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