OVERVIEW:
On September 17, 23 people participated in the Hudson listening workshop. The group included stakeholding interests representing: historic sites; state, county, and local government/public agencies; civic leadership; environmental activists; small business; and outdoor recreation advocates. Participants noted that the audience was not fully representative of the region’s ethnic, racial, age or professional diversity. In particular, the group encouraged future representation from: the public and private education systems; major businesses; health professions; African American, Muslim, and Bengali communities; and youth.
DISCUSSION:
The discussion focused on the need to create a “new agenda.” for the Hudson River Valley. “An experience of place” was proposed as a context in which people have the financial wherewithal (“good job”, “bread on the table”) to enjoy a “rich and healthy life”, while working in partnership with others in the region to proudly “own” (use and care for) those special and distinguishing characteristics that make the Hudson River Valley a particularly attractive place in which to live, work, learn, visit, play, and stay well. The group generally agreed that a new economic context of development is needed.
PRIORITY THEMES:
30 ideas were generated by the group to address this “new agenda” for action. The participants then selected those ideas they felt to be most promising. Those ideas that focused on the area around the community of Hudson were extrapolated to potential regional (Valley-wide) possibilities. Priority Themes that emerged included:
• Enhancing the Valley’s character and identity;
• Encouraging greater access and use of the river for recreation and commercial purposes;
• Creating new regional and sub-regional organizational and planning mechanisms to effect policies and projects across traditional jurisdictional lines;
• Developing a more effective and efficient flow of people, goods and traffic through and across the region;
• Funding schools through alternative public revenue sources; and
• Elevating the significance of the farming system (land, people, business, markets, etc.). to economic development and regional identity.
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I’m copying this post from Sept 20th because it seems to have disappeared from original Listening Tour pages…
Hudson River Valley Listening Tour – Thurs. Sept. 17th
This was the first of the Listening Workshop Series on the Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge #79, docked with tug at the old cement plant on the Hudson City waterfront. Approx. 30 “regional leader-stakeholders [gathered] to identify consensus themes of interest, concern, vision, and possibility, in connection with a regional conference in 2010 that will focus on the future of the Hudson River Valley.” It was sublime and maddening, in a good way – the warm welcome aboard the old wooden barge museum, the gathering of Hudson River friends and strangers, struggling to think out of the box, placing blue dots on our chosen ideas for action…. All well-presented, well-facilitated and well-behaved, it was difficult getting through the “accelerated consensus” process without feeling like I’ve been there before. We’ve all been there. But this was different. We were sitting in a dark wooden barge with all kinds of old railroad and river artifacts hanging from the walls and ceiling, talking about the next 100 years for the Hudson River Valley, and getting pretty personal…and a little charged over spiritual versus economic differences, taxes, jobs, and quality of life issues. Two driving questions were “What’s the current state of Hudson River Valley farming?” and
“How do we reinvent the context of economic development?” Here’s another question, What’s the state of the Upper Hudson and Mohawk River? What about this region which represents two-thirds of the Hudson River Basin and supplies 80% of the freshwater to the Hudson River Estuary? Farming throughout the Hudson River Basin is changing rapidly and completely. “What if…I wish…We could…” begin to reinvent the context of economic development by questioning the assumption that growth means progress.