Planner urges economic forethought
By Jonathan Ment , Freeman staff 10/21/2004

STONE RIDGE - Analysts have been telling the story for several years: The Hudson Valley is well-positioned geographically for the new economy and should recognize regional trends and needs in order to succeed.

On Wednesday, the story was told again, this time with pictures, at the 10th Howard C. St. John Distinguished Lecture endowed by Ulster Savings Bank and presented by the Ulster County Community College Foundation.

Economic development expert and urban planner Michael Gallis, of Michael Gallis & Associates, presented "Nations, States and Economic Regions in the Global Network" twice at UCCC - once for community leaders and once for students and the general public. "The question we have to ask ourselves is, 'How good is our reconnaissance?'" Gallis said, who described how Genghis Khan pioneered wartime reconnaissance by sending spies hundreds of miles ahead of his troops so he knew what he would encounter long before arrival, rather than simply fighting forces he encountered along the way.

"There's a tendency to withdraw into our own community and not see those forces around us," Gallis said. "Our long-range reconnaissance shows the Northeast and Midwest is back. ... After 1990, dramatic changes have begun to take place that suggest this is the region of North America that's going to do best. It's the land of opportunity. The biggest challenge is that we haven't taken action or answered opportunity.

"Unfortunately, we've built up a way of doing things on public and private sides," Gallis added, saying that lends itself to ad-hoc, fractured solutions. "Government, by nature, has jurisdictional lines. .... Don't tell me what to do; I won't tell you what to do."

Gallis' firm began operations in the early 1980s and uses diagrams and graphics as foundations for strategic planning, making data from market dynamics to traffic flow more easily digestible. "We began to realize part of the problem wa s not the plan but how we approach planning," Gallis said. Gallis illustrated how patterns have changed in recent decades, using, among others visual aides, computer-generated maps showing the port activity, economic activity and trade and travel routes.

"The 20th century is over. Are we preparing for the 21st?" Gallis said. "This is a beautiful region in a highly desirable location. The question is, what were we going to do about it?

"Unless we get the economic and government community involved, we don't have a future," he said, adding that protecting one's community and making the right decisions includes knowing what your neighbors are doing.

Answering questions about the boom in housing construction, as opposed to industrial development, and the lack of discussion of environment issues in his comments, Gallis said a process has not yet been developed to bring together environmentalists and business.

"The fact that upstate New York has incomes below Mississippi and Alabama should be intolerable," he said. "I don't think we have to sacrifice the environment to increase that. I think we have to marry them together."

But, he said, the region is likely to see a slow erosion of both the environment and the economy as more pressure is put on revenue in order to supply services for such things as new housing.

"Unfortunately, the trends we see are ... this is not becoming a balanced economy with housing and industry," he said.

Gallis, who earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of California and two master's degrees, in architecture and city planning, from the University of Pennsylvania, has overseen strategic development programs for the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois and New Jersey, as well as several regions.

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