Published Tuesday, June 18, 2002
hurts valley
Herald Staff Writer
In 1950, Sharon was comparable to cities such as Kokomo, Ind., Battle Creek, Mich., Mansfield, Ohio, and Parkersburg, W.Va., in square miles, population, family income, economic base and minority population.
But in the next 50 years, those cities saw their population, family income and jobs grow at rates faster than Sharon's, while poverty and housing segregation rates fell.
What has separated Battle Creek and Mansfield from Sharon has been their ability to grow in physical size by annexation or merger.
Sharon's total square miles increased 6 percent in that time, a jump David Rusk credited to "better surveying," while Battle Creek surged 308 percent; Kokomo, 153 percent; and Parkersburg, 104 percent.
"I can't stand here and forecast the future," Rusk, a consultant on urban and suburban policy and a former politician, said Monday. "I can't promise you that if you decide to merge the five communities into one governmental box that that's going to instantly produce progress and change. But it's reasonable to say that if you had done this, what you're contemplating today, 50 years ago, you would have found yourself in the big box group that experienced such growth and success, not in the little box group as you are, that lagged behind."
Rusk, who appeared at a summit on municipal consolidation presented by the Shenango Valley Initiative, said Mercer County is made up of "little boxes," a cute way of saying numerous municipalities.
"Big box" cities have few municipal neighbors, and have been able to add them to the urban roster as sprawl created suburban shopping centers and housing developments.
As Farrell, Sharon, Hermitage, Sharpsville and Wheatland study whether to merge and consolidate, the recent past history of growing towns vs. municipalities with static boundaries supports the creation of a new municipality.
"These big box regions outperformed you for the next 50 years on every front," Rusk said. "The regions that acted just like you, that maintained all their little boxes at the core, they fell behind."
Consolidation would not have made the Shenango Valley immune to the industrial plant closings of the 1980s, Rusk said.
"If you had done this in 1950, it wouldn't have stopped Westinghouse from closing down. It wouldn't have stopped Sharon Steel from closing down. They were responding to much larger issues in the national and international markets. But it would have allowed you to act decisively to respond more effectively to that kind of economic crisis."
Rusk said the municipalities cannot afford to refurbish or scrap the plants left abandoned to prepare the sites for new development.
"I would submit to you that the way your government, the way your valley is structured right now, is broken," said John Powell, a law professor and founder and executive director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis. "That's the thing that we have to start with."
Communities that have grown in land size have done better at addressing quality of life issues, integrating themselves ethnically, racially and economically, and attracting young people, Powell said.
"The kind of issues that David outlined will only get worse: the population decline, the job decline, the continued economic and social justice degradation of this region will continue," Powell said.
"This valley has high cholesterol. If you don't do anything about it, this region will have a heart attack."
Little-box regions are "efficient" in creating racial and economic segregation, which bodes ill for the future, Powell said.
Immigration has been at record levels in recent years with India supplying many of the United States' computer programmers, and nurses being shipped in from South Africa. Minorities and immigrants will become parts of towns that have not had many before.
"What do you tell them, 'Come here and we'll segregate you," Powell said. "Come here but we don't want you living in our community? Come here but we don't want you going to our schools?"
"When you have a lot of small little jurisdictions, a lot of small little school systems, a lot of small little city halls, everybody tries to engage in exclusionary zoning," Powell said. "'We want the nice commercial property, but we don't want public housing.' They compete on what comes in and they compete on what they keep out."
The problem is the true competition is not with each other, he said.
"You have some wonderful facilities here. You have a region that has a rich history. You're located close to Cleveland, close to Pittsburgh, probably closer to Youngstown than many of you would like. But you have to use these resources and realize that the fight is not between Hermitage and Farrell. It's how do you become a national and international player? How do you capture that growth? Right now, the economies of scale, with all these small, little boxes simply won't work."
Hermitage has grown by pulling businesses and people from the surrounding areas, not by attracting people from out of state, he said.
"Do you think you can get your children to come back and live here by telling them you're going to build a Super Wal-Mart?" Powell said.
While the Shenango Valley Intergovernmental Study Committee has focused on issues such as tax structures, fire service and sewer systems, the decision on a boundary change needs to be made from a much wider perspective, Rusk said.
"The issue of consolidation is not, 'Can we save a few bucks here by merging road departments?" he said. "These things are important and valued -- it's always a good idea to use the taxpayers' dollar as efficiently as you can. The issue is one of greater regional effectiveness, How can you stop the relative decline of Mercer County, or even just the Shenango Valley aspect of it? This certainly is one strategy that may unlock the opportunity. Not guaranteed, but certainly, regions that have taken this kind of step almost invariably have been successful."
While SVI has argued the committee has focused more on economic issues than quality of life, Powell said the two go hand in hand.
"Some people say social justice is important," Powell said. "It's important for people to think about what's right, what's fair. But, really, people are concerned about the bottom line. The good news is social justice and the bottom line pull in the same direction. If you address one in a thoughtful way, you address the other. You don't have to choose between something that's economically viable and something that's morally right."
Powell said Charlotte, N.C., has tackled both issues simultaneously.
"There have been a number of studies about regions that have grown and reduced poverty and reduced segregation. Charlotte is an example of a community that has grown economically -- it was one of the miracles of the 1990s -- and it has one of the fastest declines in terms of poverty rate, and fastest declines in terms of segregation in the entire country. Those things were not just coincidental. They were deliberate about it. They adopted policies to address those concerns. They consolidated, they annexed their surrounding areas, to capture some of the growth."
Mark Perich of Sharon said he saw similar things happen during his two years living in Waldorf, Md.
"We're on a county system in Maryland," Perich said. "We look at a county and everybody's held to the same accountability level within a county. In a county system, your local flavor has to die a little bit. There may be a local county flavor, but you don't have pockets of strong identity areas. I don't know if it's right, but I know there's an effectiveness as far as, like, minority achievement."
Perich said taxes are lower and more wisely spent because of regionalization.
"When you're operating globally or regionally, as what we're trying to think here, it does save people tax money, which means more money for them, which means, generally, better lives for everybody," he said.
Deana Yarboro said none of the information Rusk and Powell presented was new, but they helped put it into perspective.
"These are the fruits, if you will, of what we've done to ourselves," she said. "Mainly because we won't listen and we won't cooperate."
Ms. Yarboro said she favors consolidation.
"It benefits everybody, not just one person," she said. "It's like everything in life, it's not equal. But that's what you work for: equalization. We've just got to learn to open our minds to what's going on."
"What people need to understand is they need a visionary, someone who can see just beyond what we're doing today," said Michelle Wilder-Sparrow of Farrell. "If you look around, our community is dying. These (in attendance) are older people, retiring people. We need a newer generation. Not that we don't want to deal with the older generation, but a new generation to take the next generation to the 'promised land.' "
You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at jpinchot@sharon-herald.com