What we can learn from these cases
Niagara Region United States and Canada

Yet, if there are a variety of approaches, there seem to be a couple of common denominators. Whether the lead agency is weak or strong, has lots of money or not so much, the process of developing, preserving, managing and marketing re­gional assets requires sophisticated multi-party collaboration. No entity can do it alone, and anyone that tries will earn the opposition of someone else.

At the same time, there needs to be an institutional base for such efforts. There needs to be an agency that can convene all the various players -- the chambers of commerce, the mayors and council mem­bers, the state bureaucracies, and citizen groups of all kinds -- to engage the inevitable collaborative tasks. Each of these cases had such an entity.

Going with the Flow

Although the ap­proach and emphasis of regional projects differs from the Blackstone to the Emscher to the Rio Grande, all three seem resolved to “go with the flow” of major contemporary trends in economy, society and environment.

Although they speak but little to issues of transportation infrastructure, all three projects respond, in one way or another, to the realities of an economic future that will be depend more and more on know­ledge, information tech­nologies, innova­tion, and global trade, and less and less on the forces that made them in the first place: water power, coal, and steel.

Likewise, they acknowledge that tourism is one of the great growth industries of the current era. In two of the cases, in­creasing tourism is at the center of the strategy, in the other, Emscher Park, more tour­ism is expected to be a happy but intentional by-product of environmen­tal repair and economic redevelopment. All three cases manifest an understanding that good places are crucial, not only to tourism, but to regional success in general. The quality of planning, design and devel­opment are central to the effort to mak­ing places attractive to tourists and satis­fying for residents alike.

All three cases demon­strate how important it is — especially in an era of globalizing forces — for regions to preserve, enhance and highlight what is already distinctive about them. Why, after all, would you visit the Rio Grande Valley if it were just like Or­lando?

In all of this, history is central. Each of these regions has its own story to tell. That’s what makes each worth visiting. But telling the story also has value for the residents, not only because tourism has economic benefits, but because the story gives meaning to their lives.