Committee on the Third Regional Plan
- Robert R. Kiley, New York City Partnership (Chair)
- Diana Balmori, Balmori Associates
- Gerald Benjamin, Rockefeller Institute
- Henry A. Coleman, Center for Government Studies, Rutgers University
- Gordon Davis, Lord, Day & Lord, Barrett Smith
- Jameson Doig, Woodrown Wilson School, Princeton University
- Donald H. Elliott, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon
- Robert Geddes, Robert Geddes Architects
- Charles Hamilton, Battle Fowler
- Tony Hiss, New York University
- Richard A. Kahan, The Urban Assembly
- Richard Kaplan, J. M. Kaplan Fund
- Edward M. Kresky, New York State Council on the Arts
- Donald Kummerfeld, Magazine Publishers of America
- Nathan Lenventhal, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
- Michael LoGrande, Suffolk County Water Authority
- Alton G. Marshall, Alton G. Marshall Associates
- Richard P. Nathan, Rockefeller Institute of Government
- Dick Netzer, Wagner School of Public Administration, New York University
- Rodney W. Nichols, New York Academy of Sciences
- Preston D. Pinkett, Chemical Bank New Jersey
- Alan J. Plattus, Architectural School, Yale University
- Ingrid W Reed, Rockefeller University
- Roger Starr, City Journal
- Marilyn J. Taylor, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
- Ernest Tollerson, The New York Times
- Richard Wade, CUNY Graduate School
- Kathryn Wylde, NYC Housing Partnership
RPA Research Staff
- Albert Appleton, Senior Fellow/Environment
- Regina Armstrong, Senior Fellow/Economics
- Winifred Armstrong, Consulting Economist
- Nicole Crane, Executive Assistant
- John Dean, Senior Planner
- John Feingold, Director, New York
- Raymond Gastil, Director, Regional Design Program
- Christopher Jones, Director, Economic Programs
- Elizabeth McLaughlin, Director, Connecticut
- Linda Morgan, Director, New Jersey
- John James Oddy, Director, Arts Program
- Robert Pirani, Director, Environmental Projects
- Jeffrey Raven, Director, Downtown Brooklyn Project
- William Shore, Senior Fellow/Urban Affairs
- Graham Trelstad, Director, Connecticut Land Use Coalition
- Thomas Wright, Manager of Research Information
- Robert Yaro, Executive Director
RPA Administrative Staff
- H. Claude Shostal, President
- Reginald French, Vice President for Finance
- Aram Khachadurian, Director of Development
- Lillie Balinova, Director of Communications
- Lilly Chin, Executive Assistant to the President
- Tanya DeVonish, Administrative Assistant
- Dorina Herscowicz, Office Manager
- Linda R. Hoza, Administrative Assistant
- SanDonna Bryant, Administrative Assistant
Major Consultants
- Harry Dodson, Dodson Associates, Ashfield, MA
- Jonathan Barnett, Washington, DC
- DRl/McGraw-Hill, San Francisco, CA
- Kendall Christianssen, Brooklyn, NY
- Benjamin Miller, New York City
- John Schall and Michael Simpson, Tellus Institute, Boston, MA
- Phil Herr, Herr Associates, Newton, MA
- Joel Russell, Salt Point, NY
- Steward Pickett, Institute for Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY
- Norman Glickman, Rutgers University, Center for Urban Policy Research, Piscataway, NJ
- Michael Kwartler, New School Environmental Simulation Laboratory, New York City
- Meir Gross and E. Bruce MacDougall, University of Massachusetts, Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning, Amherst, MA
- Herbert Levinson, New Haven, CT
- Robert Olmsted, New York City
- Nancy Campbell, New York City
- Michael Bernick, University of California, Berkeley
- Tuevo Airola, Department of Environmental Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
- George Colbert, New York City
- Tom Miner, Conway, MA
- Donna Plunkett, Westhampton, NY
Special Thanks
The once-in-a-generation process of building a regional plan was only made possible by the guidance, advice, and support of hundreds of individuals from across the Tri-State region and beyond.
More than two dozen other Board Members reviewed and commented on drafts and gave freely of their time in a special Board committee that shaped the plan in 1994 and 1995. Four members of the Board, Christopher Daggett, Co-Chair, New Jersey; William Parrett, Treasurer; Serafin Mariel; and Dr. Roscoe Brown, deserve special recognition for reviewing several drafts of the plan and working closely with the staff on the plan’s policy recommendations. In addition, Dr. John Lahey of Quinnipiac College provided extraordinary support for the 1995 Quality of Life Poll, Ruth Sims advised the staff on a broad range of issues, and Barbara Fife contributed significantly to sections on the arts.
Three members of RPA’s state committees also deserve special credit: Michael Cacace, Esq., chaired the Connecticut Land Use Coalition; Ingrid Reed of Rockefeller University helped with several areas of the plan; and Msgr. William Linder of Newark’s New Communities Corporation guided staff in developing the equity and workforce sections. Diana Jepsen, assistant for community affairs at GE Capital, provided important input throughout the process.
The fundamental shape of the plan was provided by The Council for The Region Tomorrow, a group of more than 100 business, civic, religious, and community leaders, chaired by Richard Ravitch that met several times from 1990 to 1992. Later in the process, the Committee on the Third Regional Plan (chaired initially by Robert F. Wagner, Jr., and then by Robert Kiley) brought together a smaller group of academic, business, and civic leaders to hammer out the policy and investment recommendations included in the plan.
The Competitive Region Initiative (CRI) provided much of the plan’s economic rationale. This process was chaired initially by Richard Leone of the 20th Century Fund and then by Richard Kahan of the Urban Assembly. Mark Rockefeller was CRI’s first director and led in organizing the research and working groups. CRI brought together more than 220 business leaders in working groups representing eight of the region’s leading industries. From the deliberations of these groups emerged the plan’s focus on quality of life concerns and the importance of investments in workforce and infrastructure to the region’s competitiveness.
Through all three processes - the Council for The Region Tomorrow, the Committee on the Third Regional Plan, and the Competitive Region Initiative - the plan received the guidance of many of the region’s most dedicated and able leaders, representing a cross section of its communities and business and civic leadership. Their input was supplemented, critiqued, and vetted by that of thousands of concerned citizens who participated in RPA’s annual Regional Assemblies and Regional Forums.
But RPA has also benefited from the input of a loose network of advisors, including some of the leading thinkers and doers on regional issues from the Tri-State Metropolitan Region, the rest of North America, as well as Europe and Japan.
While it would be impossible to list all of these people here, several individuals deserve special recognition. Within the region, Robert Geddes provided invaluable assistance in several areas of the plan, including conceptualizing the new physical structure of the region and developing the Crosstown concept with input from the Architects Committee, which he chaired. Richard Kahan of the Urban Institute chaired the Competitive Region Initiative and led efforts to shape the plan’s workforce and governance sections. Richard Kaplan of the J.M. Kaplan Fund helped in many ways, including guiding RPA’s thinking on regional design, natural resource protection, and downtown revitalization, and sustained support for the whole plan.
Harry Dodson developed the regional simulations and helped RPA envision better development patterns for cities, suburbs, and countryside. Jonathan Barnett guided the regional design and transit-friendly communities programs. Michael Kwartler of the New School developed RPA’s thinking on reclaiming suburban sprawl. Joel Russell and Philip Herr developed model plans and regulations for rural communities. Diane Brake helped shape the plan’s suburban design concepts. Janet Lussenhop, a former RPA vice president, initiated the Brownfield project.
Norman Glickman and other staff at Rutgers University’s Center for Urban Policy Research analyzed the regional economy and the relationship between the economy of New York City and other areas of the region. Dr. Glickman also helped initiate and chaired the American side of the US-Japan Metropolitan Planning Exchange (Metroplex). Luther Tai, Stuart Nachmias of Con Edison, and Patrick Mulhearn of NYNEX helped shape the CRI process and its economic development recommendations for the plan. Mitchel Moss and Hugh O’Neill both provided valuable insights for the plan, first identifying the growing importance of a knowledge-based economy in this region.
Boris Pushkarev, RPA’s former vice president for research and planning, assisted in developing the transportation and land value study and in researching and engineering Rx. Robert Olmsted also assisted in developing the Rx program, and Herb Levinson advised RPA on a broad range of other
transportation issues. Rx maps were produced by Marc Italia-RE/Locate. New York University’s Emanuel Tobier helped conduct RPA’s research on immigration, with assistance from several academic and community advisors. Professor Jameson Doig shaped RPA’s thinking on the restructuring of regional authorities. Jerry Benjamin and Richard Nathan of the Rockefeller Institute shaped RPA’s thinking on the structure of state and local governments. Hooper Brooks, former vice president of RPA, helped conceptualize the Greensward proposal and developed RPA’s greenways network plan. Douglas Schwartz at the Quinnipiac College Poll conducted the 1995 Quality of Life Poll.
Ed Skloot of the Surdna Foundation, Colin Campbell and Ben Shute of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tony Wood of the Ittleson Foundation, Bob Crane of the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Joan Davidson of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and Ron Aqua of the US-Japan Foundation provided sounding boards for ideas throughout the process and backed our work with important financial support. Bob Sellar, Randy Bourscheidt, Nancy Meier, George Wachtel, and Ted Berger all participated in RPA’s arts initiative and contributed valuable insights. John Schall and Michael Simpson, both with the Tellus Institute in Boston; Kendall Christianssen, now with Resource, Inc.; and Benjamin Miller have all helped develop our Discarded Materials Management Program.
Beyond the region, Ethan Seltzer from the Institute for Portland Metropolitan Studies in Portland, Oregon, and Henry Richmond from the National Growth Management Leadership Project (also in Portland) provided broad guidance on several issues, including ways to reform state and regional planning systems and intra-regional equity concerns. Gardner Church from Toronto’s York University helped shape the governance section of the plan and suggested the “Three E” graphic diagrams. Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie, one of the continent’s great regionalists, urged the focus on the region’s raison d’etre. John DeGrove of Florida Atlantic University provided critical advice on state and regional planning concerns at several points. Nancy Connery from Woolwich, Maine, helped develop the Infrastructure Bank concept. State Representative Myron Orfield from Minneapolis shaped RPA’s thinking about the potential to create urban-suburban coalitions around tax, infrastructure, and equity issues.
Armando Carbonell from the Cape Cod Commission advised on the creation of regional land use regulatory commissions, including the Long Island Central Pine Barrens Commission. Peter Calthorpe from San Francisco helped initiate the regional design program and provided helpful comments at key points. Rob Atkinson of the Office of Technology Assessment in Washington, D.C., Andrea Saveri from the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, and Peter Huber of the Manhattan Institute helped RPA’s staff understand the impacts that new telecommunications technologies could have on urban form and economic activities. Roger Starr of the Manhattan Institute provided constructive criticism on a number of issues. Steve Waldhorn, Jim Gollub, and Richard Gross of DRVMcGraw-Hill’s San Francisco office helped develop and staff the CRI process.
Larry Orman of San Francisco’s Greenbelt Alliance, Gerry Adelman of Chicago’s Open Land Project, Joanne Denworili and Patrick Starr of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, and Robert Neville of the USDA Forest Service helped shape the Greensward project through their participation in the National Metropolitan Greenspace Initiative.
A number of environmental leaders within the region helped develop the Greensward concept and reviewed drafts of this section of the plan, including Timoiliy Dillingham, New Jersey Sierra Club; Joann Dolan, New York-New Jersey Trail Conference; Paul Dolan, ABC News; Charlotte Fahn and Linda Davidoff, Parks Council; Thomas Gilmore, Bill Neil, and Rich Kane, New Jersey Audubon; Glen Hoagland, Mohonk Preserve; Nancy Jones, Delaware River Greenway; Steward Pickett and Alejandro Flores, Institute of Ecosystem Studies; Richard Pouyat, Bob Neville, and Wayne Zipperer, USDA Forest Service; David Sampson, Hudson River Greenway Communities Council; Andy Stone, Trust for Public Land; Karl Wagener, Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality; Bob Wagner, American Farmland Trust Lynn Werner, Housatonic Valley Association; Richard White-Smith, New York Parks and Conservation Association; Andy Willner, American Littoral Society; and Nancy Wolf, Environmental Action Coalition.
To better understand how other world centers dealt with similar issues, RPA initiated, in collaboration with the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University, the US-Japan Metropolitan Planning Exchange (“Metroplex”). This process allowed teams of planners and government and civic leaders from New York and Tokyo to work together on case study projects in both countries. These projects inspired Rx, transit-friendly communities and other concepts. This ongoing collaboration was funded by the US-Japan Foundation and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. More than 20 Japanese planners participated in the Metroplex exchange project. Special contributions were made by Prof. Hidehiko Tanimura of Tsukuba University (Japanese Chair of the Metroplex), Akihiko Tani of Nagoya’s Soken, Ltd. (coordinator of the project), and Andy and Won Min Higuchi, now at Harvard University.
Richard Lloyd of the Countryside Commission, in Cheltenham, England, helped shape the concept for the Greensward and also helped to explain it to groups in the region. Paul Milmore of England’s East Sussex Council advised RPA and Long Island and Catskill residents and officials on green tourism and countryside management. And Eric Britton of EcoPlan International in Paris helped RPA grapple with the “new work” issues facing this and other metropolitan regions.
Within the region, dozens of business, environmental, and community leaders contributed to the plan in many ways. Special thanks are due to Kevin McDonald of the Group for the South Fork; Bob Wiebolt of the New York State Homebuilders; Roger Akeley of the Dutchess County Planning Department; Patrick Mulhearn of NYNEX; Kent Barwick of the Municipal Art Society; Bob Bendick, formerly of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; Michael LoGrande of the Suffolk County Water Authority; Richard Amper of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society; Paul Marinaccio of Deloitte & Touche; Saskia Sassen and Elliott Sclar of Columbia University; Marilyn Taylor of Skidmore, Owings & Merrm; Howard Permut of Metro-North Railroad; Ernest Tollerson of Newsday; and Lee vVasserman of Environmental Advocates. Shirley Bishop of the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing, David Listokin of Rutgers University, and Kathryn Wylde of the New York City Housing Partnership all reviewed the housing section of the plan. G. M. Williams, Jr., provided advice on transportation. David Johnson at the University of Tennessee reviewed early drafts of the plan.
Finally, it must be noted that this plan would not have been initiated without the leadership of former RPA presidents John Keith and Richard Anderson, and former chairmen William Woodside and William Knowles.
- Robert Yaro, Executive Director