OVERVIEW

This datalayer represents the boundaries of the 13 regional planning agencies (RPAs) in Massachusetts. Each RPA serves as a forum for state and local officials to address issues of regional importance, including the development of comprehensive plans and recommendations in areas of population and employment, transportation, economic development, regional growth and the environment. The layer was created in ARC/INFO based on the Towns layer and lists from each RPA and their member communities. In ArcSDE the layer is named RPAS_POLY. An ArcSDE annotation class, RPAS_ANNO_RPA, was created using an abbreviation of the RPA name.

The polygon attribute table contains the items RPA_ID (unique ID for each region), RPA_NAME (name of the RPA), and ACRONYM (abbreviation of name) as follows:

RPA_ID		RPA_NAME		ACRONYM
1		BERKSHIRE REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION		BRPC
2		FRANKLIN REGIONAL COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS		FRCOG
3		PIONEER VALLEY PLANNING COMMISSION		PVPC
4		MONTACHUSETT REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION		MRPC
5		CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION		CMRPC
6		NORTHERN MIDDLESEX COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS		NMCOG
7		MERRIMACK VALLEY PLANNING COMMISSION		MVPC
8		METROPOLITAN AREA PLANNING COUNCIL		MAPC
9		OLD COLONY PLANNING COUNCIL		OCPC
10		SOUTHEAST REGIONAL PLANNING & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT		SRPEDD
11		CAPE COD COMMISSION		CCC
12		MARTHA'S VINEYARD COMMISSION		MVC
13		NANTUCKET PLANNING & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION		NPEDC
14		BELONGS BOTH TO MAPC & OCPC		MAPC/OCPC

Also included is the attribute WEBSITE, which stores the web address (URL) of each RPA.

MassGIS maintains this layer. The RPA_NAMEs of the Berkshire and Franklin RPAs were edited to reflect the correct names in December, 2004. In December, 2007, the ACRONYM and WEBSITE attributes were added, and the features were edited to form multi-part polygons.

For phone numbers and web links to each RPA please see the following links (in .PDF format): List and Map of RPAs | Full RPA Directory | RPAs GIS Contacts | Descriptions of RPAs.

Last Updated 12/13/2007
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