Megaregions: Planning for Global Competitiveness

By Catherine Ross, Adjo A. Amekudzi, Tridib Banerjee and 19 more

The concept of “the city” —as well as “the state” and “the nation state” —is passé, agree contributors to this insightful book. The new scale for considering economic strength and growth opportunities is “the megaregion,” a network of metropolitan centers and their surrounding areas that are spatially and functionally linked through environmental, economic, and infrastructure interactions.

Recently a great deal of attention has been focused on the emergence of the European Union and on European spatial planning, which has boosted the region’s competitiveness. Megaregions applies these emerging concepts in an American context. It addresses critical questions for our future: What are the spatial implications of local, regional, national, and global trends within the context of sustainability, economic competitiveness, and social equity? How can we address housing, transportation, and infrastructure needs in growing megaregions? How can we develop and implement the policy changes necessary to make viable, livable megaregions?

By the year 2050, megaregions will contain two-thirds of the U.S. population. Given the projected growth of the U.S. population and the accompanying geographic changes, this forward-looking book argues that U.S. planners and policymakers must examine and implement the megaregion as a new and appropriate framework.

Contributors, all of whom are leaders in their academic and professional specialties, address the most critical issues confronting the U.S. over the next fifty years. At the same time, they examine ways in which the idea of megaregions might help address our concerns about equity, the economy, and the environment. Together, these essays define the theoretical, analytical, and operational underpinnings of a new structure that could respond to the anticipated upheavals in U.S. population and living patterns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Island Press
• Release date: Jun 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781610911368

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Introduction

Catherine L. Ross

The regional cities of tomorrow will be nearly continuous complexes of homes, business centers, factories, shops, and service places. Some will be strip or rim cities; some will be star-shaped; others will be satellite towns around the nucleus core. They will be saved from traffic self-suffocation by high-speed transportation—perhaps monorails that provide luxurious nonstop service between the inner centers of the supercities, as well as links between the super-metropolises themselves.

—Chicago Tribune, July 23, 1961

Megaregions are networks of metropolitan centers and their surrounding areas. They are spatially and functionally linked through environmental, economic, and infrastructure interactions. Today the spatial and functional dimensions of activities that are most vital to the quality of life—economic, environmental, physical, social—are not contained within traditional jurisdictional boundaries. Increasingly, the most appropriate unit of social organization and economic coordination is not the city, not even the metropolitan area; it is the city-region or the region-wide network of cities. Globalization is forcing us to recognize the growing interdependency of social and economic networks. By one estimate, there are now 300 city-regions with populations exceeding 1 million and at least twenty city-regions (Ross and Harbour 2006) with populations of 10 million or more. In 50 years, 400 million people will reside in the United States according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau (2000), and approximately 70 percent will reside in or close to the countryˊs projected eight to ten megaregions (see Figures I.1 and I.2). This population growth will place even greater pressures on our economic and social systems as well as our natural and man-made infrastructures. Increased population and new spatial configurations will challenge our creativity in providing adequate opportunities for all Americans. Many projections show greater connectivity and interdependence occurring between economic sectors and regions in different areas of the United States. Although cities will remain the center of these regions, changes will take place as America grapples with issues of spatial planning and its increasing importance in a changing global environment. Infrastructure is taking on a different role that is increasingly complex and includes the provision of greater mobility in the new megaregions. These regions will continue to be centers of economic growth, and it is critically important that they be explicitly linked to existing and emerging markets nationally and globally.

Before now, increasing urbanization was most readily apparent internationally, but today it is also easily observed in the United States. By looking into the future, it is easy to see the nationˊs emerging megaregions. The multiple cities they will include will cross state boundaries. It is expected that these areas will continue to grow in population, adding potentially millions of new residents. The emergence of megaregions forces us to confront a number of critical questions. How will these regions function and remain competitive in the changing global marketplace? How will people and goods be transported efficiently in and outside of the megaregion? How can we ensure access to our ports, seaports, rail lines, airports, and other global gateways for our trading partners? How can we use the economic engines operating at the center of megaregions to energize and expand economically sustainable growth to areas that are performing poorly? How do we develop methods and tools that support the global planning needed for these areas? How do we retool our competitive advantage so that these regions will be served by twenty-first-century infrastructures and innovative governance structures? What will creative financing tools look like, and are they adequate to promote internal development and enhance our global connectivity? Finally, what type of economic restructuring is needed so that we might maintain and enhance our commitment to equity and a high quality of life? These are among the most daunting challenges. They grow out of an awareness that the world is changing and so must we. It is for this reason that this volume was conceived.

Responding to these challenges will entail planning across current political and jurisdictional boundaries in ways we have not yet considered in the United States (Scott 2001). Spatial planning, as conceived and practiced under European Spatial Development Planning, also represents an attempt to address issues of global urban competition, environmental sustainability, social equity (spatial justice), and territorial identity (Jensen and Richardson 2001). Recently, a great deal of attention has been focused on the emergence of the European Union and European spatial planning (Faludi and Waterhout 2002). Such planning has set the stage for a more competitive Europe. Given our projected population growth and the increasing global competitiveness we face, it is crucial for American planners, policymakers, developers, community leaders and residents to examine the history, feasibility, and usefulness of the megaregion and spatial planning in an American context.

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Figure I.1 U.S. Megaregions, 2000 Metropolitan Statistical Area, CQGRD.

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Figure I.2 U.S. Megaregions, 2050 Metropolitan Statistical Area, CQGRD.

Urban areas throughout the United States are facing increasing traffic congestion, worsening air pollution, and the challenge of providing and maintaining the infrastructure needed to move goods and people efficiently and effectively. The burning of fossil fuels and biomass has increased emissions that are changing the earthˊs temperature, the amount of precipitation, sea levels, and the incidence of extreme weather events. Land use changes affect climate change through urbanization, deforestation, and reforestation. These developments, in addition to reductions in land use cover and increasing exposure to solar radiation, establish climate change as one of the most pressing problems confronting our cities and regions. The continued reliance on diminishing fossil fuels makes the pursuit of alternative energy sources and regional responses to these challenges critically important. The implementation of climate change strategies and programs to minimize risks are more appropriately advanced under the framework of the megaregion.

The impact of changes in the financial markets of different countries on markets worldwide is easily observed in current times. Economic and financial downturns in one country influence market performance in other nations. This may lead to rapidly declining stock market values, mounting unemployment, bankruptcy and instability of financial institutions, and the unresponsiveness of the economy to numerous financial stimulus policies. In the midst of such economic chaos, we can learn many valuable lessons, one of the most important of which is that local jurisdictions cannot adequately respond to the challenges confronting them. In contrast, megaregions are best positioned to do so. History has shown that in times of worldwide declines in output and employment, the most effective prescription for stimulating the economy is New Deal–type fiscal stimulus policies. Policymakers may debate new stimulus policies that would be oriented toward expenditures on improvements such as highways, streets, bridges, and other infrastructure projects. These proposals typically encompass new government spending with a primary objective of jump-starting the economy while improving the nationˊs infrastructure, increasing its energy efficiency, and harnessing green technologies.

Megaregions, and not cities, are optimally positioned to respond to economic crises for a number of reasons. First, the economies of scale associated with large infrastructure projects usually dictate that such investments encompass regional or statewide jurisdictions rather than local jurisdictions. Second, economic crises severely strain government budgets and turn balanced budgets into large deficits. Tax revenues fall sharply as a result of declining retail sales and increasing social service payments, and state and local budgets are also severely strained. This means that cities can no longer act alone to meet the economic and social challenges they face. However, the megaregion may be a more effective alternative to marshal the necessary resources and implement the solutions necessary to meet these challenges.

Finally, megaregions are better positioned to absorb the shock waves accompanying economic downturns. Corporations shed thousands of workers, and many go bankrupt or close shop altogether. At the same time, consumers experience an unprecedented number of housing defaults. Although these kinds of economic shocks put extreme pressure on local jurisdictions, they are much more easily absorbed if all jurisdictions act in a regionally coordinated manner. Acting alone, cities will continue to experience immense economic distortions and unbalanced growth, but if they coordinate their actions through the megaregion, these major shocks will become minor market maladjustments.

Infrastructure throughout the nation is deteriorating, and the price tag for maintenance alone is expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 15 to 20 years. This amount does not include what is needed for capacity enhancements. Sadly, the deteriorating infrastructure, escalating energy costs, increasing global competition, and increasing exhaustion of our natural resources and environment have driven us to consider alternative strategies to ensure our global competitiveness and quality of life. The megaregion must therefore become the footprint by which we ensure our global competitiveness and establish the domestic structures needed to respond to a changing environment.

This book is an edited volume containing contributions of a selected group of distinguished scholars and practitioners. Their contributions add to the growing theoretical development and understanding of the dynamics and underpinnings of megaregions. In this volume, these authors have addressed some of the most critical issues that will confront the growth and development of America during the next 50 years, critical among which is how we as a nation will position ourselves to confront increasing global competition. The authors not only address this issue but also examine particular ways in which megaregions may be useful in addressing equity and environmental sustainability. Therefore, the volume could not be timelier.

Today we confront the major issues facing cities and regions at a level dictated by jurisdictional propensity rather than functional efficiency. But the rising influence of the region and city-region and the challenges confronting American cities clearly signal that the megaregion is timely. More than ever it is the political, economic, and structural arrangement that is most capable of responding to the pressing problems we must confront.

The spatial dimensions that define the way we function have far surpassed the capabilities of traditional jurisdictional boundaries to provide optimal solutions. The new and dynamically growing patterns of urban space and functionality at the metropolitan and regional levels demand more creative forms of service delivery. For example, development patterns in one jurisdiction may lead to traffic congestion in others and often adversely affect the quality of life and health. These issues are interrelated; yet the decision and planning processes continue to take place discretely. Although the functional relationships already exist in space, their interactions have outstripped the outmoded political and planning structures we rely on to address them.

We do not mean to suggest that spatial mismatches between jurisdictions and functionality have been completely ignored. Over the last century, there have been many discussions of planning at the regional scale (see Wheeler 2002; Levine 2001). But in recent decades, regional planning and advocacy have focused more on economic growth nodes rather than the larger economic growth clusters that are represented by megaregions. We must develop a framework that provides an incentive and imperative to address spatial planning at the level of megaregions. Only then will we have the flexibility to address the myriad issues and opportunities that the current environment commands.

Megaregions will not replace the need for locally based planning, and it is not intended that they will usurp the sense of place and community also important to our cultural enrichment. Porter states, While the relative emphasis is shifting, all levels remain important.... The task is to integrate the city-region with other economic units, and adopt a textured view of the sources of prosperity and economic policy that encompass multiple levels of geography (Porter, 2001). The megaregion provides a rational framework within which we maintain both local identity and regional functionality.

Because spatial planning and megaregions are recent developments in the United States, I have sought to bring together academics and theoreticians who have the depth of understanding needed to elucidate the new regional dynamics. Each contributor was challenged to examine the emerging megaregions in the context of their disciplinary expertise. This volume therefore represents an opportunity to help define the theoretical, analytical, and operational underpinnings of an emerging paradigm that seeks to respond to an increasing population and rapidly changing spatial configuration in the United States. Contributors examine the spatial implications of local, regional, national, and global trends in the context of sustainability, economic competitiveness, and social equity. The volume outlines a new agenda and paradigm for American planning. This book is among the first of its kind to address the applicability of megaregions in the United