Forgot to mention ... I write for URBAN DIALECT among others. T

In NEOhio, the cities must increasingly compete for scarcer, more mobile residents, and so must maintain a high degree of localized focus and representation. Mayor Campbell has focused on increasing quality housing in Cleveland and council members focus on their neighborhoods, and their strategy seems to be improving Cleveland's residential distribution, momentum and self esteeme. By people moving back to the city, Cleveland is well positioned to lead a regional renaissance, as new shopping and services pop-up to serve new residents, creating new jobs.

Benefits I've heard of regionalization are aggregation to leverage a larger centralized population mass for economies of scale - which has potential if very well managed. I've heard reference to administrative savings from eliminating redundent jobs, like fire chiefs and town paper-pushers, which should be possible. Data centers may be consolidated and programmers and administrators eliminated. One regional website could effectively replace, and improve upon, all the city and county websites in place today. I assume the same thinking applies to union negotiations, bond ratings, state fund distributions and federal benefits.

Ultimiately, what we're looking for in cost savings will be found in headcount reductions and reduced local and distributed purchasing and spending - bigger government will rain fewer, bigger graces upon fewer, bigger beneficiaries, and more mom and pops will be WalMarted. Fewer kids will grow up to be fire chiefs and fewer residents will know their representatives, much less meet them at church or the grocery down the street. How any savings are handled is not clear and even if realized on paper may be lost in new spending, so never impact residents directly.

Interesting issue, to be continued...

A broader take.

I'm proposing to co-locate five companies in Northern California and Northeast Ohio, creating a sister region NEO/NorCal initiative that takes regionalization to a new, multi-coast extreme. My feeling is that there are resources on the west coast not readily found in Cleveland, not easily trasplanted - like much of the established creative class - while Cleveland offers some operational advantages, in available cost effective labor and facilities. Combined, we have a very resourceful, competitive, world-class mega-economy. In collaboration, we may share knowledge and opportunities.

Obviously this sisterhood is more conceptual than administrative, but it offers a nice extension of private networks and relationships worth exploring... I believe we'd find opportunities more synergistic than competitive.

There is actually a "counter-move" that suggests that Cleveland is too big to be useful -- and that the city should be broken up into much smaller cities.

Because the city is too big, and too unwieldly, taxes are much higher than in other regions. For example, taxes in Seattle and NYC are lower than Cleveland's taxes.

I think there is going to be an article in FEE's next issue proposing this approach; theoretically lowering taxes and making it more attractive for companies to locate in Cleveland...