Agenda - Council - 01/12/1982 - Laserfiche WebLink

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IlUml}hrey Institute Studies Implementation of Metropolitan Land Planning Act Capital hnprovement Programs Vital to Local/Regional Planning ~, Dcparhnent of EnergS', Planning and Development to Administer Small Communities Block Grant Program Newsbriefs Humphrey Institute Studies Implementation of Metropolitan Land Planning Act - Editor's note: Thc following article was written by John M. Bryson, assistant professor at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Bryson is directing the Institute's study of the Metropolitan Land Planning Act of 1976. The Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota is conducting a major study of the implementation of Minnesota's Metropolitan Land Planning Act of 1976. The first phase of the two-part study will be completed in the spring of 1982. The study is part of a larger inquiry aimed at develop- ing a doctrine of shared power. The Institute has decided that such a doctrine is needed for successful completion of any major endeavor that requires a sharing of power among public, private and nonprofit sectors. The doctrine would be a general theory of how our society should figure out what it wants, based on what it can have in a context in which no one person, group or institution is "in charge." Institute faculty agree with the many observers who argue that the country is experiencing_profound changes that affect the nature of effecti;Je, governance. One of the most important changes is thatthe country has entered a period of extensive sharing of power among governments, both within and among levels of government. For many important decisions, no sipgle government is "in charge." Instead, several governments share power and responsibility for achieving satisfactory results. A good example of this sharing is represented by the Land Planning Act of 1976, which gave the State Legislature, Metropolitan Council, metropolitan commissions, 195 units of Iocal government and 49 school boards shared power over the management of growth in the Metropolitan'Area. ' The country also has entered a period in which gov- ernment responsibilities will be reorganized. The Reagan administration wishes to give state and local governments greater shares of power for many functions. Such a shift will require new ways of making decisions no longer made in Washington. The increased use of block grants, for example, will require an extensive set of new shared power arrangements at state and local levels. These new arrangements will be created in an environ- ment of revenue cutbacks--in contrast to the shared power arrangements created during the Johnson administration, which distributed expanding resources. As is so often the case, Minnesota has been a leader in experimenting with the type of reorganization that soon will be required elsewhere. Minnesota's Community Social Services Act of 1979 devolved many social service decisions from the state level to county boards through block grants that represented cutbacks in state-supplied social service funds. The lines demarcating the public, private and nonprofit sectors are perhaps irretrievably blurred. No significant action can be undertaken that does not involve or implicate all three sectors sequentially or simultaneously. As government is cut back the private and nonprofit sectors will be increasingly called on to perform traditional government tasks. These sectors, in other words, are becoming increasingly "public." The health care system clearly demonstrates this blurring and sharing of responsibilities. It now has various fee-for-service arrangements, health main- tenance organizations and third-party payers; govern- ment subsidies and insurance for construction,