Sunday, June 28th, 2020
When Governor Cuomo announced the phased reopening plan for New York State in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of New Yorkers flocked to the Regional UnPause Dashboard to check the status of the metrics in their region. Before a region could begin reopening, every county in that region was required to hit the designated benchmarks. This plan caused some frustration as businesses eager to reopen in counties that hit all the benchmarks were forced to wait for other counties in their region to catch up. While using the economic regions was an imperfect solution (they weren’t designed with a pandemic recovery in mind) I believe it was the right decision.
The regional approach recognized the interconnectivity of our counties through infrastructure, healthcare resources, commutation patterns, and geographical proximity. A piecemeal county by county opening surely would have led to setbacks as residents from “closed” counties would flock to the “open” counties. To me, this reopening process demonstrated a broader point, the Hudson Valley rarely behave as a region, even when it’s in everyone’s best interest to do so.
In the Hudson Valley (Columbia, Greene, Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Putnam, and Westchester county) there are 138 towns, 90 villages, and 13 cities, all with their own local government. And 122 public school districts to the mix, and you get over 350 unique combinations of City, Town, Village, and school district jurisdiction. It’s easy to see how these conditions can lead to hyper-local disparate policy and land use decisions. Even if there is a desire to think and act more regionally, often times there is a lack of time and resources to do so, especially in relatively small municipalities. This is where Pattern Progress can make a difference.
As a regional organization by nature, Pattern’s staff is constantly thinking, researching, and writing about Hudson Valley issues at a regional scale. With a strong cultural and economic connection to New York City and significant commutation flows between counties within the Hudson Valley, region’s transportation network is crucially important. Unfortunately, much of our transportation infrastructure like roads, bridges, and rail, are falling into disrepair. For better or for worse, tourism is a significant part of the Hudson Valley economy. There isn’t one specific place or attribute that attracts visitors here, rather, it’s the entire region and everything this it has to offer.
Pattern regularly convenes mayors, county executives, planners, and other decision makers from around the region with the goal of sharing ideas and resources to improve the quality of life in the Hudson Valley. Regional collaboration like this provides opportunities for communities to leverage our collective assets and work with each other instead of against. As the Hudson Valley continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, creative regional solutions will be more important than ever.
