Initiative for a Metropolitan Community

Discussions about the shape of our communities and neighborhoods and, by inference, the form of our metropolitan region, are high on the public agenda. Our destiny as a region has historically been shaped by a series of individual, often disconnected, public and private decisions. Taken together, these decisions form the basis of an agglomerated regional landscape and an economy which inevitably functions inefficiently, and often ineffectively.  Alternatively, we can act with common purpose on key decisions, according to mutually accepted strategies, so that the region formed by those individual, communityscale decisions is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

The purpose of the Initiative for a Metropolitan Community is to carefully identify those areas where local governments can act with common purpose, to develop factbased analysis which will lead to sound regional strategies, and to recommend specific actions to be taken at the local and regional level which might implement those strategies.

Goal: Achieving Regional Development Objectives

Objective 1: Stabilizing Distressed Communities

Reform Tax Increment Financing Statutes (from the Wealth, Taxation & Finance Committee)
Develop and sponsor statutory changes to more equitably and efficiently target Tax Increment Financing where it is needed as an important and useful incentive for private investment.

Eliminate the Disincentive Caused by the Earnings Tax in the City of St. Louis (from the Wealth, Taxation & Finance Committee)
Develop proposals to offset the earnings tax in the City of St. Louis through a combination of state tax credits and rationalizing the responsibility for certain public services between the city and state.
 

Objective 2: Growing Healthy Communities

Blueprint for the Bi-State Region (from the Regional Planning and Community Design and Resource Management Committees)
Provide an overall framework for major development decisions in the St. Louis region.

Community Improvement Challenge Grants
 

Goal: Shaping 21st Century Local Governments

 Objective 1: Realigning Government Relationships

Develop and Implement a Cooperative Regional Workforce Development Plan (from the Strategic Intergovernmental Relationships Committee)
Develop a cooperative Regional Workforce Development Plan which will provide a common regional framework and goals for the implementation of activities through the local Workforce Investment Boards.
 

Goal: Enhancing Regional Decision-Making Institutions and Processes

Regional Leadership Policy Forum (from the Regional Planning and Community Design Committee)
Increase the understanding of the implications of regional infrastructure and development decisions by involving a broad range of interests in learning and dialogue about regional policy, while setting the framework for a regional development plan

Transportation Policy Council (from Transportation Redefined II)
Involve a broader range of interests in providing policy advice on major transportation decisions.

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East-West Gateway Council of Governments
One Memorial Dr., Ste 1600
St. Louis, MO  63102
phone: (314) 421-4220 or (618) 274-2750
   fax: (314) 231-6120
e-mail: webmaster@ewgateway.org

last update: Monday, June 28, 2004