vote standard) The over-repre­ (relative to a one-person, is hypothesized to stem from: state's participation requirement; and the (2) the incentive of small units to "free ride." Another aspect of the confederal approach is that RPO officials are delegates appointed by constituent units rather than directly elected by the citizenry. (In many 486 cases the local unit appoints non-elected representatives to help attain federally mandated goals of ethnic and economic representation.) The evidence confirms that the RPO acts as a confederation rather than as a unitary regional agency: for example, criminal justice allocations used jurisdictional balance as a grants award criterion. In general, it appeared that officials acted in the inter­ ests of their jurisdictions. The indirect scheme of representation is part of the package that defines the confederal structure of the RPO. One would hypothesize that direct elections would lessen the tie between local units and RPO official but no comparisons were available to test the proposition in this study. The degree to which a confederation or a unitary agency is desired is a matter of public choice. Altering the representation scheme is one possible choice. Altering the representation scheme is one possible means of changing the degree of confederation or unity. Regarding the official internal decision structure of the RPO, the study found a number of committee struc­ tures operating. committees: The RPOs have four general types of (1) subcommittees of the regional council or executive committee; membership; (2) policy committees with outside (3) technical advisory committees; and citizen advisory committees. (4) The degree of influence these committees have on RPO choices varies. The central policy committees have two basic methods of control: appointment 487 and agenda and amendment control procedures. Many policy committees in the criminal justice and transportation p r o ­ gra m areas are virtually not accountable to the regional council or executive committee. Some of the reasons why this autonomy evolved were discussed in the section on h i s ­ tory. Institutional devices which reinforce the autonomy include the non-overlapping and self-appointing membership of most criminal justice councils and transportation study area policy committees. An illustration is the uniqueness of the transportation committee in Region Six which is a subcommittee of the regional council. Another feature in both fields is the professional standing of judges, pro se ­ cutors and engineers. Representatives from general governments sometimes defer to these experts. In transpor­ tation the expertise of the professionals appears in an influential technical committee. Transportation technical committees do most of the nitty-gritty work. mittees often either approve, Policy com­ disapprove or refer back to the technical committee for further work. An interesting point is that the transportation technical committees (and other technical committees) have RPO staff membership. Thus, RPO staff become formally involved in the decision structure. The fourth form of committee, committee or task force, citizen access. the citizen advisory is a principal means of direct Public hearings and one-shot informal topical "workshops" are others. In general, citizen 488 advisory committees were felt to be "not successful" by informants. The survey found that staff tended to look for ideas about plan design rather than for readings on preferences from citizen committees. expoert the citizen, Therefore, the more the more credibility. Thus, water- quality committees had some influence to the degree their membership had technical competence. Citizen participation was definitely low, a phenomenon hypothesized to be due to (a) high cost of participation, benefit from participation. and (b) low expected Benefits from participation may be perceived to be low by citizens because of: (1) the low impact and/or long time lag of RPO activities; (2) the finding that staff tend to bring plans before citizenry after the major decisions have been made; and (3) the finding that citizen committees have low levels of influ­ ence in the overall structure of the RPO. An example illustrating point two is that major citizen hearings were held regarding the water quality plans when virtually no money or time was left for revision. however, It should be noted, that citizen committees and workshops organized more in advance suffered from low turnout, attesting to point one. (1) is likely In summary, an average citizen to have little credibility within the RPO unless he has expertise; (2) faces a time-consuming process with few apparent payoffs; and (3) faces an RPO decision structure oriented to technical input and officialpreferences with little credibility attached to direct citizen participation. 489 RPO Control and Incentive System The major question of internal control addressed in the research was the issue of management control over planners within the RPO. Specifically, the study explored situations in which staff were hired versus conditions under which consultants were hired. The results corro­ borated the theory about the differences between the administrative relation in the employment contract versus the exchange relation of the service contract (consul- *. t a n t ) .172 Consultants were used for, and found useful for, specialized technical tasks. However, as expected, they presented some problems of communication and quality con­ trol. Communication problems arise partly because of distance. As one RPO pointed out, this obstacle can be overcome by building sufficient travel into the contract. But another problem is consultants' lack of knowledge of local conditions and the resulting inappropriate actions. In contrast, a benefit gained from using staff is that any expertise developed stays within the organization to be available at a lower cost in the future. The biggest perceived problem with consultants, was lack of means of control. tractor, A disagreement with a con­ if goodwill were not present, 172 See discussion in Chapter 4. could ultimately 490 be settled only by costly and time-consuming court action. Meanwhile the RPO would miss deadlines. In contrast, 173 dis­ putes with staff can be directly settled by fiat and the incentive of the hiring, administrator. firing, promotion powers of the A final complaint lodged against consultants was that they are expensive. Indeed, only the rich initial grant RPOs used them. Conclusions Activities and Impacts What, then, are the overall conclusions of the study regarding the activities of RPOs and their impacts? The results can be summarized in terms of four positive and two negative findings. 1. The RPO is predominantly a research and educa­ tion agency. Its analogue is more the university than the planning division of a corporation or of a county road commission. The R P O 's plans are more general than those of cities or counties and they are implemented by agents other than the RPO. In the vernacular of this study, the chief role of the RPO is in information planning. This research and education role does not imply that RPO plans are without impact, just that there is a weak connection between the 1 73 A t the time of the research, several RPOs were in fact involved in court action against consultants. planning and its implementation and therefore an uncertainty about results. Staff and offi­ cials of RPOs rarely know if their work will be effectuated. Impact comes either through the indirect impact of information or through implementation by institutional means other than the RPOs. One example of information impact is the discovery of a potential future groundwater supply and quality problem which provokes discussion among affected local units. Another example is the effect population projections may have on grant awards based on projected needs. A second role of the RPO is to provide an arena for mutual accommodation among constituent local units. The participation process of the RPO throws together representatives of different units who can compare notes. This mutual accom­ modation was found to be a significant feature of the transportation planning process and a sometime feature in the economic development and criminal justice areas. In the criminal jus tice area, the RPO staff and the committee proce appeared to operate together with the regional grant process to produce more interjurisdictional projects than might otherwise be expected. 492 This mutual accommodation process was termed committee coordination in the study and should be distinguished from planning. mutual accommodation process, In the independently derived plans are adjusted when confronted with the plans of others. are involved. Only a subset of the units The total collective choice p r o ­ cess of the RPO is not invoked. The institutional processes of the regional planning organization, therefore helps constituent units rectify their plans to each other, plan together. even when they don't always However, the accommodation p r o ­ cess generally promotes only mutually beneficial (Pareto better) changes. Thus, changes are made at a technical level and usually avoid contro­ versial topics or strongly held plans. 3. A third important role of some RPOs is to provide services to constituents. In some regions the RPO functions as a planning department for many small local units. In the southern part of the state local units tend to have larger populations (and higher per capita incomes) their own planning staffs. 174 and can support Where they cannot support or don't want their own staff they can Note that one southern RPO (Region Two) has a strong local assistance tradition, dating to an historic contract with the city of Jackson. 493 contract with independent consultants or with other local governments (cities, c o u n t i e s ) . In the North, population densities and incomes are lower. support planners. Sometimes even counties Consultants are in population centers hours away. The RPO provides a pro x i­ mate consultant, and one over which the constituent units exercise some administrative control. Moreover, RPOs can produce some local services as joint products with their regional activities thus reducing costs. Finally, most RPOs subsidize a degree of local assistance from HUD 701 funds, state grant and local dues. In Region 11, for example, county financial support plus state and federal money and RPO staff work have created township land-use plans in much of a region with a total population fo 50,000 but an area larger than six of the southern regions. Another aspect of service provision is community organization and grantsmanship. In providing grantsmanship services RPOs are ope r­ ating as extensions or facilitators of the federal grant system. For example, an RPO pro ­ vides computer-assisted reference to federal grants that may in other places be provided by the extension service, information agency. libraries or some other In other cases RPO staff 494 actually help write grants. Here there is a potential conflict with the R P O 1s auditing role, discussed next. Finally, note that community organization and grantsmanship can sometimes be combined so that RPO staff facilitate the cre a ­ tion of an interjurisdictional project that might not have appeared without some catalyst. 4. Finally, RPOs audit federal grant projects. While the impact of review activities varies between RPOs and among the types of review author­ ity, the review unquestionably has some effects. The impact was often found to entail project m o d ­ ification in response to concerns of the RPO or other agency. Rarely did it take the form of a negative comment resulting in no funding. 5. The first negative conclusion relates to project review. Having project review authority does not seem to increase the propensity to engage in sys­ tematic decision making. An increase in regulatory power does not necessarily bring an increase in planning. For instance, the RPO holds the most regulatory authority in criminal justice, but criminal justice is not an area characterized by central planning. 6. Finally, the major negative finding regarding RPO activities and influences is that RPOs do not, in general, contribute substantially to the 495 resolution of major regional conflicts. example, For the RPO was only minimally involved in the controversy over the placement of a regional mall in Region Six. Also, local governments in Region Three have not used the RPO to resolve their conflict over airport location. While examples of conflict situations were found in which the RPO played a role (for example, the transit system d e b a t e ) , the RPO is not an insti­ tution capable of resolving major crossjurisdictional conflicts on a regular basis. Opportunity Set and Internal Organization What has been learned about the way the environ­ ment of the RPO and its internal organization contribute to the activities and behavior of the RPOs? have shaped the RPO? What forces Following are listed the major fac­ tors that seem to cause the RPO to be what it is, a think tank and consultant, but not a major institution of c o n ­ flict resolution. Limited Powers The RPO has basically three tools by which to influence events in the region: (1) project review; direct implementation through service provision; education and sense of community. and (2) (3) The RPO simply does not have sufficient threat or legitimacy to control the actions of its constituent units to conform to choices 496 made through the RPO. In some regions enough consensus exists so that the RPO exerts some moral force in the region. The only formal authority is project review. Project review is a weak threat. Project review allows an RPO to place a project in jeopardy, but it is not backed up sufficiently to be a binding regulatory action. In short, the powers of the RPO are consistent with a role as research, development, ber governments. and educational agency for the m e m ­ They are, of course, also consistent with the role of compliance planning. For those who wish the RPO to play a significant role in regional decisions, the current PRO powers are not sufficient. Confederal Organization, Sense of Community and Rivalry A particularly important variable in RPO depends on the interplay between its confederal organization and the extent of the sense of c o m m u n i t y . The legitimacy of the confederal RPO depends on its member units, not on the direct allegiance of local citizenry. representatives of jurisdictions. RPO officials are Among the ramifications of this structure is the contrast between the sense of community which develops in two kinds of heterogeneous regions: interdependent and rivalrous regions. In urban core regions the interdependence between urban area and hinterland allows common interest to sometimes supercede conflict. A-95 review, for example, is seriously pursued. In some regions with competing centers, however, rivalry 497 precludes any cooperation. A-95 review. Region Three has no effective The boundary designers, establish "communities of interest" in their efforts to (see Chapter 3), adopted an approach which appears to increase the chance of conflict resolution, but also reduces the scope of conflicts considered. On the other hand, the confederal nature of the RPO guarantees that it will not be able to mediate some con­ flicts. For example, in economic development each community seeks to bring jobs and tax base to itself. These strong incentives to maximize jurisdictional objectives overwhelm the RPO. exists, As long as the underlying incentive structure "municipal mercantilism" will not be substantially m odified through the RPO. of regional malls, Decisions to allow development for example, will be made by the atom ­ istic local unit. Resources- and Agenda Since RPOs have no ability to generate their own revenue, they must negotiate with sponsoring agencies to gain resources. Through this financial sponsorship, fed­ eral agencies gain influence over what is otherwise a confederation of local units. not hierarchical: Again the relationship is the federal agencies have no power over RPO personnel; no direct influence over the details or even overall scope of the RPO's activities (just as the RPO has no direct controls on local unit ac t i v i t i e s ) . guid pro quo for federal funding is, however, that the The 498 R P O 1s major research areas are matters of federal policy. Congress, through the EPA, decided that water quality would be a major issue, not local units. dards. However, the EPA did not direct the research process nor the approach of the plan. of negotiation. The EPA also set stan­ The overall process is one The RPO can choose to offer to do activity X and the federal government will buy it. The RPO has flexibility in what products it chooses to "sell" and in how it produces them. This flexibility allows the RPO to tailor the product to local needs. Institutional Environment The rights and activities of others and the history of institutional development have also strongly shaped the RPO. Two areas of particular significance illustrate this influence. First, quality programs, be more active. overlap; if one compares land use and waterthe RPO role in water quality seems to In many ways water quality and land use for example, runoff varies with land use. Yet the case of water quality seems to be one of decentrali­ zation: a grant of authority from the federal to the regional level. In contrast, a local prerogative, land use is historically and RPO action is perceived by local units to be centralization. One difference is that the EPA appears to be willing to grant the RPO some controls. The researcher also found that RPO action in water quality was accepted by local units as legitimate, RPO land-use action. Note, however, though many resisted that the water-auality 499 plans have uniformly placed responsibility for implementa­ tion on existing local u n i t s . Water Quality Board ity. However, a separate Areawide (AWQB) has been given some responsibil­ The creation of AWQBs is analogous to the creation of the Southeastern Metropolitan Transit Authority (SEMTA). Thus, while R P O 1s implementing roles promise to remain small, some new collective action organizations have been created. Nothing of the sort has happened in land use. A second institutional feature is the relationship between the history of independence of transportation and criminal justice planning and their continued autonomy. In most RPOs criminal justice and transportation have vir­ tually (and sometimes actually) structures. separate staff and official Both programs existed prior to the creation of RPOs in most regions. Once created, institutions attain identities and resist submergence in other institutions. Besides independent history there are, of course, factors. other For example, criminal justice planners and pro- . fessionals have quite different training and traditions from physical planners and general government officials. History and other institutional factors reinforce each other. The result is that one cannot integrate two organ­ izations by simple fiat. It takes time and attention to institutional design. Overall Evaluation The above pages relate some of the most important conclusions gleaned from this study of Michigan RPOs. In PLEASE N O T E : This page not included with original material. received. Filmed as University Microfilm s International 501 the following paragraphs an overall evaluation of the RPOs will be given. and speculative. This evaluation is necessarily subjective Nonetheless, it expresses what the researcher believes to be the thrust of the evidence. As the literature review showed, the development of RPOs was part of a long process, despite the sudden formation of most of Michigan's RPOs in the late 6 0 's. The literature reveals that RPOs were created to address interdependencies that existing institutional arrangements didn't. The scale of local governments meant that some issues couldn't be contained within them. One unit's decision affected another's situation. The study rein ­ forced the findings of the literature. Water quality created spillovers. Transportation system users demand an infrastructure that crosses many jurisdictional lines. Land-use decisions made in one jurisdiction affect the taxes and service loads of another district. The land market stretches across jurisdictional boundaries. One solution to these interdependencies is negotia­ tion: a quasi-market solution in the policentric tradition. There are, however, First, limits to the quasi-market approach. information is costly and the future uncertain. One may wish to enhance the existing market with some system for generating information. The research and development role of the RPO is therefore a logical supple­ ment to, not a replacement of, the quasi-market. 502 Secondly, one may not like the outcome which comes from atomistic negotiation. As one director put it, sometimes people must be forced to cooperate. negotiation, Atomistic for example, may lead to cumulative results quite unintended and even undesired by the individuals concerned. Urban sprawl is one possible example. Moreover, atomistic negotiation can only give rise to Pareto better changes. Perhaps other, redistributive changes, are desired. This is a matter for public choice: a solution decided through the atomistic negotiation process, while Pareto better, is not necessarily the "right" solution. Policies established by majority rule are often considered "right" (or legiti m at e) . To summarize, in the literature, the development of RPOs as reported together with the analysis of RPOs in the study, demonstrates that some publicly felt need for a regional institutional structure exists. The strength and legitimacy of this felt need are beyond the judgement of the researcher. But the point is that there exists some groping for institutional change. This should not be sur­ prising. The policentric theorists build a case for multiple governments coordinated by the quasi-market. They infer from this that since the status quo is policentric it must be all right. Their static view prevents them from seeing 503 that institutions may become obsolete but linger, and that new situations may call forth new institutions. 175 More specifically, counties and townships were demarcated in the days of horse and buggy. Cities have grown, but growth was shaped by original conditions. Changed transportation, communication and increased popula­ tion have created a new situation. If the current institutional structure were instantly erased there is no reason to believe that it would or it should be exactly replaced. There is, therefore, a continuing need to reappraise and possibly alter our institutions. The RPO represents an attempt to alter the present institutional structure. The institution of the RPO should therefore be appraised not only for its impact, but for what it signifies about the rest of the institutional structure of local government. The immediate research question is what does the RPO do? The underlying policy question is what alternatives are available to public choice? In the following pages some policy alternatives are considered. Implications: Some Policy Alternatives Mo RPO One option is to to disband the RPOs. This option is not really open at the local or even the state level. 175 And people may want certain results, and not just process (policentrism). 504 Substate planning organizations of some description are mandated by the laws and regulations surrounding the federal grant system. If the local or state governments disband the RPOs,they stand to lose substantial federal revenues. Aside from this loss, the average citizen would feel little immediate impact if the RPO disappeared today. The small tax saving would be barely perceptible no matter how dis­ tributed. There would be little immediate change in the social economy, since the impact of planning is usually lagged and diffused. on who, if anybody, The eventual difference would depend took over the functions of the RPO. Federal agencies would probably continue to evaluate grants. Criminal justice funds might be allocated at either state or county level. Water-quality planning would probably fall to the state; ships. land use to counties, cities and town­ To generalize, what planning was continued would necessarily be more "decentralized" or "centralized,1' The conclusion reached in the course of this research is that the net impact would be increased central­ ization . The RPOs were created in response to a felt need of transjurisdictional interdependencies: of the water system, system, the spillovers the use patterns of the transportation the externalities of land-use patterns. These interdependencies will continue and will probably draw responses from state and federal levels. There are no el e ­ ments of the local governmental system sufficiently inclusive to address these interdependencies except RPOs, COGs, and 505 % interjurisdictional negotiation. We have seen that the incentives are such that interjurisdictional negotiation is likely to result in outcomes many people will not desire. They will pursue change through higher jurisdictions. While the evidence suggests that the absence of the RPO would bring increased centralization the externalities) choice. (internalizing what should happen is a matter for public Should those faced with pollution be granted the right to be free of pollution from upstream sources, by state or federal agencies, or should they have to negotiate (without the institutional structure of the RPO) with their neighbor. The county was once a local level which included most local interdependencies. Where cities, townships and villages couldn't negotiate a satisfactory solution, county provided an alternative. the The county is now smaller than a service center and its hinterlands. One policy alternative is therefore to replace RPOs with enlarged counties. Of course, southern Michigan. this urban view is valid only for In the north, counties are larger relative to the urban-centered system. Here the questions turn on regulation and questions of scale in production and consumption. Perhaps the evolution of RPOs toward service provision in these areas indicates the alternative of a regional services consortium. 506 Continue Present RPO A second option is to continue, perhaps intensify, the primary current RPO role as a research, bargaining, auditing, and services body. The sentiments of RPO directors suggest that many would like to see the RPO's role as data collector and analyzer expanded. Perhaps closer ties to area universities and colleges would be mutually rewarding. The RPOs contain a large potential field staff in public affairs which might be usefully linked with the extension service of the land grant system. The research model of the RPO implies that the regional decision structure is to remain within the present local government structure. The public choice would be to accept the outcome of atomistic bargaining between local units. A variation of this policy would be to keep RPOs as they are now, but change the structure of local govern­ ment . Another issue is that currently some RPOs, especially in the north, are evolving to a model of RPO as technical resource/consultant to local government. This option might be strengthened by explicit recognition of the two types of RPOs: research and service. If the service model is to be strengthened, probably the biggest single need is a reformed financial structure. Current financing, based heavily on federal planning grants, research/information model. is geared to the The RPO as the planning department for the region, would need financial support 507 through contracts or through state or county contributions. One model, for example, would be a state grant to match a local government's payment to an RPO for a service contract. A difficulty with the RPO as service organization is the distances involved. Region 10 has foregone this model because of the time it takes to traverse the region. Perhaps planners could be attached to the RPO but rotated to the counties. Or perhaps the RPO could provide central backup with permanent staff in the counties. Maybe service regions need to be smaller than research-oriented regions. One point is that, where in the south the urban area incor­ porated within the region was a critical element in the RPO, in the north the importance of urban orientation seemed to fade. Thus, be feasible. smaller RPOs, without urban centers, may The tradeoff would be between size and hence staff size and the costs of distance. Expand RPOs* Planning Domain One alternative that was advocated by several directors is to expand the RPO from mostly physical into social planning. The economic, housing, and criminal jus­ tice programs place the RPOs within this area now. Certainly there are interdependencies between physical and human resource planning. Superficially, land use and trans­ portation are physical, but ultimately they are social. Therefore, there is a case for research and planning to consider both physical and human aspects simultaneously. The research indicates two problems. One is that the example of criminal justice shows that just housing p l a n ­ ners together does not mean that interchange will occur. De facto separation may continue. many social planning agencies, aging, Another issue is that such as those dealing with also administer programs. Michigan RPOs cannot legally do this. There is also a third issue underlying all. When should programs have their own agency; when should they be combined. The health systems agencies are separate, for example. The question occurs throughout the institu­ tions of governments. When should a function be placed with a general purpose government, when with a special p u r ­ pose district. There is no simple formula. This research has identified factors such as commodity boundaries, pro fe s­ sional ties, economies of size in production, and consumption, and so on. administration Each case is a combination of these common factors and must be a separate issue for public choice. In conclusion, combining human resource planning with the RPO is a policy alternative, but one which deserves study of the specific characteristics of the variou potential programs and how they might combine. Expand RPO Regulatory and Expenditure Role One potential change is to enhance the powers of the RPO; make it more like a government. with the same program areas, Assuming it stayed increased power might come through expanding its planning-budgeting role. The criminal 509 justice system provides one model. grams might be allocated by RPOs. with criminal justice, More federal grant pro- 176 From the experience it could be exoected that this approach would not necessarily increase systematic planning by the RPO, but it would change the outcome. Increased regulation does not bring increased planning. for example, Imagine, that a local unit had to apply to the RPO for its transportation grant. The RPO would become a key p ar t i ­ cipant in the transportation system, probably at a relative power loss to state and local units. Kow this would trans­ late into transportation outcomes is impossible to generalize. Possibly, the voice of commuters would be enhanced relative to state and local interests. Still, the RPO was being used in Region Six by neighborhood inter­ ests to block a commuter-oriented arterial. The overall impact does not seem to be predictable. Another approach to enhancing RPO power would be to give it powers over zoning, building codes, pollution discharge and so forth. Such a move might modify the m u n i ­ cipal mercantilism in metropolitan areas because one jurisdiction would be forced to account to another jurisdic­ tion when it sought, 176 for example, to admit a regional Faas (1977) studied health systems agencies which allocated numbers of hospital beds. He found that review power alone produced little impact, but control over a bud­ get increased impact. This illustrates that the resource allocated does not have to be dollars. It might be miles of roadway, or tons of pollutants. 510 shopping mall. Since most of these powers now reside at local government level, increasing RPO regulatory power of this sort would be a centralizing move. But this is necessary if a different outcome is desired in the situa­ tion of reciprocal externalities which is the current metropolitan land-use structure. Presently East Lansing can largely ignore the impact its decision has on Lansing. 177 Of course, many zoning issues involve interdependencies over no more than a few blocks. One option would be to give RPO authority to resolve appeals or to act in large cases, or to adopt the broad outlines of the regional land use plan. Two features of this policy option should be noted. First, this option is probably within the legal capacity of the state to enact. action, (Many other changes reqire federal including the no-RPO option.) RPO is a confederation, be modest. Secondly, since the the shift in power would probably The ability of one jurisdiction to influence another jurisdiction's action would be small, and differ­ ent from RPO to RPO as it is with A-95 today. Still, the exercise of real regulatory authority by the RPO, would give the majority a chance to impose its will on a single 177 Except that it must live as Lansing's neighbor, and Lansing can threaten bads in return: you build a regional mall and kill my downtown and I won't cooperate on a regional bus system. 511 unit. 178 If the RPO is to play a significant role in resolv­ ing intraregional conflict, authority is required. some (limited) zoning or similar Without such power the de factor public choice is for the research/information model of the RPO. Granting regulatory authority to the RPO would enhance the importance of representation because the RPO presumably could affect non-members as well as members. With this power the RPO becomes a ment. (very weak) quasi-govern- Perhaps proportional representation would be required by the courts. If so, the RPO would inevitably lose some of its confederal nature. Possibly a ''two-house" model could be arranged so that representation by jurisdiction would not be entirely lost. Regional Services RPO One policy alternative is to turn the RPO into a quasi-governmental services agency. law would be required.) agency, (A change in state Instead of SEMTA as a separate it might be incorporated into Region One. and recreation, libraries, Parks and waste treatment are other candidates besides transportation. Such a change would be a drastic change from the current research and educationoriented enterprises. 17 8 nimity For example, typically RPOs are The voting rule is changed from the present una­ (Pareto) rule to majority rule. 512 managed by professional planners, not professional managers. (There are a few exceptions such as Region One.) The other issues raised by adding direct administra­ tion to the RPO functions are complex. First, there would presumably be a higher chance that plans would be imple­ mented, since the RPO would be both planner and implementer. This might as easily change the nature of planning as it might cause implementation to be more ''planned." The lesson of criminal justice is that direct power does not necessarily increase systematic decision making. Thus, an RPO may op er ­ ate a transit system without reference to a planning process. In short, joint planning and administration may facilitate, but does not guarantee, their interaction and consequent changed performance. Another point is that the RPO may be called on to plan and to administer a different, lapping group of programs. highway systems, through presumably ove r­ For example, it might plan but not construct or maintain them. Thus, the separation of planning and administration might continue both de facto and by design. All this suggests that one policy alternative is to keep the RPO as is and create a regional services administration. be possible. Intermediate stages would The RPO might be to the regional services administration as planning commission is to city council. Or one "holding organization" might loosely control the RPO and one or more regional service administrations. conclusion, there are a number of policy options. In There 513 is no reason to suspect that one of these options would be more likley than another to increase the incidence of systematic planning. The regional services administration should probably be considered on its own merits of economies of size in production, consumption, or administration, or in the possibility of internalizing some externalities not desired. The issue of attachment to the RPO is a secondary issue whose consequence is not clear based on the current study. The RPO as Expanded County Government A final option has already been mentioned. theRPO, expand the scope of the counties. would be three layers: township. super county, Perhaps county, Perhaps there would be two; Drop there and city- super county and c it y/ to wn sh i p. This option raises issues far beyond the current study. It is only mentioned now because of the assertion that the RPO must be considered in the light of the overall organization of local government. Abandon RPO, Change Inter­ governmental Relations Another alternative would be to replace the RPO as an arena for negotiation with a different set of property rights governing the relationships between neighboring jurisdictions. 179 179 For example, suppose one jurisdiction could Suggestion due to A. Schmid. 514 sue another for the damages caused by an 1:e x t e r n a l i t y .' Then, if drug pushers infiltrated because of lax enforce­ ment, or if one jurisdiction attracted an industry that increased the costs to another's schools and transportation system, the legally defined externality producer would have to negotiate to buy out or otherwise compromise with the harmed p a r t y . Implications for Regionalism, and Project Review Regionalism Boundaries) Planning (Jurisdictional In part, this study has been a case study in the issue of jurisdictional boundaries. were discussed in Chapter 5. Theoretical issues What has been learned from the study which bears on these issues? Support for a number of propositions listed in Table 5.3 were found in the study. There was evidence of economies of scale behind the emphasis of some RPOs on service pla n­ ning. One. There was evidence of size giving clout in Region There were many signs of externalities dencies) within regional boundaries. frequently were a regional airport. (interdepen­ Among those cited shopping mall and a regional There was evidence of administrative economies in the use of staff versus consultants by the RPOs. these individual corroborations, ings . Beyond there were two major find­ 515 First, the RPO is best viewed as a part of the quasi- market structure of interlocal negotiation. the point that a Rather, (quasi) market is not a This reinforces (quasi) market. any given market is a specific institutional variety of market, and there are many possible forms. Determining the choice of jurisdictional boundaries cannot be reduced to a simplistic "policentrism is good'1 maxim. ask what sort of policentrism approach)is required: One must (or other organizational what performance is desired, and what institutions will effect the desired ends? The second point is that history is important. uations and institutions change. Sit­ What produces result X in time K will produce result Y in time K+l. Specifically, the local governmental structure was created years ago. The RPO is an attempt to modify that structure. The presump­ tion is that the present structure is in some way obsolete. One cannot go, as the policentrists do, from a generaliza­ tion about the virtues of policentrism to an advocacy of a status quo system. Many governments are not per se any better than one government. outcome The policy question is what is desired and what institutional configuration will facilitate that outcome in the situation of the present day. Situations change; so do institutions, but they have built-in inertias and "personalities" of their own. To say they are good because they exist and are policentric is Social Darwinism. 516 Planning and Project Review In the analytical discussion of Chapter 5, planning was defined as having two aspects: an organizational phase. a decision phase and By and large RPOs were found to operate in the decision phase. They might be considered part of a rather complicated planning system which includes the local constituents, as the RPO. state and federal agencies as well The R P O 1s role in the planning system was p r e ­ dominantly one of information processing: education. control. research and Planning ultimately requires some hierarchical One must be able to implement the collectively reached choice. The case of the RPO illustrates how poli- centric the system may be. of control: project review, The RPO itself has few levers implementation, and education. The links between implementation and the decision/information processes are weak. of the process. The RPO only contributes to one phase The overall impact depends cn the action of the directly controlling local units, eral agencies and so forth. For example, the financing fed­ in water quality the federal government finances facilities and provides general standards. of action. The RPO has developed possible courses Now local units must act on them. The p e rf o r­ mance of the RPO depends on the activities of all elements. The policy question thus concerns the organization of the overall system. Should the RPO's role be changed? Some of these issues were addressed in considering policy alter­ natives . 517 In conclusion, planning is no panacea. good, per s e . It is not It is merely one approach to the organization of human interaction. Whether or not planning is to be adopted is a matter of public choice. minate conflict. Planning cannot e l i ­ No institutional form does that. What institutions do is to structure the way we resolve conflicts and attain mutual goals. RPOs, in particular, were found to be organizations with small, although definite, impacts. Hopefully this study will contribute to the public discus­ sion of the role and merit of RPOs. Reflections and Projections In this concluding section of the study I will reflect on the methods and accomplishments of this study and consider what remains to be done. I will discuss (1) specific follow-up research questions concerning the regional planning organizations; research design; and (2) the case study methods; (3) (4) data collection methods. RPO Follow-Up Questions First, I shall present a brief list of some ideas for continuing research into the nature and functions of the RPO. 1. Investigate the nature of the planner's idealogy. How is it acquired and how does it influence the actions of the RPO? 2. Describe the process by which project proposals are modified in the A-95 process. Document some actual events. Discover a means for codifying the project modifications process and then c o m ­ paring it across RPOs. 518 3. Investigate further the factors that lead to a "sense of community." What factors can super­ cede self-interest and allow the RPO to act on a basis of legitimacy even when support is less than unanimous? 4. Explore further the links between RPO behavior and impact. A survey instrument might be designed that directly asked informants (such as local officials) for their evaluation of impacts. Another method (noted below) would be to ask for examples of impacts and follow those up as a case study. 5. Study in depth the RPO system of representation and participation. Of special interest is the role of committees. 6. Explore the issue of rivalry versus interdepen­ dence. As noted above, a case study of Regions 3, 8 and 14 might be a useful starting point. The Case Study Method Retrospection confirms the correctness of the choice of the comparative case study method for this study. was a voyage of exploration and discovery, This not an attempt to confirm or deny unambiguously defined hypotheses. The two basic methods available for gathering and sifting through raw data are the case study method and the methods of sta­ tistical data analyses. (Alternatives such as laboratory methods, modeling techniques and statistical inference all assume an already tightly defined problem and a well-struc­ tured experimental study.) Given the largely non-quantified and probably non-quantifiable data, choice about the basic approach. there really was no 519 Research Design Within the basic structure of the case study approach there are, however, design. a great many questions of research These design questions can be usefully grouped as those which concern the number and kind of organizations to study and those which concern the scope of the subject organization to be examined. The case study method includes everything from the analyses of a single case to comparison across large n u m ­ bers of cases. Something can be gained from studying a single case only by comparing it with some ideal type. {implicitly or explicitly) In this study the decision was to compare the 14 Michigan RPOs. Among the results found were the categories of service-oriented RPOs and comprehensive planning RPOs. Intensive studies of one or two southern Michigan RPOs would not have turned this up. Another approach would have been to choose a handful of Michigan RPOs for more intensive study. Had this been done, sampling would have been either random or based on preliminary inter­ views. I think the richness of the RPOs would probably have been missed. Now, however, it would be useful to inten­ sively compare three or four RPOs in a systematic sample based on what research questions are of interest. done in this study might suggest, for example, The work intensive comparison of the u split a p a r t 11 RPOs 8 and 14 versus the multi-nucleated Region Four. 520 Another approach to which organizations to study would have been to use an interstate comparison. An inter­ state study would allow the study of HPOs granted different sets of authority. For example, one might learn much from comparing Michigan RPOs with those from a state in which the law permits the RPOs to exercise expenditure power: to administer programs. Or one might study RPOs with differ­ ent rules regarding representation. Study of these situations was simply beyond the resources of the present study, but would be a fruitful line to pursue in future research. A second major research design question concerns the scope of study for each case. gate everything, example, Faas Does one try to investi­ or does one focus on a few elements. (1977) For focused on aspects of health systems agencies related to transaction costs and participation. This restricted scope allowed him to make some fairly def i­ nitive statements, to test ideas as well as explore them. This study collected interview data about the whole range of internal behavior of the RPO. Less systematically pursued were data about the outside links of the RPO: relationship of the RPO to its constituents representation) and impact (performance) the (aside from data. Wit h this large amount of data about internal organizational behavior but limited data about linkage to the environment, I was left with an overabundance of descriptive generalizations and an inadequate base for interpreting the causes and 521 impacts of that behavior. Description of organizational behavior modes is a necessary first step, however, and given the resource limitations of a small-scale study the focus on behavior was a conscious and not completely misguided decision. Moreover, data about causes and impacts for an organization engaged in such a nebulous activity as planning are difficult to obtain. The ultimate impacts of planning in water quality or urban sprawl are lost in the "white n o i s e ” of all the other impacts on these things. Still, were I beginning the study now, I would make a stronger effort to uncover data about these links. example, one rather obvious, though limited, For approach would be to ask the informants to cite examples of RPO impact. Then the impact could be traced back through the institu­ tional system, possibly to underlying structural or situational features. This approach has two weaknesses. One is that impact is defined by the informant, informant may not perceive some effects. and the (Though how much would be revealed would partly depend on the skill of the probing interviewer.) Secondly, the method overlooks the issue of why an organization might fail to have an impact that "should have" happened. however, Even with these drawbacks, systematic use of this method might have uncovered more relationships. 522 Data Collection Methods The chief drawback of the case study method, e s p e ­ cially one based on open-ended interviews, is the difficulty in weaving qualitative and patterned data into a form suit­ able for anlaysis. One aspect of science is the replication of research in order to confirm findings. Another is the classification of data into a format that can be manipulated and compared with other empirical and theoretical models. With quantified data it is relatively easy to do both tasks via models in equation form. 180 data it is much more difficult. with "idealized cases" perfect competition. With qualitative, patterned Scientists usually work such as frictionless surfaces or How does one transform a case study to such an idealized format? Lack of adequate early attention to this problem of classifying "variables" had two consequences for this RPO research. First, a very large amount of time was spent trying to sort through mountains of interviews and systema­ tize the data. Several major systems were tried, each calling for reformulating the data and each only partly successful. The lack of a satisfying data format led to the second impact: the evidence presented in this study is not as strong as the basic data could support. 180 The penalty usually paid for quantification is loss of information because the quantifiable aspects are abstracted from the whole. 523 Based on this experience I would make several recom­ mendations for future institutional research. 1. One way to avoid this problem of data management is to look for a very specific research question, where distinctions are clear-cut and evidence can be readily transformed to symbolic logic matics) of some sort. (mathe­ This solution, however, begs the question because it suggests the researcher should limit his research to what is readily "researchable." tions are quite While many important que s­ ‘‘researc ha b le , much can be overlooked by so limiting research. 2. The institutional researcher should devote a large proportion of his resources and energy to concep­ tual wor k— but conceptual work of a specific sort. In this study I spent a great deal of time explor­ ing theories of institutional behavior. Ultimately theoretical work will pay off not only in greater understanding, but in a direct benefit to the empirical researcher by providing him with the structure around which to design his research. But what I now advocate is a different sort of concep­ tualization. Major effort should be channeled into the definition of the research problem, that is to research design and data classification. kind of data will be collected? compiled? What How will it be How can the researcher code the data? 524 While quantification is not necessary, often be inappropriate, and may some kind of symbolic/ classification system should be developed prior to the collection cf the bulk of the data. In the RPO research I used an open-ended, probing interview which was structured by topic. I made several unsuccessful attempts to anticipate some lines of discussion and have codes for these. Were I to redo the study I would increase the effort to build an anticipatory classification. Furthermore, I would create a subset of more structured questions that could be easily coded. One method is to use predetermined categories. {Do you agree, strongly agree, etc.) One place where this technique might have been used was to ask how informants would characterize their A - 95 activity: priority; rigorous-pro forma; high priority-low technical-political; implementation. ended question, answer. grants game-plan Another method is to ask an openbut one that calls for a short For example, I might have systematically asked each criminal justice planner to name three factors which determine whether or not a project gets funded. Both of these techniques would have provided easily coded data around which the richer descriptive material could have been organized. The drawback is that construction of these 525 questionnaires can only be done after the researcher has gained a great deal of knowledge. 3. A third approach to systematize data is to search for correlative quantifiable data. In the case of RPOs budgetary data were collected. Data on committee meeting attendance and voting records would have proven useful for discussion of some issues. Here again the tradeoff must be made against the resources available to the researcher. Gathering such data is time consuming. What would be desirable in research of this sort is a team approach, whereby one person pursued in-depth interviews while another sought quantifiable data. In conclusion, this research could have been improved with more attention to codifying the data. Codification requires a pilot phase with an intervening conceptualization phase before the bulk of the data is gathered. In a sense, then, this study is best viewed as a pilot study to be followed by a collection of more q u a n t i ­ fiable data. Appendix F contains a questionnaire which could provide the basis for such a next step. LIST OF REFERENCES LIST OF REFERENCES Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR). Size Can Make a Difference: A Closer L o o k . Washington, D . C . : ACIR Bulletin No. 70-8 (mimeographed), 1971. _________ . Substate Regionalism and the Federal System, Vol. 2: Regional Governance; Promise and P e r f o r m a n c e . Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1973. _________ . Substate Regionalism and the Federal S y s t e m , V o l . 1: Regional Decision-Making: New Strategies for Substate D i s t r i c t s . Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, October 1973. _________ . 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Coser and B. Rosenbery (eds.), Sociological Theory: A Book of Rea d­ ings , 4th ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976. 536 Weidenbaum, Murray L. Discussion reported in J.K. Galbraith, H. Wallich, M.J. Ulmer, and M.L. Weidenbaum, "Discus­ sion: The Case for and Against National Economic Planning." C h a l l e n g e , March-April 1976, pp. 30-37. _________ . "Federal Aid to State and Local Governments: the Policy Alternatives." In W.E. Mitchell and I. Walter (eds.), Readings in State and Local F i n a n c e . New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1970, pp. 221-234. Wikstrom, Nelson. Councils of Government: A Study of Political I nc rementalism. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977. _________ . "A Reassessment: Metropolitan Government Co ns o l ­ idation." Growth and C h a n g e , (January 1978) '.2-1. Wilder, Charles K. with Robert S. Harrison. "The M et h o d o l o ­ gical Basis of Institutional Economics: Pattern Model, Storytelling, and Holism." Journal of Economic I s s u e s , 1 2 (March 1978):61-90. Williams, Alan. "The Optimal Provision of Public Choice in a System of Local Government." Journal of Political E c o n o m y , 7 4 (February 1966):18-33. Williamson, Oliver E. Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Im pl ic at i on s. London: The Free Press, 1975. Wilson, James Q. Books, 1973. Political O r g a n i z a t i o n . New York: Basic LIST OF INTERVIEWEES LIST OF INTERVIEWEES Brenda Anders Eugene Baldwin Bill Bechtel Bob Blau Mike Blum Dave Bonczyk doe Burks Pete Cambier Frank Cole Jon Coleman John Coil Mike DeLeeue Paul Doucette Chuck Eckenstahler Doris Faar Jack Fear Randy Frykberg Jim Fygo George Gardner Dave Gay Bill Gerhard Dave Gillis Chuck Grant Roger Grow Dave Hagen Dave Halloway Richard Hearin Al Hooper Don Juchartz Larry Karnes Robert Karowski Frank Krushka Joan Laubernds Paul LeBlanc Tom Looby Greg Main Edith Mattson George Mechen Herb Meyer Ron Milburn Jeff Mirate Jerry Mitchell Bob Morris Jim Muldoon Ann Nolan Bernie O'Connor Rod Parker Steve Perry Patty Potwin Doug Pouvougel Linda Rankin Ali Razaque Don Ries Ken Rizzio Tom Schroeder Dick Sherman Lee Somers Lewis Steinbrecker Jim Stengle Bob Sullivan Hank Switzer Gordon Szlachetka Larry Szynkowski Paul Tait Harry Travis Dave Tremont Pat Tyson Bill Wahl Dave Warner Rod Witt Marv Zievers John Zook 537 APPENDICES APPENDIX A INTERVIEW GUIDE Part I : Overall Organization and Goals of Regional Planning Organization (Interview director or general administrative personnel) A. Management and Finance 1. B. a. Ask about both short-term to-year uncertainty. (cash-flow) and year- b. Ask about how they affect grant strategy, personnel strategy, and planning operations. Staffing 1. C. What are your strategies for coping with uncertainty and fluctuations in finance? In what circumstances do you prefer to staff up for programs and when do you prefer to use consultants? a. What kind of experience have you had with c o n ­ sultants? For what reasons? b. What advantages or disadvantages do permanent staff provide? 2. What is the working relationship between staff and officials? 3. What are backgrounds for staff, 4. What is staff organizational structure? turnover? Operations 1. How does configuration of region's geographic boundaries affect the RPO's operations? 2. What are RPO's working relations with other agen­ cies/governments in region? 538 539 D. Participation and Representation 1. 2. E. What are major policy bodies of RPO (regional coun ­ cil, executive committee, or other)? What are relative roles played by various sub ­ committees (e.g., A-95, Transportation)? What is their degree of independence? Activities and Goals of RPO 1. Generally, how is RPO work agenda set (role of staff, committees, member governments, federal age n­ cies) ? 2. What is impact of heavy dependence on federal agency money? 3. How would you change your mix of activities if given complete budgetary freedom? 4. What is overall role of RPO now? 5. What changes would you like to see in federal or state policy toward RPO? a. 6. Should RPOs have ability to administer programs? Should RPOs confine themselves to physical planning or expand to social program areas? Part I I : A. What should it be? Questions Concerning Specific Program Areas Land Use and Housing 1. General questions about land use/housing planning in R P O . a. What are scope of current and past planning activities? Regional? Local assistance? Contract? b. What is decision structure? Public participation? c. What factors in the environment affect RPO activities? d. What is perceived impact of RPO planning? Related committees? 540 2. B. Transportation 1. General questions 2. Is the RPO a designated Metropolitan Planning O rg a n ­ ization (MPO) ? 3. 4. 5. C. Detail role RPO plays in local assistance in region. How does RPO relate to other planning bodies? How many and how strong are other planning bodies in region? (see A.I. above). a. Is planning done in RPO or "passed through?" b. What is role of transportation committee re l a ­ tive to regional commission? RPO staff and "study area" staff the same? Detail the annual element process. a. How are projects generated? b. How are projects evaluated? R e g io na l? c. Impact of TIP/AE process? d. Citizen participation? Formal priorities? Does RPO participate in state systems planning? In what way? What activities? What is nature of relationship between FHWA, UMTA, MDOT, and the RPO? Criminal Justice 1. General questions 2. What is nature of relationship between criminal justice and RPO? Criminal Justice Council and Regional Council? CJ staff and general staff? 3. (see A.I. above). a. Advantages and disadvantages to junction of CJ and RPO? Boundaries? b. How is Regional CJ Council appointed? Detail CJ allocation process. a. How projects generated? b. How projects evaluated? Regional? Formal priorities? c. Role of staff, versus committees, versus locals. d. Impact of allocation process? 4. How does staff participate in grant process? write grants? Staff 5. What is staff role in project administration? Staff perceive itself/perceived by locals as agent of LEAA/OCJP, advocate, umpire, broker? Economic Development 1. General questions 2. Is region an eligible district? Designated? Are counties in region eligible, designated areas? Does district receive EPA planning funds? 3. Detail project prioritization. 4. {see A.I. above). a. How projects generated? b. How evaluated? c. Impact of prioritization on EPA? Formal criteria? Regional? Staff role perceived as: a. Data clearinghouse, technical information. b. Grant facilitation. c. Community c at al y st /organization. d. Industrial prospecting/direct contact? ”208" Water Quality 1. General questions (see A.I. above). 2. What was RPO research strategy? Use of sampling, literature, local expertise, modeling, etc.? 3. Use of consultants? disadvantages ? 4. Citizen participation. perceived success? 5. Influence of geographic boundaries? 6. Use materials from SEMCOG or other RPO? Experience? Advantages and What strategy? What C U P P A D O R G A N IZ A T IO N A L S T R U C T U R E kt]*i (vflojtrt Otkf Uttl (n ^i ■Mp IctXi >i ^ i « M K KmyiTUM m MCTO (awr h*H C i i |bwll TM MJu«t t i l l * * *( K l l t t i C i t priMiif<■ i uta i mii Miwih ( mihib tMrtif f l l M l t l(Mlllta kh«l l U l f l f l iiMiir inta r < a i ' M on >tmionJiin na ua am# uv none ucm nmn w n 1 " ml (hiU I p h U f l l lf c l l l l f Mlta f . U t a if e t a t liHtpdilIM m AIHIIKIh r . ■ 1 nnl iMil Minn a m niUH l l[MlHI (*ur imh iMlMlUt ItHllfMl t a p . (dl(M(|l liHiPIhi 1— ( f / i t t r 1i u i p * M * lIm pI U l l l l i t l vmmm f l i f u n dip cmiuip (PMlHllPI Mil [ m u r i p « i i |rpmip Mj * r a i lt i a ^ i tMlllr * | l M t a |(MIMta 0*Ml t i H I I H i l l l lkkwl l i l l f U l (Ml ■ > f ff a t l H hipp « t t a *t a l l (WN V j 54 2 an ■fMuruin ru m i cm # m k una (Ml|f e M P d cur (wii |M M | l l f « 1i | l i l «l l l u i r ( I l f (hiI u m (Mir riMia ( mihip iM»iir rmii| f nn>— k M imiin flMp | « / r an ■Hnwtinn mbuc niwi tma team C p a t pcm# Minn ucni OMn » (tapln IM.mil] : i « p Ut a tMlWI llwipftlllp M M l l l l l l l (M*lllltaiM i l * ■ * ! * »ipiirm ■U| t a i lC r p g i i t u n stmmi im*ua o w TWLIC BCTOi [M il b*ri (HrbwH Tm M(uii V i l t a f *0< f l c * r EHfflwlt|tmlnIh Cm i i (m I i i M nmn una CbMtai t l Cmmh * l u f c l l l l i l t M f , Utai Ml«*a l r n i r « f i * i < r fu4 MJIMUl (M*|||||H| itili ktjvr K»|W iMiilf p | + a . | » |f f w l i i i i * IkMt t a l l( r * f l Uundlil* t t i a ll U l l l f l I h m IH *<1Im lit f iif FIGURE B.I., CUPPAD Organizational Structure (SOURCE: The Annual Report of the CUPPAD Regional Commission) Perspective 1975-76: SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS Finance & Budget Committee (elected officials) Legislative Committee General Assembly (elected officials! Executive Committee (elected ollicials (elected oHidaisI Executive Director Co-Criminal Justice Councils 4-County/7-County Bylaws & Legal Committee (elected officials) Regional Clearinghouse Review Committee - RC^ (elected officials] Council on Regional Development - CORD Council on Environmental Strategy -C E S 54 3 A ir Pollution SubCommittee Solid Waste SubCommittee Advisory Council & Subcommittee Membership: 1 / 3 -elected offidals 1 /3 • technicians 1/3 ■cniiens FIGURE C.l. Southeast Michigan Council of Governments Organizational Structure (SOURCE: Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, Prospectus 1978-79 Work Program, Volume O n e , p. 53) GENERAL ASSBT3LY 50 Delegates (at BARRY (4) le a s t BRANCH (4) 2 / 3 must be l o c a l o ffic ia ls ) CALHOUN (15) e le cte d KALAMAZOO (22 > *. ST. JOSEPH (5) Executive Committee 15 D e l e g a t e s \ WATER QUALITY COMMISSION 15 L ocal E l e c t e d O ffic ia ls (3 G e n e ra) Assembly D e l e g a t e s fro m e ach County A r e a ) Ad m in 1 s t r a t 1ve Commi t t e e s A dvisory Commi t t e e s *A-95 Review ^Grow th P o l i c i e s ^Housing •"'Resource R e c ov e ry ''T r a n s p o rta tio n Economic Deve loptnent ^Fin a n c e / P e rs on ne l T e c h n ic a l A dvisory Commlttee CRIME C O W I S S I O N 46 L ocal O f f i c i a l s / C itize n s P h y s i c a l Re sourc es T e c h n i c a l Committee (lo c a l P lanners) C1 1 1 l e n s A d vIs o ry Comm lttee E x e c u tiv e D ir e c t o r and S ta ff ^Kalamazoo Co unty Kalamazoo C i t y / Parchment 13 22 FIGURE D.l. Southcentral Michigan Planning Council Organizational Structure {SOURCE: Southcentral Michigan Planning Council, Overall Program D e s i g n , 1977, p. 14) 544 APPENDIX E GOALS OF REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS A. Technical planning for the region. B. Local planning assistance. C. Technical assistance and services to local governments. D. Regionwide issues E. Localized issues F. Regionwide policy plan development and adoption. G. Establishing and maintaining a regional information and data base. H. Coordination of local projects through local planning and A-95 review. I. Distributing information on region's problems/ o p p o r tu n it ie s. J. Providing grants-in-aid information and assistance. K. Coordination with other areawide agencies in the region to avoid overlap and duplication. L. As liaison for representing local interests to state or federal levels. M. Coordination to facilitate interlocal cooperation and/or agreements. (research/analysis). (research/analysis). SOURCE: "Assessment Survey of Multi-County Regional Planning Organizations." Michigan Department of Management and Budget, August 1978, page 8. NOTE: Respondents were asked if goals were very important, important, a goal, or not a goal; currently and desired. 545 APPENDIX F QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FOLLOWUP STUDY OF REGIONAL PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS -rWhich Regional flam ing (bevtlOfmenl) CcwbH i I cm A ctivities a rt you acquainted with? Check as many as you need. RAAI 1: BMUROUKI Relations with local governmental units___ T)i> following queitlom ara about th« governentil t u lt you'r* nott closely asukcUled with: a. Regional Nanning (Bevel opamt) C m liu lo n m at or n u ^ tr: b. County nine: _____ c. which best describe* yog; elected o ffic ia l^ appointed o ff ic ia l, public tenant butlneis md __ » rt* r_ f» r e tr _ other (optional) your lltle__ d. I f you're an o ffic ia l or a public ic n m t, fcr what level o f govei-vent: village Chartered Two, Tab. County City_____ O ru rIt* your ana* Detcrlbe your tre t. *- rural b. c. urban______ tuburban K li of • I __ * a I c___ • a ll three a. b. c. d. coaBcrcU1_ Industrial agricultural _ forestry, wining, tourlui_____ H li of Kev« you terved on the Regional Naming (Developaent) CoavaUffpn or 1U coM ltteeit _ A-9S and grant activitie s Local Assistance Land use (ZQfl) Meter Quality Solid Waste Economic Development TriniparUttoit Criminal Justice Housing Other Hone SCCTIQH U : A t im illS Cf ir checked. n n i f checked. f t u I f chatted, rm if checked. fin i f checked. n n RIGI OKA! PLANKING (DtyilDW Hl) CCHUS5IDH Him fa a llla r ara yog with the Regional Planning (Development I CoMhlttton? very fam iliar fa a llla r not very faw llU r not fa a llla r Would you cndurte an Increued role for the regional olanntng coaeKltifon In the growth, drvelofoent, and planning of the Region? strongly endorse endorse neutral disapprove ttrongly dliaoorere identify from beltw, the words which best describe the function ind Operation of the Regional Planning Cncnfsilon. fo r each pair of words check the space uFtlch~yoj feel best describes the regional planning cowlssfvR. Use only one check for each pair o f words, Eiamt I t you feel that the Region Is u is t closely related lo one end of the scale or the other* yog should place your check as follows: cold high (J)_ <3|_ out Section I I I Out Section iv. out Section IV. out Section IV, out Section IV. out Section IV, out Section IV. out Section It. out Section IV. Out Section IV. out Section IV, __ y e t_____ Which c c n ttd o o , council* or ccw lttee(t}? ir thKted. n it i f Checked, m i ir checked, m i ir checked. f i n i f checked. ru i ir checked. rm J •A* i r you fe e l th a t I ta te flo n I t g g lta c lo s e ly re la te d to d m end p f t h t seal* o r the o th « r, you thou Id place jrout check I t f o l l M i : very C urrent goals , M¥ .t I goal dry Oft _ IJ you consider the te flo n n e u tra l cn the scale (bath sides o f the t e a l* d escrib ing I t e q u a lly ) then you should place your check In the m iddle space: f u l l __________ If ftlfltjf RICICWL PLANNING (PCVtlQPHLKl) CCH1ISSI0M proresilml unprofessional I h K k IU c i d U ft |M t ib lc b e n e ftC lll ____ ____ __ _ ___ _ ____ ___ ___ ____ ____ i orgaM/rd ______ __ ____ ____ _______ _______ ___ ____ C oordination o f lo c a l p ro je c ts through planning and A-9S review . h, Coordination o f lo c a l a i m i n g e f fo r t s . ____ ____ 5. I. Forming a regio ns! data i f t i Inform ation base. J. O ther _ U tte rs lap. I c f h i H i l p U n n lft) fo r re g io n . b. Planning i n j technical c. d. 6. 7. What should be the three auat lo p o r ia fitl unorganized d. What slw u lJ be the le a s t Irp o rla n t? reputable 9. Ihe fo llo w in g is a l i s t o f seme o f the RP(0)C*programs. Which program areas da you th in k are t e s t Important? Rank In order s ta r tin g w ith f i t t e r 1. In which area da you th in k tn * RP(D)C H doing the best Job! not b e n e fic ia l not a very fop. goal Irp . goal What's the le a s t ItporLanL? l e t t e r __ goal Important. rani__ a. A-9S Review fa. Transpo rtation c. Crim inal J u s tic e d. Water Q u a lity (£03)/ Waste Water e. S o lid Waite Grants Assistance f o r lo ca l u n its * f. L u 4 U se/C oaitat /one g. Housing Reg]on*l p o lic y * n l plan Adopting. h. E c u n e lc P n c tp p H n t t. f it t e r Represent lo c a l u n its to s ta te and feds. I. fc jfiito r ln y s ta te and federal grants. le tt e r s _______ . .a m t e tt e r wait not a goal not a goal In order. Irre le v a n t lU lf tin t c . e. goal e ffe c tiv e 9041 9Q«1 93*1 fo il I. fnp. goal , ___, and U h it a r t Che goats end o b je c tiv e s o f the RF(C}Dl What should they beT R iot the fo llo w in g l i s t o l o b je c tiv e s : C urrent goals Should be very Iff. not a goat ____________ Hank the three most I v .ig r t in t cu rre n t goals c o o p e r ilU i goal 54 7 uncooperative re le v a n t J. M flld In p . goal _ M et Should be very la p . goal _ ,._ _t very good Job 9ood Job f a ir . __ —. ■ _„ __ __ __ —— poor very poor ____ _ — — __ .. __ __ __ __ — . __ __ ——. — ._ S fC T Itt H I ; 6. REUIIW S ICTVEIN PPID>C AND LOCAL GOYEWCMS ( f o r lo c a l g o v e m e n ta l o f f i c ia l s and i u n ) D o n i w r im I t o f g c v e rw A L h t v t i r e p r n e n t i t h i an yes the Regional F liiLM ng tD rv e lo p n e n O C m lts lo n ? . . . m a g re e n e u tra l ____ d is a g re e ___ •th e c o o m M C illo A lin k s between you and reg io n a l planning e m is s io n o f f i c ia l s and /or s t a f f are open enough so th a t you a re able to adequately express your fe e lin g s on Issues, i r you so d e s ire .* d o n 't knew ____ s tro n g ly a g re e In the course o f your * > r t durin g the W i t y e a r, la v e c o n f lic ts a ris e n b tir fr e * you in d the regio nal planning c o m its Ion th a t M v t not been e ffe c tiv e ly resolved? s tro n g ly e g re t Would you agree o r disagree w ith th e statem ent; 7. agree . n e u tra l _ d is a g re e _____s tro n g ly disagree Do you have any contents on the e ffe c tiv e n e s s o f the civm jn lca tlo n s lin t s between you and the regio nal planning e m is s io n ? s tro n g ly d U a p m C ir c le the le t t e r corresponding to the frequency o f c o m m tc itlo o between jruu and regio nal planning c u w h s lo s o f f i c ia l s I n d /o r t U f r fn the course o f y o w work during the la s t year: by na 11 te n th ly contact by meetings e y e a rly a b e d e a b e d t b d c e d t t u I n it ia t e d the ttm nuni c ation s a a n freq uently? y o u rs e lf regio nal planning commission o f f i c ia l s and/or s t a ff w SECTION IV. FinCUCW l fPROfjPW) AREAS Of m iO h A t PiA^lIKS (O lV flO W Ifll) CUHril&SIOhS less than y e a rly b a by f a t c - t o 'f i c c q u a rte rly a atcut the sane e The questions fn th is s e c tio n apply to the d iff e r e n t a c t iv it ie s the AP(D)C I t engaged In . By each question w i l l be a d e s c rip tio n o f the prograss t h j l the question a pp lie s to . Answer the qcestlcns about programs w ith which you have some f a m ilia r ity * A. The W llc w tn g (n in e ) questions apply to regio nal planning a c t iv it ie s ca rrfe d o u t by the Beglaoat Planning (Qeveloprent) C crslsslo n In th e areas lis te d . C ir c le the area you are answering about. Answer fa r up to three programs you are fa m ilia r w ith . Planning f o r : Mease rank by freq vtacy o f c t n u n l u t i M th e m atters th a t you discussed w ith the regio nal planning e m is s io n (hiring the course o f your work, fn W 1 . (Ifse the ntuber | to In d ic a te the s o s t discussed r a t t e r * use the m atter 2 to in d ic a te the second nest discussed m a tte r and so on.J fe d e ra l and S tate grant programs __ local planning assistance ___ re g io n a l planning e m is s io n . s p e c ific fu n c tio n a l planning r d a p rrh e n s iv e physical planning . o ther m atters* please s p e c ify _ 548 weekly by telvsdsine p o lic ie s andreC M rendittans a c t iv it ie s * please s p e c ify . la n d Us* Water Q u a lity (ZUB) S o lid Waste Transpo rtation Housing C r l i l n i l J u stice Economic Development C crerrhenslve planning Other A t. Tie fo llo w in g Is a H i t o f goals f o r the Regional Planning {Development! Commission. Which ones do you th in k are f iip o r u n t goals o f the RPiDlC fit th is fu n c tio n a l area? very Imp. goal not a Imp. goal goal goal •. fd e n tlffc a tlo n o f re g io n a l needs. b. Encouraging lo ca l a c t iv i t i e s In the area. ___ C. C oordination o f p ro je c ts In the region to avoid d u p lic a tio n and c o n f lic t* ___ d. C o lle c tin g I n fo n u tlo n u d m iking I t a v a ila b le to lo c a l u n its and c itiz e n s . c. P n iv ld 'n g technical assistance. . no c fm in lc a tlo n s _ ____ ___ ____ i .. ____ __ _ ____ ____ ____ __ -$* w ry !■*>. 09)1 f. (. k. I. ____ *nt I g oal AS. Rank (A t m t t la p o r te it 3 fn o rd e r, W . 09 you th in k s t i f f g u l i i n ____ ____ ___ I f J r n l g r l n t j ______________ ____ ____ fllk tU th ln g r tg lo u l tu lo M U tl __ ___ ____ ____ __ _ A f* Which o f the f o li o - l it a I n p u t s do you th in k i r * ( o r w i l l bo. the n w H o f regio n a l planning fn ( M l i r t i T __ __ litte r * __ , . ____ . L l t t i r ____ *1. Ih t r»v1*». funding, or planning dK tilon* of tlw KrfOJC Ik till* progrt. i n i m aott to ra lltc t Ifhoif K *°r < tlu T not t y g lk t U i lo c a l u n it b. Region a t tdw la c. S tate agendas d. fe d e ra l agencies a. S t i f f p rofession al goals r. A ra l (QBaerco ih. Area I M g l lr y aary nuch lcow(tu t not auch I* Paperwork o f no v i) u * b. Q j a l l f l l l f o c i) u n its to get g ra n t* c. fie n e rilts I n f o m t f o o which mI I I u M I k i I p ro je c ts b e tte r 4, b i n i f f « t which p ro je c ts lo c a l u n its «hoose and hat they h I I I be designed 0. H i l l be used by funding agencies tc de rid e which p ro je c ts to fuf«J. f. Other_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ not i t *11 a. The t f( 0 ]C U i a l l o t t e d to get c l t l i c n f i r t l c l p i t l o n . b. C U U en p ir t tc lp a t to n h is been e ffe c tiv e . c» Planning I t | w u w H c a te d f o r e f fe c t t v * d t U e f i p a r tic ip a tio n . ■* te n te rs d. a. fl< ta rly *s C l t f ie * F i r t l c l f i t t o n u s u a lly e ce*t a f t e r p la n t are s e t. a. C ir lm m e iu l t. C lttz e n In te re s t* are ■ d e r^ ife ly represented by the e le d & J o f f l c is l s . prosecution agendas r . c o u rts agendas s. C o rrection agendas Agree H c u tr il ____ ____ ____ B ts a g m S trongly f llt g m ___ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ . S trongly Agree 1. fo r e s tr y ! li n in g . Com T sji i - C o n ife r b. Construction i . Land holders P- p ro te c tio n agendas s tro n g ly I jr H ___________ ____ ___________ AS. Do you agree o r d lta g rta w ith the fo llo w in g l U t o m t s : Area a g ric u ltu re 1C r la ln il J u s tic e o i l y : lP (D )C 'i p o lic ie s ? different* but is n 't conflict ____ l i f t the U ir » soft laporUnt g u ll Ik o iD ir, a. t h i ih h is t k . a n d __ , ,conflict C t r t lf / lr v j region to q u l l l y local u a ttl fo r A l. VHit I t th t l i n t Ik p o rtfftt g u l f le tt e r s 549 U. P m M litf f r ln t l Ilfllu tlH IllltU K I H jnltsrlp j p ro jK t p trfo ru fE i g o t! JO* I Agree fte u tra f Disagree S trongly Disagree 10- -9C. A9. CoaaenU on d t l i e n participation: I. l i your region in WO f o r tra n s p o rta tio n planning? CZ. A r t you f a a ll la r w ith the TIP/Armgal flo a c n t process? _ C3. I f yes, on what c o s n liU t o r In w h it capacity? M. I f you are f a u llt a r w ith the I I ? Annual tlo n e o t process, which a f the fo llo w in g i l a t » ( n t i about it s ie p a it do you agree o r disagree with? Disagree S trongly Agree S trongly Disagree e ffic ie n c y and q u a lity o f p ro je c t a. The sane p ro je c ts would be funded w ith o u t the IIP / Annual f l a u n t process. b. P rojects hare l>ren or could be dropprd o r added because o f the T iP /A t process, c. Because o f the I lP M t process the t ln t r g o r Lootent o f a p ro je c t has t>eer o r could be tb in g rd to e u c r J In jtr w i!h o th e r p r o je c t* In the r v jlo n . d. Because Of the (U'/AC process the t U ln g o r LC'iUiU o f a p n 'J tt-l ha* been o r cuuld te changed In la-jor o f re 'jtu r.>1 p r io r it ie s . *. t n t o r u t ii m generated du rin g the JIP /A I process is u s e fu l fu r planning future ( ir a jf d s . f. 0 U *r t. Meed f o r the p ro je c t c. Agreenmt w ith regional p o lic y 4. w ith in adopted reg io n a l plan e. A j r t w n i K ith a p p lic a n t1* ta n p la n !. f. AP(0)C s t a f f rK tin a c n d itlo n * g. P o lit ic a l laportance of a p p lic a n t u n it h. P rofessional In te g r ity a r f s ta tu re o f a p p lic a n t's I. Other representative _ Agree _______ Neutral Disagree ________ 0. The lu lt tw in g iju t s llu a l r e fe r to A -S i review arvJ cocrvnt o n ly. D l. flare you personal kAOHlodje o f any p ro je cts which have undergone (A*9S) review? yes _ ru approximate f S trongly Disagree 550 a, N eutral no___ yes, knta a bru t ( v b lt are a llo c a te d to p ro J tc U in Vhe regio n p i r t t y on the b l& ls o f the Aeglonal C o u n c il's d rc U iD m i b w t p r io r it ie s , Which o f the f o l d i n g U f i o r i Oo jroti ig r t e ir e Important In e s ta b lis h in g those re g io n *) p r io r it ie s ? Agree jt s no {11 r e n in * , ( 2) T r iM p f tr titto A I I ? Annul 1 E tesB M , (3 ) C r l it ln i l J u s tic e plan. S trongly Agree d o n 't I n M m . p a rtic ip a te d In fo llo w in g q u r it lo n a p p lie s to regio nal r e t le v o r planning r « ^ l n d Co Q u i l t f j fo r federal t r J n t i r C irc le the i r e i you ere answering about. M i i v fo r up to two p r o g r m . te q u tre J i t v l n o r p tin n ln g p ro g rw : II. The fo llo w in g guestions r e fe r to tra n s p o rta tio n o n ly . C l. - li­ ft?, Ou /Du i j w o r disagree w ith the fo llo w in g (A*9S) T l t l M I f t d C O W A t> S trongly Agree a. b. i Agree S trongly Agree 4bout the r e g lo u t U I b v iiU N eutral Disagree S trongly Disagree C ivet the tP[I>)C the a u th o rity to veto g ri» U > Cp A te l U r lo c a l u n its In lii^ n t tliv } t h e ir p r o jK U . t. Causes lir fa l on H i to consider regional In te re s ts . E. The fo llo w in g questions re fe r to C rim inal J m t U r o n ly . The regla nal CJ planning process has helped s h ir t spending 'ru n hu-mn services i- r ^ r a - is |u " b r lc ls ar.d v u r ta r ,* tl* Have you p a rtic ip a te d In regio nal c rim in a l J u s tic e pltn n ln g T Other ____>** I f j r n . o«i wtial c e o i l t t t f o r In w tot capacity t? , S trongly Disagree t a r o new p ro je c ts are I n it ia t e d than would Nava been w ith o u t l i e rz g lo tie l CJ planning process. I k regio nal CJ planning process has helped s h i f t spending j.ru jra a i; fr o * "b ric k s a r j a o r t ir 4 to hiinin services programs. t. Ottmr__________ oa Disagree fto you agree o r disagree w ith the fo llo w in g statements about the larpacts o f regio n a l Input in to p ro je c t* funded under U M T S trongly Agree a. The same p ro je c ts m u ll be funded i f the regional CJ planning process d id nu t e ilit. b. Regional p r io r it ie s are ia ^ o rta n t In determ ining which p ro je c ts get fundeJ. c. Ihc regio nal CJ planning process has Improved the content o f p ro je c ts funded. 4* The regio nal CJ planning p r c c m has helped Id e n tify p ro je c ts th a t n ig h t m l have been tJ c n tlfle d , Agree N eutral disagree S trongly disagree 551 Aids In g e ttin g I p ro je c t furalrd. N eutral IIA A funds are used only to s u b s titu te fo r local la v d o lla r s , so the region can IfJvt no tjip a c t, Adds to paperwork. but has iu»l>MCt, 4, Agree