Shenandoah Valley/Mid-Atlantic Pilot Project - Update The Sub-State District/Regional Council as a Geospatial Unit of Analytical Geography for the United States Tom Christoffel, AICP Regional Intelligence – Regional Communities Collaborative Expedition Workshop #51 “I see regions.” June 20, 2006

Shenandoah Valley/Mid-Atlantic Pilot Proposed – February 21, 2006 - 48th Expedition March – 2006 – Brand Niemann has a Wiki up http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ShenandoahValleyVAWVMidAtlantic Goal – align data to “regional council” regions in support of data integration from EPA regions to localities though these regions. Related work – NICS Quick review of the geography

American Regions Globally the U.S. state is a semi-autonomous region. The “county” or a variant was the common state district or the first region since colonial times. Most states have a system of multi-county “regional councils” like the Virginia Planning District Commissions. The PDC is a political subdivision. There are also multi-state regions like Wash COG which utilize state compacts to coordinate across state lines as a region of regions. The County is a stable geographic unit to which Census data is coded. They can build to Regional Council boundaries.

Census Data – Geographic Scales – States to big for regional analysis                                                                                               Population range – California 34 million to Wyoming .5 million. Land area range – 664,000 square miles – Alaska to 1,545 square miles RI

3,034 - Counties - the original substate district & basic Census FIPS coded unit - too small for regional analysis Note: 35,937 sub-county governments - 19,431 municipal & 16,506 township Counties – 3,034 and within them 35,937 subcounty governments – 19,431 municipal governments and 16,506 township governments. There are also 13,522 school district governments and 35,356 special district governments. Total 87,9000 government units – including 50 state and 1 Federal unit.

Most analysis focuses on the Metropolitan Areas - MSAs

A look at Nonmetro Counties shows how much territory is left out.

Opportunity to Use the Substate District/ Regional Council Network - NARC Regional councils exist in virtually every state, providing a way to simplify geographic organization.

1968 -Virginia Planning District Regions                                                                                              

Data sets State/County/City/MSA – lots of programmatic regions – alignment to regions difficult now. Watershed data Traffic statistics Education data Employment data Social Services Health statistics Jurisdictions want to know what is going on with their neighbors and peers? How do they compare.

Map is geographic, but …

FIPS codes are alphabetic: 01 – Alabama 02 – Alaska 04 – Arizona 05 – Arkansas Same issue for Counties – Alpha FIPS

Lets take a look at Mid-Atlantic for regions.

The regions I see: Wash COG & MSAs

Problems and solution The alphabetic FIPS data sets work against compilation to this region. Commercial GIS too robust. Region-building information approach needed. An information systems approach that used a geographic region code rather than alphabetic FIPS code would aggregate data – Federal, State, local – both public and private where available. The Shenandoah Valley – and the Mid-Atlantic U.S. are regions to pilot this concept in LandVIEW 6, which contains Census and EPA data.

Importance? Leaders of organizations, public and private, are continually challenged to frame their markets and locate appropriate data to support their planning and management activities. Federal and State agencies are the most common source of public data. Data work is costly. Regional alignments are invisible. Regional Councils are units where regional intelligence is gathered, maintained for regional community. Alignment of data to regions supports their DNA

VirginiaView & West VirginiaView Remote Sensing – Regions Could Help Interpretation

Regional Intelligence – Regional Communities - Regional Commission Tom Christoffel, AICP, Editor Regional Community Development News P.O. Box 1444 Front Royal Virginia (VA) 22630-0031 E-mail: regional@shentel.net Phone: 540-635-8582 Website: www.regions.ws - or - Tom Christoffel, AICP, Senior Planner Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission 103 E. Sixth Street - Front Royal, VA 22630 E-mail: tchrist@shentel.net Web: www.lfpdc7.state.va.us Phone: 540-636-8800 x 209 The “Regions Work” Initiative © 1998