Global Gateway Regions
To be globally competitive, the U.S. must initiate a new large-scale strategy for growth.
This process with an eye for future prosperity, equity, sustainability and financing, spans city,
regional and state borders in the form of multiple emerging "Global Gateway Mega-regions",
spread across the nation. It demands bold ideas and investments designed to integrate the economies of,
and reduce the disparities between, states and regions, increasing the competitiveness of regions and
the whole nation in a global economy.
Historic Precedents
In 1807 and 1907, Presidents Jefferson and Roosevelt respectively instituted national plans to
stimulate major infrastructure, conservation and regional economic strategies that powered America's
economic growth and success in its first two centuries. A bold new strategy is needed as the nation
enters its third century. 2007 is an ideal time to enact a new vision, based not only on precedent,
but on current trends.
A Look Into the Future
By 2050, the U.S. population is expected to grow by 40% to 430 million people. 70% of this population
and 80% of all economic growth is projected to reside within the nation's 9 emerging Global Gateway
Regions. As large networks of metropolitan areas, each spreading over thousands of square miles,
these mega-regions serve as America's economic engines: centers of technological and cultural innovation.
Current Growth Trends
How can this growth be accommodated in regions that are already approaching build-out in their land use
and infrastructure, while contending congestion, environmental degradation, and increasing socio-economic
inequity? In less than 50 years the nation will need to build half-again as much housing, commercial
development and infrastructure as during the past two centuries, if current development patterns are
continued. The nation would consume four times as much land by 2050 as in its history.
Housing affordability is increasingly difficult in the nation's mega-regions, where housing costs
are rising twice as fast as incomes. Meanwhile, social and economic disparities have widened further
with the economic restructuring of recent years, limiting opportunities to upward mobility.
A Third Century Strategy
The future of the nation and its global competitiveness depend on the livability and sustainability
of these mega-regions, and on their connection to vast under-performing rural areas. Large-scale
efforts based on coordinated land use and transportation strategies are imperative as the United
States charts the course for its third century. Already, Europe and Pacific Asia are initiating
mega-regional strategies for cohesion and competitiveness through intra-regional and intra-national
infrastructure investments. Similar large-scale strategies must be pursued in the United States that
focus on reversing current trends to develop more efficient urban forms; infrastructure systems that
have the needed resiliency, redundancy and capacity for growth and national security; and the
infrastructural and educational foundations for economic growth and opportunity.
Vision Framework
The mega-region requires a new and improved framework for cooperative governance and financing.
As in the past, the President may promote this vision and lead efforts to coordinate federal
agencies towards policies at the mega-regional scale. State, regional and local officials, as
well as coordinating groups, foundations, and universities could work to shape these policies.
Using a basic Return on Investment structure, both public and private investments must focus
on efficient networks that increase productivity, while generating affordable outcomes in housing
and transportation. A goal-oriented, performance-based decision process that supports this objective
is integral, while government policies and tax structures reinforce this approach.
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