The tri-state metropolitan area’s greatest need today is better coordination of the activities and policies of its many governmental and non-governmental action agencies. For lack of such coordination through a consensus on regional development policies, the region is compounding rather than reducing some of its most serious problems such as deterioration of its mass transportation, increase of traffic congestion, lost opportunities of park and highway development, spread of blight in core areas and urban sprawl in suburban areas, and related problems of taxation, governmental services and land use regulation.
Such coordination can best be approached by bringing together the governmental and non-governmental decision makers of our region under the right conditions to undertake an objective analysis of regional problems, and to work out mutually consistent programs of regional development.
The Regional Plan Association is prepared to undertake such a program of organizing the region’s leadership. It has developed a program to this end which is the subject of a separate memorandum. The major purpose of this report has been achieved if the need for better regional coordination has been demonstrated.
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