With historic federal investment incoming, regions must collaborate on planning.

From Brookings

CT.org…Brookings calls for regional planning as a gateway to federal funds. Usually, CT.org provides an introductory paragraph from a useful article with a link to the balance, but this one is so timely, the entire article is provided below.

Thanks to historic commitments by Congress and resilient local economies, the next five years have the potential to be a grand era of reinvestment in metropolitan America. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) have committed billions of dollars for communities to modernize their infrastructure networks, ranging from older water systems to cutting-edge broadband. Meanwhile, the House and Senate are set to make big bets on innovation-focused growth centers and targeted industries. State and local budgets also performed better than expected through 2020 and 2021, leaving additional fiscal resources available for economic and community development.