This clip from the PBS documentary, Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City recounts the history of the Albert Gallatin plan, the Erie Canal, and their impacts on the growth of Detroit and development of 19th century America.
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes megaregion is exploring ways to grow its economy in face of the shrinking role of the manufacturing sector. The region's assets include the environmental resources and amenities of the Great Lakes and a strong research and cultural tradition tied to its leading public universities.Location: The Midwest - Including parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania
Principal Cities: Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Indianapolis
Population 2000: 53,768,125
Percent of U.S. Population: 19%
Population 2025: 62,894,147
Projected Growth: 17%
2005 GDP: $2,072,869,000,000
Percent of US GDP: 17%
Recent Entries
Sometime in the not too distant future, John wakes up in suburban Chicago on a Saturday morning and heads to a White Sox game...in Detroit. Join him on a 300 mile journey to Detroit's Comerica Park as he experiences the transportation options of the future: a neighborhood electric car share program, smart phone ticketing, high-speed rail, and connecting light rail. This clip is brought to you by America 2050 as part of its "A Better Tomorrow" project to visualize America's future communities and transportation systems.
Since 2007, America 2050 has held megaregion forums in seven of America's eleven megaregions nation-wide. There forums were held as part of a "Rebuilding and Renewing America" campaign, which aimed to build support for the infrastructure investments we need to guide America toward a sustainable and prosperous future. The forums aimed to achieve three goals:
Download the Summary of Megaregion Forums.
Download a PowerPoint about the Forums.
- Build support around the country for an ambitious national infrastructure plan in the areas of transportation, energy, and water.
- Identify and prioritize the key infrastructure priorities in the megaregions, which can act as building blocks to a national plan.
- Create megaregion coalitions to support these megaregion priorities and begin coordinating with each other.
Download the Summary of Megaregion Forums.
Download a PowerPoint about the Forums.
Audio recordings are now available from the forum, "Rebuilding and Renewing America: Infrastructure Choices in the Great Lakes Megaregion" held on November 17 by Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council and New York's Regional Plan Association.
The purpose of the forum was to identify and prioritize strategic investments in transportation, water, and energy infrastructure to be included in a national infrastructure and economic stimulus plan.
View a slide show of the event.
Audio recordings were made by Chicago Amplified, a web-based audio archive of Chicago Public Radio. All recordings were made November 17, 2008 at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. The recordings include:
Opening Plenary Session with speakers MarySue Barrett, Robert Yaro, Anne Prammagiore, Canadian Minister Peter Gordon MacKay, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, and John McCarron.
Roundtable on Transportation, featuring Petra Todorovich, Maureen McAvey, Rob Puentes, Ilana Preuss, and Michael McLaughlin
Roundtable on Water, featuring Al Appleton, Samuel Speck, Deborah Shore, MaryAnn Dickenson, Katherine Baer, and Cameron Davis
Roundtable on Energy, featuring Catherine Morris, Sadhu Johnston, Kyle Barry, Wally Tyner, Anne Evens, and Val Jensen
MPO Collaboration in the Great Lakes Megaregion, featuring Randy Blankenhorn, Steve Ernst, Chester Jourdan, Terry Kohlbuss, Tony Reams, John Swanson, David Warm and Robin Snyderman.
Report Out and Closing Remarks, featuring MarySue Barrett, Catherine Morris, Al Appleton, Petra Todorovich, and Bob Yaro
Featured speakers included U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Tom Petri (R-WI) and Canadian Minister of Defense and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, Peter Gordon MacKay. Download the Agenda. Download the final report.
This forum was organized locally by the Metropolitan Planning Council and nationally by the Regional Plan Association, which is grateful for funding support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
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The notion of an efficiency gap in the current transportation networks is explored in a Master's thesis by Columbia University graduate student and America 2050 research intern, Yoav Hagler. At short distances, the most efficient mode of intra-megaregion travel is auto, and at long distances, the most efficient mode is air. However there exists an intermediate distance at which the most efficient mode based on these four criteria is high-speed rail. The efficiency gap, which peaks between 200-400 miles can aid future studies in regards to preferred route selection, station, location, and the location of megaregional transportation hubs.
The Master's thesis titled "Back on Track: An Examination of Current Transportation Networks and Potential High-Speed Rail Systems in Three U.S. Megaregions is available for download here. The study analyzed the current transportation networks and proposed high-speed rail networks in the Northeast, Midwest, and the Florida megaregions. This research analyzed, from the consumer prospective the total reach, cost, reliability, and convenience of four modes (Air, Auto, Rail and High-Speed Rail) for travel within these megaregions.
Two recent editorial pieces from cities as disparate as Columbus, Ohio and Houston, Texas call for a federal commitment to de-clog our airports and highways with long-term investments in high-speed intercity rail. Proponents in Texas argue that state officials need to move beyond 20th century policies and not to sell short on the state's transportation system in the 21st. Both pieces argue that high-speed rail has shown benefits in improving a nation's carbon foot print, and help to relieve congestion at major airports, especially for short-distance intercity travel. They conclude that it is time to provide Americans with a safe and reliable transportation network that includes intercity rail.
Nine Midwestern governors and the premier of Manitoba, Canada met November 16 to sign a regional greenhouse gas reduction accord, which will create a multi-sector cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases. This multi-state agreement joins similar efforts, such as the 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the Northeast and the 5-state Western Climate Initiative Partnership that includes California, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon and Washington.
In the absence of national leadership, these large regions (in the Northeast and Midwest they correspond with the geography of the megaregions) have set their own goals for greenhouse gas emissions and are in the process of developing cap-and-trade programs. Does the multi-state or megaregion framework lend itself to climate change leadership? The governors may be motivated by the positive peer pressure of their neighboring states and a similar set of energy and climate conditions born by their proximity that allow for setting comparable targets. In any case, we are encouraged by the leadership and collaboration of these groups of governors and hope it will set a precedent for collaboration on other pressing issues.
Some of these governors also produced a commercial sponsored by Environmental Defense urging congress to take action on the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill. View the commercial on YouTube above.
In the absence of national leadership, these large regions (in the Northeast and Midwest they correspond with the geography of the megaregions) have set their own goals for greenhouse gas emissions and are in the process of developing cap-and-trade programs. Does the multi-state or megaregion framework lend itself to climate change leadership? The governors may be motivated by the positive peer pressure of their neighboring states and a similar set of energy and climate conditions born by their proximity that allow for setting comparable targets. In any case, we are encouraged by the leadership and collaboration of these groups of governors and hope it will set a precedent for collaboration on other pressing issues.
Some of these governors also produced a commercial sponsored by Environmental Defense urging congress to take action on the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill. View the commercial on YouTube above.
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