University Reporter: March, 1999
Residents Say 'Act Regionally' in McCormack Study
Should we in Massachusetts cooperate with our closest neighbors to conduct business, educate our residents, develop infrastucture, promote trade, and control pollution? On which issues should we view ourselves as New Englanders, rather than as residents of one of six states which comprise our small region of the country?
The answer to these questions may surprise you. A recent survey on the topic of regionalism, conducted by Lou DiNatale, senior fellow of the McCormack Institute, indicated that respondents from all six New England states see benefits to viewing ourselves regionally, and had very strong ideas about the issues and kinds of activities that would benefit from regional cooperation.
Education was high on everyone's list. Respondents from four of the six states ranked K-12 education as the issue New England political leaders should tackle first. The cost of higher education was also seen as an obstacle or a major obstacle to economic growth in New England by 76 percent of respondents overall. A regional state university of New England was also attractive to those polled, with 78 percent of respondents saying they believed this would be very effective or somewhat effective, if it shared academic resources and reduced administrative costs. "Education is a dominant issue," says DiNatale. "New England defines itself around education, so it is well worth noticing that people are concerned about educational costs."
The Future of New England survey project actually includes two polls, which were sponsored by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) and the McCormack Institute. The other poll surveyed New England opinion leaders (college presidents, state legislators, directors of public policy think tanks, foundation heads, and others) and was prepared by the New England Public Policy Collaborative of the NEBHE.
In some ways, says DiNatale, the voice of the people is ahead of the opinion leaders, with 90 percent of household respondents reporting that regional approaches to New England's economic issues are very or somewhat important to them. Among opinion leaders, 88 percent think that it is important to work regionally towards some goals, but only 36 percent have actually collaborated with counterparts from other states or countries.
In addition, DiNatale says that the public is somewhat more farsighted than the politicians in seeing the need for new technologies. "There's a good deal of support among the public for economic projects that are described as examples of public cooperation. The old debate is about high speed railways, so that you can commute to your job in, say, Burlington, but the public is saying lets go to the next place - - make it possible for me to get connected via telecommunications so that I can work at home."
DiNatale says that while political institutions have a stake in maintaining their distinctions, the population sees the benefits of moving beyond them. Take, for example, the support of the public for the idea of a regional university. "The public wants to move beyond parochialism," says DiNatale.
DiNatale conducted the survey in January as part of the UMass Poll, a quarterly survey research vehicle of Massachusetts public opinion sponsored by the UMass Economic Project, and the Donahue and McCormack Institutes. The poll was expanded in this case to include a New England sample, at the request of NEBHE.
The surveys were also the basis for a conference held Feb. 3 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, which attracted political, corporate, and education leaders from New England. Topics at the day long meeting ranged from the New England Patriots move to Hartford, to the question of what would be the capitol city of a future state of New England. It was sponsored by the NEBHE's New England Public Policy Collaborative, which is co-chaired by Robert Woodbury, director of the McCormack Institute, and John Hoy, president of the NEBHE. The surveys can be downloaded from the website of the New England Board of Higher Education at http://nebhe.org/PolCollab