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The Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program released a report this month titled "Mountain Megas: America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper". The report was introduced in conjunction with a luncheon in Denver on July 22nd that brought leaders from the Intermountain West to discuss economic, social, and environmental challenges in five emerging metropolitan areas: Wasatch Front, Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; Sun Corridor, Arizona; Northern New Mexico, New Mexico, and the Front Range, Colorado.
As part of its Blueprint for American Prosperity initiative, the Brookings report calls for the federal government to provide leadership and support as these urbanized and rapdily changing areas emerge and expand. In addition, the report comes in anticipation of the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver. Local leaders and officials are hopeful the presidential candidates and elections will make these emerging trends and challenges a national priority. As one of the fastest growing regions in the country, the study suggests that these swing states represent a "new new West" that is urban, and require new and reformed federal-state-local partnerships. Moreover, the research recommends that these collaborations should be issue focused, namely: transportation, infrastructure, innovation, immigration, and climate change.
The event was attended by Jon Huntsman, Gov. of Utah; Bill Ritter, Jr., Gov. of Colorado, and John Hickenlooper, Mayor, City of Denver. For a copy of the executive summary of the report, please click here.
Photo: "Mountain Megas: America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper", July, 2008.
The changing demographic and economic environment in the corridor is prompting researchers and leaders to think about how the corridor can one day become a significant economic, technological and cultural center, while growing in a sustainable way. At a recent workshop sponsored by the Sonoran Institute and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, planners considered the implications of this emerging megapolitan region with the report's authors and local transportation and community leaders.
The full report can be downloaded from the Policy Research Institute for the Region website.
On February 9 Regional Plan Association and the Policy Research Institute for the Region of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School held a luncheon forum for regional business leaders and scholars on "The Economic Geography of Megaregions."
The forum featured presentations by economists Saskia Sassen of the University of Chicago and Edward Glaeser of Harvard University, and responses by Paul Krugman of Princeton University and Kip Bergstrom of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council.
The presenters and discussants attempted to answer the questions:
o Can megaregion-scale agglomerations be encouraged?
o What are the advantages of doing so?
o What are the public policies and infrastructure investments to encourage agglomeration at the megaregion scale?
The papers from the forum can be downloaded here from the Policy Research Institute for the Region website.
11/20/07: The complete conference papers are now available online on PRIOR's website.
Image: Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
This report, recently released by planning faculty at the University of Michigan asks three main questions: Why plan for megaregions? What are appropriate methods for planning at the megaregion scale? And when is the megaregion a useful scale for policy planning?
The Brookings Institution has released a new report proposing a revitalization strategy for the Great Lakes megaregion.
The report is titled, "The Vital Center: A Federal-State Compact to Renew the Great Lakes Region." You can download the report (pdf) here.

