Professor Bill Morrish, director of the Design Center for American Urban Landscape, was the featured presenter at the first spring research workshop of the Study. His presentation, "Subregional Urban Design and Planning Frameworks as Regional Strategies for Livable Communities," described the work his research team has undertaken with the North Metro I-35W Corridor Coalition. The Coalition is a joint powers organization that includes the suburban communities of Arden Hills, Blaine, Circle Pines, Mounds View, New Brighton, Roseville, and Shoreview.

Morrish offered an overview of the common issues these communities face that led them to join together, including rising congestion, changing demographics, aging housing stock, and shifting economic development patterns and needs. Morrish and his research team have been working with the Coalition to develop a subregional planning framework that promotes cooperative and regional solutions to these problems. A major step in this process has been the development of a subregional Geographic Information System (GIS) that provides a shared information base that crosses political boundaries.

In their recommendations to the Coalition, Morrish and his team advised that the Coalition look at transportation planning on a district, rather than a node, basis. The movement of traffic is addressed on a corridor basis rather than at an individual project level. They argue that this cooperation can have great benefits including better leveraging of roadway funding by the municipalities as well as more integrated transit planning.

For more information on this initiative, visit the Design Center's Web site at: www.cala.umn.edu/design_center/dcaul.html.