Remembering John Parr, Champion Of Regionalism

All too often, local politics in America is parochial, narrow-minded, and faction-ridden – if not crudely partisan. This is too bad, because the issues confronting local government in America are usually regional in scope and require far-reaching coalitions of unlikely allies. John Parr's dedication to assembling these unlikely allies was heroic.

Parr spent most of his career in Denver, where his crowning achievement was public approval of a sales tax increase to fund Denver's first regional transit system. But his legacy stretches far and wide, partly through the nonprofit entities devoted to the well-being of a region that have sprung up around the country.