Regional Rochester gets mixed reviews

Common Good Planning Center releases report

The Common Good Planning Center recently released "Benchmarking Regional Rochester," a report that compares Rochester with 28 other metropolitan regions on 48 different measures. The report was prepared with the assistance of the Center for Governmental Research, Inc.

The Reverend Gordon Webster, of the Ogden Presbyterian Church, is the executive director of the Common Good Planning Center. Members come from both the city of Rochester and the surrounding counties.

Broken into seven major categories, the study found that Rochester rates high in creativity and productivity but doesn’t fare as well in growth, job creation and development as other regional cities.

A partial list of the regional cities Rochester was compared to follows: Buffalo and Syracuse, New York; Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton, Ohio; Lexington and Lousiville, Kentucky; and Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The comparison regions were chosen for similarity of size and other demographic characteristics and some for their recognition as "role models."

A look at the Rochester region’s population shows a high out-migration rate (mainly of well-educated professionals in their 20s and 30s); a high proportion of residents 65 and older; and the loss of 20 percent of its farmland during the past two decades despite little population growth.

Among the 29 regional cities, Rochester had the highest number of patents per capita, the fourth highest ratio of exports per capita, a high level of total personal income, and a low suburban office vacancy.

But, Rochester’s average wages have been stagnant during the 1990s, the report found, and job growth was seventh from the bottom. Rochester has had higher overall unemployment than most of the other regions and its downtown office vacancy rate is especially high. Despite the high volume of exports from the Rochester area, the region’s export growth rate was slower than more than half the other regions.

In the area of transportation, Rochester had one of the highest levels of freeway miles per capita and per square mile and coupled with having one of the lowest numbers of drivers per capita made for the third lowest traffic congestion among the regions. Rochester also has less public transit service per capita and among the highest cost air transportation.

When the report looked at local government it found that Rochester has an especially high number of governments per capita and is heavily dependent on property tax. Rochester spends more money for education than it does for police, fire, housing and community development.

While the proportion of children living in poverty in the Rochester region declined in the early 1990s, the number increased but still remains among the regions with the lowest proportions of children below the poverty level. Rochester housing prices are the third lowest of all the studied communities which is good for buyers, but not for owners as Rochester was one of only three of the regions to have falling median housing prices.

Crime wise, regional Rochester had the lowest reported violent crime rate, while the inner city crime rate was the seventh lowest.

Finally, the study looked at health care and the environment. Rochester is second from the bottom when looking at the number of family physicians and general practitioners per capita, although the region has the seventh lowest cost of an average health care plan and is the leading region in percentage of the population covered by health care insurance.

Rochester ranks third in air quality, but the federal government is looking closely at Rochester’s ozone status.

Copies of the report are available at the Common Good Planning Center, 34 Meigs Street, Rochester (442-2730). Executive summaries are free, but there is a $10 charge for the full 89-page report. Visit the center’s website for more information: www.ggw.org/commongood.