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I've seen regional ambulane corp drastically fail in CT. It took 45 mins to respond to a cardiac arrest incident that resulted in irreparable brain damage due to lack of oxygen. Done. Public works and schools might work in rural areas if it saves the state money.
I dont know about Hartford where this guy is from but any such proposal for the FCounty coast up to New Haven would be DOA and moot. It's already 11 congested and crowded cities as it is. Can you picture all the public works trucks, the cops chasing criminals everywhere, the firemen, ambulances, buses and shuttles driving around back and forth all over the place. It would be a madhouse. It already is one.
What you’re likely seeing in your above scenario is the outcome of a model completely opposite of regionalization: the reliance on volunteer services like fire and EMS. When volunteers are unable to respond after several tone requests, they then contact AMR in the nearest large city to respond. I have experienced this firsthand, and have watched people suffer for a long time (upwards of 30-45 minutes after the call for help) before the arrival of EMS personnel. If the services were properly regionalized, you’d have substations and on duty staff in a zoned area 24/7. In much of Connecticut, where - since these services are up to the individual community to provide - that’s not the case.
How to ensure this doesn’t happen? Regionalize, or the small suburbs and rural towns will have to pony up the cash for fully staffed fire and EMS facilities. 30-45 minute wait times for medical professional arrival is unacceptable, and is EXTREMELY common in small suburbs.
After witnessing this so regularly, I told my family I’d never live in a community that didn’t provide these basic services. I’m 100% for regionalization for these very reasons.
I think regionalization of certain types of services can work well between communities that are fundamentally similar. But I would never favor regionalization of suburban or rural towns with a city, because the lion always eats the lamb, and the suburban or rural town will suffer under the arrangement while only the cities will benefit by being able to dump their problems on others.
One thing I have always appreciated about Connecticut is the relatively lower property taxes compared with New York and New York that are afforded from the effective regionalization that comes from much larger town. For example, the town of Fairfield has a population of about 60k and have one police department, fire department and school district. Where I came from, a town with about 25k has 3 police departments, 3 school districts and 1 fire department. They refuse to consolidate the school districts or the police departments, and taxes are ridiculous high because of the whole infrastructure that is required for these three small and separate structures.
The key is sizing it right, and only allowing regionalization among communities that feel and have a sense of commonality. Otherwise, one side will always get the short end of the stick. Large regional entities that cover large areas with relatively little commonality among the various communities are unaccountable to the people and rife with abuses.
We'll probably have to merge towns. Let's be honest here there isn't always a reason for smaller towns to really exist in new england at this point.CT has what 190 local governments, mass has 351. As I've mentioned before the berkshires is something that CT shouldn't exactly try to be. Forget about low growth it's been in the negative since the 1970s. Well they first tried regional school districts but from what I've been told from high up is there is a long term plan to just regionalize the whole school district.
Why?
Because the state is tired. When small towns need assistance in things ok fine but when it isn't really improving, when local leadership is iffy at best when people don't show up, businesses continue to close etc. Different communities have different needs. For example drunk driving might not be an issue in an urban area where there's uburs everywhere and public transit. In a rural area without public lights and hasn't been repaved in 20 years that might be a bigger reason.
Generally half of a local towns budget is for schools. School districts are where a ton of activity comes into play with buildings, health, transit you name it. I would argue superintendents in larger cities do as much if not more than mayors. But if you don't have students then what. States in the northeast generally give educational aid because it makes sense. But then it gets harder to measure. Road assistance might be harder to get if you can drive around a town or go online. Elderly services might be found somewhere else and don't even get me started on recreation. I know rec departments that will take maybe five years to do what the private sector can do in two.
Sometimes there are very specific jobs that have to be done otherwise there can be major problems. Small communities can't always have the budget for them. For example animal inspection if a animal has rabies. I've seen evidence of bobcats in eastern CT. Some even say a mountain lion but I doubt that. Evasive species is another. Worcester lost a ton of trees due to the asian longhorn beetle 20 years ago. If your place tries to stay rural to preserve plants and animals and there's no real way of doing it then it's a joke. You don't get an "out" for development. If you don't have public water and sewer you still need septic tank and well inspection. I'd bet there's a fair amount of people that moved to rural areas due to covid that have no clue what a perc test is.
To note the UK is a unitary state. Local control is iffy at best.
What you’re likely seeing in your above scenario is the outcome of a model completely opposite of regionalization: the reliance on volunteer services like fire and EMS. When volunteers are unable to respond after several tone requests, they then contact AMR in the nearest large city to respond. I have experienced this firsthand, and have watched people suffer for a long time (upwards of 30-45 minutes after the call for help) before the arrival of EMS personnel. If the services were properly regionalized, you’d have substations and on duty staff in a zoned area 24/7. In much of Connecticut, where - since these services are up to the individual community to provide - that’s not the case.
Yes, that's exactly what happened. The sub-station, literally down the road, was off that night. It was the neighboring towns night to take calls.
I would have to agree. Avoid these situations.
I think regionalization of certain types of services can work well between communities that are fundamentally similar. But I would never favor regionalization of suburban or rural towns with a city, because the lion always eats the lamb, and the suburban or rural town will suffer under the arrangement while only the cities will benefit by being able to dump their problems on others.
And that's why I will NEVER support regionalization of my town with the capital city, for precisely this reason. Lawmakers can't be trusted as it is, so it's preposterous to suggest they could be trusted to handle something like this properly, because they couldn't. All the city boosters keep saying Hartford is on the up and up. Great. Then they don't need to feed off the neighboring towns.
There's a reason why the rural population across the world is declining as the urban population rises.
Cities are the future in a global and tech world. To compete, CT needs strong cities.
Connecticut's largest cities need to concentrate on competing with other cities in the world rather than compete with other towns in the state. Bringing the cities and suburbs together can help them proceed on that goal as a unified front.
If it was up to me, I would go further than regionalism and fully combine certain cities and their suburbs. I know this will NEVER happen. If I could do it, I would do the following.
Combine Hartford, West Hartford, Windsor, East Hartford, and Wethersfield into a single City of Hartford with a population of about 292,482 and a land area of about 101 square miles.
Combine New Haven, West Haven, East Haven, Hamden, and Orange into one City of New Haven with a population of about 289,725 and land area of about 91 square miles.
Combine Bridgeport, Fairfield, Trumbull, and Stratford into one City of Bridgeport with a population of about 298,889 and land area of about 87 square miles.
Combine Stamford and Greenwich into a single city of about 198,988 and a land area of about 86 square miles.
Population-wise, Connecticut's three largest cities would be peer cities of places like Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Orlando, Durham, and Cincinnati.
Making larger cities would provide the cities with more prestige, expand the tax base, and allow for regional planning. The success of the largest cities will spread to the rest of the state.
And CT's cities need not compete with each other so long as they stick to their strengths, which generally don't overlap much. Hartford should concentrate on insurance/health, New Haven on research/education, and Stamford on finance. Bridgeport should look to modern manufacturing.
Again, I realize this will not happen. If some form of regionalism gets us a little closer then I'm all for it.
Making larger cities would provide the cities with more prestige, expand the tax base, and allow for regional planning. The success of the largest cities will spread to the rest of the state.
That is a myth. Most of America's "cities" are nothing but big, sprawling suburbs with downtown skyscrapers. Those aren't real cities. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago -- these are cities that built upward and didn't feel the need to gobble up huge swaths of land, and chose instead to make wise use of the land they had. Hartford needs to do the same, instead of turning every open space into a parking lot or garage, or worse yet, a nonprofit or storefront church. The city already has enough of these, they need to now focus on brining in tax revenue and creating jobs for the people who live there. They have had ample opportunity to do this, but they haven't. The prevailing mentality of that city is, the government is there to solve every problem, and as New York City learned in the '70s, that doesn't work. More land does not solve the problem. Look at LA and Detroit: their geographically large land masses haven't been the tide that has lifted all boats. On the contrary, they're sinking.
Combine Bridgeport, Fairfield, Trumbull, and Stratford into one City of Bridgeport with a population of about 298,889 and land area of about 87 square miles.
Combine Stamford and Greenwich into a single city of about 198,988 and a land area of about 86 square miles.
Never going to happen. If it were to happen, I’ll be selling my Fairfield properties and brace for a hit on Greenwich properties despite Stamford being a great city.
CT, being sandwiched between NYC and Boston is largely a suburban state. Cities like Stamford, Danbury and parts of New Haven are great while Hartford and Bridgeport are not. CT cities are cannot compete with Tier one cities of the region, therefore your premise of combining metro areas to get to a population accumulation and geographic expansion of these ‘new’ agglomerations are inherently unworkable.
Never going to happen. If it were to happen, I’ll be selling my Fairfield properties and brace for a hit on Greenwich properties despite Stamford being a great city.
.
I on the other hand would not sell my home as it still would be on LI Sound. I'm sticking with winter as the reason to sell and leave.
Those concoctions the Quiet guy came up with are pretty brazen to say the least, I mean my God. Combining already large and congested cities goes far beyond the scope. I would think so. I know many here say they wouldn't put it past CT Dems but I would.
That is a myth. Most of America's "cities" are nothing but big, sprawling suburbs with downtown skyscrapers. Those aren't real cities. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago -- these are cities that built upward and didn't feel the need to gobble up huge swaths of land, and chose instead to make wise use of the land they had. Hartford needs to do the same, instead of turning every open space into a parking lot or garage, or worse yet, a nonprofit or storefront church. The city already has enough of these, they need to now focus on brining in tax revenue and creating jobs for the people who live there. They have had ample opportunity to do this, but they haven't. The prevailing mentality of that city is, the government is there to solve every problem, and as New York City learned in the '70s, that doesn't work. More land does not solve the problem. Look at LA and Detroit: their geographically large land masses haven't been the tide that has lifted all boats. On the contrary, they're sinking.
I agree. Cities like Hartford and Bridgeport would just drag down whatever place was unfortunate enough to be connected to them. The school systems would be ruined, crime would increase, and services would go down the drain, all in return for higher taxes. These enlarged cities would be less competitive than before, not more competitive, because the most productive part of the population would be driven out.
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