PEIRCE - How will the world of American and global citistates look 5 or 10 years from now? What’s coming next?
Here are five themes I’ve suggested to Associates of the Citistates Group for discussions during our summer gathering this year. We will post some of our Associates responses in the next weblog.
(1.) Climate change. Concerns about global warming have escalated rapidly with new scientific projections, melting conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic, the recent Gore film, etc. If we assume this threat is real, how do regions prepare now? Or as King County (Wash.) Executive Ron Sims asks — assuming it’s 2050 — looking back, what should a region have been planning, choosing as action in 2006? (I also discussed the topic in a recent column).
A subtheme: In an increasingly hurricane-threatened world, in the wake of the Katrina debacle, how can/should regions plan for major natural disasters (and/or terrorist attacks, pandemics), and how should they relate to state and national governments in that effort?
2.) Energy shortages. The soaring energy prices of 2005-2006 suggest a return to “normal” ($40 or under) oil prices may never happen, especially with escalating Chinese and Indian demand for oil. Prices north of $100 barrel are in fact more likely. In a society still overwhelmingly reliant on by auto and truck use, how can/should regions react — in new transportation systems (toll roads, rail transit, etc.), in shift-over to renewable fuels (biofuels, etc.), in truly aggressive ways to concentrate population and rein in energy-consumptive suburban sprawl?
A subtheme: Imagine the current Mideast conflict, or actions by other oil-producing powers, causing a sudden, emergency shortage of oil in the U.S. What kind of back-up planning would save regions from devastating blows to their economies?
(3.) Mega-regions. Robert Yaro, our Citistates colleagues Robert Lang and John Hall and others are advancing the idea of “mega-regions” — sets of aligned citistate regions, from the Northeast Corridor to the Great Lakes, the Sun Corridor (Phoenix-Tucson) to Cascadia — as the population, economic locus of 21st century action. Are they right? Beyond advanced transportation networks (high speed American rail at last?), what’s to be gained from a megapolitan view of today’s urban forms?(See also Peirce column July 17. 2005)
(4.) Shifting Demographics: The immigration angle — who can come to America and its regions, who can’t (or should be kept out) — has heated up. And what of immigrants as an evolving, more significant political force? There’s a new solidarity evolving among immigrants as a result of the conservative legislation the U.S. House passed, while some U.S. cities pass legislation to keep illegal out. And what of low income alliances– immigrants and allies organized locally? An example– In L.A., Villaraigosa as mayor suggests a municipally-based immigrant/minorities power, liberal on wage-housing-environmental issues. Is this a future of our cities/regions?
Immigrants have also been responsible for economic revival in many of our cities and in a rapidly aging population, are likely to continue to be America’s workforce for now and our future. How can we transform immigrant workers into knowledge workers from K-12 preparation to affordable/accessible higher education? And how do we prevent a whole new series of gated communities where families with young kids are not welcomed?
On a related track, our Associates Manuel Pastor and David Rusk were both involved in a recent Ford Foundation backed report, Edging Toward Equity. The idea is that urban poverty and suburban sprawl are often driven as much by public policy as market forces, and that neighborhood-based community advocates as well as leaders of older suburbs need to learn to make their case regionally. There’s a new theme of American purpose involved. As Pastor wrote in the report:: “Regional equity is not just about transit-oriented development, cross-jurisdictional tax-sharing, or employer-oriented job training, although its commitment to such pragmatic practices is one of its appeals. It is also about offering a new vision of America in which cities are strong, racial conflict is superseded, and millions more join the middle class.”
(5.) State/regional ties. Several of us have thought for years of how states should view their metro regions as a smart corporation sees subsidiaries — as potentially strong profit centers to be incentivized, not micro-managed. More and more, it’s clear regions need to work collaboratively with, not at odds with their state governments. And that states need strong metro regions. Our colleague Mary Jo Waits, new head of the Pew Center on the States, is interested in this agenda.