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Global Gateway Regions: America’s Third Century Strategy
As the United States embarks on its third century of growth and development, Global Gateway
Regions – large networks of metropolitan areas, each spreading over thousands of square miles – are
emerging. Serving as the economic engines and innovation centers of the country, these megaregions are projected to absorb 70% of the population growth and 80% of the economic growth that
the United States will experience by 2050. With an expected 40% increase in population to 430
million people by that time, preparing for the future of the nation and its nine emerging mega-regions is
critical.
If current trends continue, the United States will need to build half-again as much housing, commercial
development and infrastructure, and consume four times as much land as in its first two centuries.
The challenge of accommodating this level of development in mega-regions is compounded given that
these areas are approaching build-out of land and infrastructure, while also contending with
congestion, resource degradation, and socio-economic disparities. Concurrent to the rapid growth of
mega-regions is the out-migration of population and slow economic growth of vast rural portions of the
country’s heartland, where many of the same trends occur.
The future of the nation and its global competitiveness depend on the efficient growth and livability of
these mega-regions, and on their connection to rural areas. Large-scale efforts that coordinate land
use, transportation and economic development strategies are imperative as the United States charts
the course for its third century. National strategies must be pursued, in conjunction with regional
efforts, that focus on reversing current trends to develop resource-efficient development patterns;
infrastructure systems that have the resiliency, redundancy and capacity for growth homeland security;
institutional coordination structures to improve disaster response capacities; and the infrastructural
and educational foundations for economic growth that will further bolster the nation’s dominance of the
global economy.
Energy Independence
Energy independence is an essential goal of the Third Century Strategy. While it accounts for only 5%
of the world’s population, the United States consumes 26% of the world’s energy. The relatively
inexpensive and plentiful energy supplies that Americans enjoy influence consumption, land use
patterns, and encourage automobile use, resulting in rapidly growing energy demand. Meanwhile,
less than 3% of the world’s known oil reserves is located domestically, resulting in yearly imports of
foreign oil that total over $50 billion, with an additional $40 billion spent on military protection of foreign
oil fields and sea lanes.
The long-term viability of this structure is weak, not only because of the increasing cost and scarcity of
oil, but also the concentration of oil in countries where political disruption, terrorist attack, economic
shock or embargo is a possibility. With the economy largely based on the use of relatively cheap oil
for its manufacturing and transport needs, the United States’ dependence on foreign oil presents an
impending vulnerability to its future growth and competitiveness. Concurrent shifts in energy sources
and consumption patterns are needed to establish energy independence before the nation’s economy
and quality of life are adversely impacted.
Oil Production
The first component in establishing a whole scale development in oil production involves increasing
the domestic oil production. This is imperative not only within areas already involved in the industry,
but throughout the country in order to develop better economies of scale within each of the nation’s
rapidly growing mega-regions. Regional strategies to provide for additional storage facilities and oil
refineries will serve to create economic growth and alleviate rising oil prices. These efforts would be
based upon regional coordination of facility siting and permitting, so as to integrate mitigation for air
quality and ensure the effective development of pipelines and other infrastructure.
Alternative Energy
Energy independence is predicated not only on being independent of foreign oil, but of oil in general,
through a portfolio approach towards investment in a variety of alternative sources. Diverting a portion
of subsidies to the oil and gas industry towards investments in cleaner burning hydrogen fuel cell,
solar, wind, bio-fuel, nuclear and other alternative energy sources would be the first step in weaning
the United States off of oil. A subsequent result would be the spark of private investment in new
technology, research and development in alternative energy, providing a new industry and opportunity
area for future economic growth. Additionally, the development of cleaner energy technologies would
improve air quality and reduce associated environmental and public health impacts.
With support at the national policy level, regions can steer collaboration between cities and counties
towards the development of alternative energy technologies. Coordination of local ordinances,
demonstration projects and technology sharing programs within the region can create economic
development opportunities for innovation that ultimately serve the nation’s goals of energy
independence.
Efficient Land Use Policy
While a shift from foreign oil dependence to domestic energy independence is critical to the nation’s
long-term economic competitiveness. A concurrent effort must be made in shaping growth patterns
within the country so as to curb consumption. Land use policy in both mega-regions and rural areas
plays an integral role in reconciling the country’s growing energy demand. With 60% of all US oil
consumption attributed to transportation (personal vehicles and trucks), improved coordination of land
uses to transportation can serve to reduce vehicle miles traveled. These strategies entail the
encouragement of land uses such as housing, job centers, shopping and recreation to be more
conveniently located, allowing for non-motorized options, mass transit and minimized automobile use.
Developing efficient land use patterns is inextricably linked to the availability and affordability of
housing, especially in mega-regions where housing costs continue to increase at astounding rates.
Providing housing options that are affordable to most Americans is essential in order to curb the trend
of driving to affordability, which exacerbates energy use, air pollution and consumption of open space,
and reduces quality of life with high commute times. Updated and coordinated federal policies to
expand housing stocks in growing mega-regions is imperative to ensuring that these areas continue to
offer the opportunities and economic benefits needed for the nation.
Already, rapidly growing areas are taking positive steps towards shaping regional growth in order to
mitigate the suburban sprawl trend, and its accompanying health, quality of life and environmental
effects. Adapting these efforts to the mega-regional scale with more efficient use of land, with growth
focused in existing and emerging centers, along major transportation corridors, and around existing
and planned transit stations serves to preserve open space, natural resources, and reduces vehicle
miles traveled (VMT), leading to greater energy efficiency. Performance analyses have indicated that
growth vision plans that coordinate local general plans at the regional scale towards more compact,
transit-oriented, and mixed use development patterns account for significant reductions in VMT, with
as much as 50%.
Homeland Security
The growth and economic importance of mega-regions make them greater targets for terrorism and
more vulnerable during natural disasters. Since the attacks on September 11th, and more recently
with Hurricane Katrina, the Homeland Security program in the United States has been working to
improve emergency preparedness, create more security and efficiency in infrastructure systems, and
recalibrate organizational structures for better coordination of information. These efforts are essential,
as are overall improvements and investments in critical infrastructure and regional coordination
processes.
Infrastructure investments are at the core of the Third Century Strategy. Improved transportation and
goods movement systems build cohesion within mega-regions and out to otherwise disconnected rural
areas, both physically and economically. As mega-regions grow over the next decades, investments
are needed to contend with the economic losses, air pollution and reduced quality of life borne out of
increasing congestion. They are further essential in cases of emergency as tremendous numbers of
people and supplies must move through the region in the moments and days after a disaster.
The provision of an infrastructure system that creates the resiliency, redundancy and capacity needed
to respond to homeland security threats will mitigate the potentially crippling effects of an emergency
on a city or region’s citizens and infrastructure. This strategy includes creating multi-modal and
decentralized transportation options that do not rely on a single mode or hub location, thereby
relieving the pressure and targeting of such a system. With this, there must be investments in a
combination of highway, rail, air and port systems so as to develop the efficiency and redundancy
needed for the nation’s security.
This regional transportation infrastructure serves as the physical construct by which regions can
connect to improve their disaster response capabilities. Intergovernmental integration and
coordination provides the organizational framework by which regions can coordinate services and
activities in case of emergency. As the Department of Homeland Security serves as the primary
liaison and facilitator for cross-sector coordination at the federal level, similar structures for
collaboration must be created at the regional level. Singular efforts at the community level must be
knit together through extensive communication between local, state and national agencies in order to
knit individual efforts together into a superior unified regional response to terrorism and natural
disasters.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina indicated gaps in coordination and communication between
various levels of government, most clearly among the primary emergency response forces of health
and safety. The development of a regional intergovernmental disaster response capacity, focused on
expanded communication and collaboration among local and county agencies, can mitigate future
disconnects. Using regional councils as the mechanism for developing coordinated decision-making
processes for emergency response is essential in cases of terrorism and natural disaster which know
no local boundaries. These efforts are imperative not only within regions, but also between regions
and in the context of the mega-region. The evacuation of the New Orleans area to Houston after
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the importance of this mega-regional connection. Applying
coordination processes to this scale would be a natural extension of Homeland Security strategies.
Competitiveness
Already, Europe and Pacific Asia are initiating mega-regional strategies for cohesion and
competitiveness through intra-regional and intra-national infrastructure investments. Surely, the
United States economy remains the most dominant in the world, yet as other world regions join forces
to compete more effectively, the United States must work to maintain its position and competitive
advantage within the global economic landscape. The policies and infrastructure investments
proposed thus far serve to sustain the economic growth anticipated for the nation’s third century.
Ensuring long-term competitiveness will require an approach that incorporates economic development
strategies that respond to the restructuring of the manufacturing sector and outsourcing of information
technology jobs.
Since 2000, the nation has lost almost 3 million manufacturing jobs and over half a million information
services jobs. Regional prosperity strategies include developing new opportunities in logistics, valueadded manufacturing bases, and infrastructure construction. These sectors are growing, most notably
in mega-regions, and provide upward social and economic mobility to unskilled workers through better
pay and on-the-job training, with defined skill ladders for career development and better standards of
living. Given that workers fuel competitiveness, investment in human capital will be a necessary
outcome of this strategy.
Currently, the low-skill service sector is not as adequate in supporting less educated workers as the
declining manufacturing sector once was. Investing in the high-technology sector is only part of the
solution to developing competitive economic sectors in the United States. Investment in human capital
that goes beyond the high technology sector will be an important outcome in developing a national
strategy that provides the necessary infrastructure for global competitiveness, while also having equity
implications for less educated workers. The strategies used in the expansion of logistics networks
involve creating a regional system of dedicated truckways, expanded rail capacity, just-in-time
production, just-in-time delivery and value-added assemblage and distribution to create a wage/labor
structure for all members of society.
Coordination
National efforts have strong historic precedents in the United States. 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, with 2007
as an ideal time to initiate this effort.
Government agencies could take positive steps in reshaping their policies and programs to enable
these prosperity, equity and sustainability strategies. The Department of Housing and Urban
Development could reframe its approach towards growth and housing to consider the specific trends
occurring in mega-regions. The Environmental Protection Agency may evolve and adapt its regional
environmental strategies to this scale. The Department of Transportation might reauthorize funds for
transportation and aviation that focus on intermodal transportation policies and user-based financing
structures that bolster global competitiveness. Finally, Congress could rethink its inter-governmental
funding principles to support financing instruments that will advance this effort.
Financing
These strategies could be financed through user fees and public private partnerships. Employing
modest payroll or other taxes to finance some of these investments could generate trillions of dollars
of new economic capacity for the whole nation. The expected doubling of the national economy by
2050 would expand the gross domestic product by more than $14 trillion (in constant dollars).
Redirecting even a small share of the growth of tax revenues in these strategic investments could
secure the nation’s economic future.
In addition, financing for this governance system should be based on the basic concept of Return on
Investment (ROI), both public and private. Investments should be on networks that are efficient and
increase productivity, while generating affordable outcomes in housing and transportation. Both public
policy and private investment decisions should be based on producing a maximum ROI. Thus, a goaloriented, performance- based decision making process that supports this objective is integral to the
strategy. Government policies and tax structures will reinforce this approach.
For over a hundred years, the United States has financed major infrastructure projects through a “topdown” system, with major funding from the federal government complemented by state resources.
Based on general public agreement of national priorities, this model financed several generations of
growth and paid for one of the world’s great infrastructure systems. However, it is now coming to an
end, as the needs of maintaining aging infrastructure systems outpaces federal and state funding, to
say nothing of new capacity expansion.
To provide more funding for system maintenance and expansion, metropolitan regions are exploring
new and innovative financing systems to raise new funds. Public authorities use their tax-free status to
attract private dollars through bond issuances, sales and lease-back arrangements. New user fees,
such as container fees, congestion pricing or HOT lanes on toll roads, link charges to those who
benefit most from new investments, creating new revenue streams. Value recapture models, such as
tax increment financing, allow increases in land values to finance infrastructure investments.
The Federal government is advancing instruments such as TIFIA, the Transportation Infrastructure
Innovation Act, to stimulate the development of these projects. However, mega-regions have a critical
role in this emerging system, by providing a vital link between state and federal government and local
jurisdictions, which in many cases have the last say over land use decisions. They transcend political
boundaries and capture the true economic and social geography of emerging communities; and have
the size, capacity, and expertise to undertake complex planning strategies.