Democratic Deliberation, Regional Governance, and The Portland Example: A Model for the Future of tthe Hudson River Valley

Cannavo's chapter entitled "The Working Landscape" provides a perfect solution to the policy and governance dilemmas that haunt the Hudson River Vally today. The spread of sprawl and the role that democracy among localities play a very large role in the continued development and the on-going struggle between citizen and state throughout the Hudson River Valley. As I am sitting, writing my term paper about the role that urban sprawl has played in the development of suburbia, I am somewhat inspired that someone has identified a possible solution to the never-ending debate between the nature-destroying, economically-driven conservative and the tree-hugging, hippie environmentalists that are doing everything in their power to put an end to urban development along the Hudson. It is nice to finally hear someone offer a solution. Cannavo fist addresses his space-and-place argument, specially the fact that there can be no continuous harmony about a specific place. New debates about what to do with a certain area and when to enact certain policy changes occur daily. The key that Cannavo suggests is a "commonality surrounding a place" (226). In other words, for debate, conversation, whatever you want to call it to take place - the people engaging in these debates must share the same land so that they can put the best interests of that place at the forefront of policy debates. Cannavo even suggests that "... a shared conversation can ease some of the deepest, most divisive conflicts about a place." (226-227). This is important to our class because it shows that the people engaging in the debates about whether or not urban sprawl should be the future of the Hudson, the people that live or own land in that region should be the ones engaging in the debate...the decisions and conversations should not primarily go through an outside agency or the federal government.

Cannavo suggests that in order to follow this approach, a system of regional governance combined with the local governments in that designated region. Cannavo comments on the ineffectiveness of thousands of small, local governments and these localities could voice more as a collective unit. The Hudson River Valley, for example, would be more successful in attaining mutually accepted policy if the villages, towns, and cities along the River were grouped together to form a larger democratic voice. Cannavo address the development of land in his explanation of regional systems saying, "To address the danger of simply partitioning the landscape into a commodified real estate and sealed-off preserves, citizens and policy makers should adopt a landscape, or regional, perspective, embracing an interrelated, coordinated mosaic of different kinds of places...and balancing founding and preservation across the region." (232). This is the solution! Instead of sectioning off little pieces of the Hudson River Valley for housing developments or re-industrialization, why not create larger areas that encompass these specific desires. Only then can there be a democratic system in which the people of that region decide if and how their land should be divided.

Finally Cannavo address what he calls the model city of a regional approach: Portland. Portland's directly elected, metropolitan government, or "Metro" serves as the foundation of Cannavo's argument. Here is an explicit example of how this regional system would work, and the astounding success it has had. The Hudson River Valley should adopt these guidelines. Although Measurement 37 was a hiccup in the design of Portland's regional government, this hiccup also provides valuable information about the strengths and weaknesses of such a system. The Hudson River Valley can, and should, learn from Portland and adopt a similar plan that includes the strengths of the Portland Metro and solves some of its biggest weakn