Over fifty years ago, a group of Richland County community leaders saw the need for planning. They envisioned that the issues a regional planning agency could address would range from infrastructure to zoning. They wanted to deal with issues affecting the development of the region as a whole, which do not begin and terminate within the boundaries of any single municipality. The City of Mansfield and Richland County jointly created the Richland County Regional Planning Commission in 1959 to undertake this planning. The organization carries on today still true to its original purpose--most notably in the ongoing focus on issues that affect the development of the Region as a whole.