Rockefeller Estratégia para 2050
Rockefeller Estratégia para 2050
chapter 6
AMERICA 2050:
U.S. Strategy for the
Next Half Century
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
the united states has surged past the 300 million popula-
tion mark without a coherent plan for where and how it will
house, educate, or otherwise prepare for the next 120 million
Americans (both immigrants and children of todays citizens)
the demographers predict by midcentury. Symbolized by such
disasters as the tragic 2007 collapse of a critical interstate high-
way bridge in Minnesota, the nations infrastructure gap, now
estimated by the American Society of Civil Engineers at $1.6
trillion, continues to lag.
A glance at a map of economic activity shows a growing
megaregions majority of Americans now live in ten megaregionseach
a network of individual metro regions that share intimately
connected economies, environmental systems, and transporta-
tion networks. More than 70 percent of the population expan-
sion and 80 percent of the wealth growth of the next decades
is expected to occur in these megaregions. The nations ports,
key to U.S. participation in the new global economy, are within
them. Most are already experiencing congestion, high-priced
and overcrowded housing, and degraded environmental systems.
There is no U.S. equivalent of the European Unions
focused funding of transportation, telecommunications, and
human capacity-building programs to advance broad geographic
U.S. regional regions. U.S. regional planning and development also lag
planning
behind initiatives in countries such as Japan and South Korea,
and clearly behind those in China and India, Asias rising
tigers each experiencing a phenomenal boom in infrastructure
building. New high-speed train systems, a key to mobility in
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megaregions, are blossoming in some 14 nations worldwide.
Yet there is not a single U.S. counterpart.
In a century of troublesome and apparently fast-
advancing climate change, the United States faces direct
threats to its coastal cities from rising sea levels and to its
interior from drought-triggering temperature increases.
Yet despite a level of CO emissions indisputably the highest
of any nation until Chinas recent surge of industrial activ-
ity, it has trailednot ledthe developed world in attempts
to effect significant reductions.
Credit: Regional Plan Association, based on data from Woods & Poole 2002 and
University of Pennsylvania School of Design 2004
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
232
Resentment and Resolve Over
Climate Change
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take advantage of our lifestyle and passport, we cant pretend were
not part of it. So we need to assume a role of advocacy for change and
willingness to criticize our own government.
Another participant added, We need to work on our own CO2
emissionsfirst turn the United States around, then bring along China
and India and Europe. Mark Pisano, Executive Director of the South
California Association of Governments, said that the Global North and
the Global South shouldnt be split as we go through a global trans
formation. Weve moved into a new century with information, trade,
and the environment becoming the framework around which we orga-
nize ourselves. We Americans must think of ourselves as world actors,
not King of the Mountain. We must deal responsibly with environmen-
tal consequences and do it in a transformative way.
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between central cities, older suburbs and newer suburbs,
magnifying already deep social inequities.
Could the United States begin to focus on a comprehen-
targeted set sive, targeted set of national investments in climate, energy
of national
investments independence, equity and jobs? Can the nations regions and
megaregions be mobilized for the new century? Can a vision
as powerful as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s be devel-
oped, spelling out clear steps toward a sustainable future in
which all regions and classes have a stake and can readily see
new opportunities?
Yes! It is certainly a daunting challenge, but not impos-
sible. That was the consensus of a panel of urban leaders, trans-
portation experts, and observers of American domestic affairs
gathered at the Rockefeller Foundation Global Urban Summit to
explore steps for clear and dramatic national action. Although
the participants saw many obstacles, they agreed on the imper-
courageous ative of a broad and courageous new-century vision.
new-century
vision
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
236
Antitax revolts, begun in California in 1978, spread across
the continent. Americans pride and joy became their boom-
ing national economy and its cornucopia of consumer benefits.
Governments attention went largely to bolstering personal
benefits such as Social Security and Medicare. Federal urban
renewal efforts in depressed inner city neighborhoods stum-
bled seriously, welfare became a stigma for its recipients, and
federal housing subsidies for the poor stagnated at a mere frac-
tion of the tax favors granted middle- and upper middleclass
homeowners through the home mortgage deduction.
Washingtons inattention, mirrored by many state and
local governments, came at a price. By 2005 the American
Society of Civil Engineers could report its numbing $1.6 tril-
lion dollar estimate for the cost of basic infrastructure repairs
the United States should make by 2010 in fixing outmoded or
disintegrating roads, bridges, schools, dams, waterworks, air-
port, rail, and public transit systems. Delay needed repairs any
longer, the group reported, and the country could anticipate
longer commutes, unsafe drinking water, delayed flights, and
failing dams.
warning went But the warning went unheeded and reliance on for-
unheeded
eign oil remained over 60 percent of domestic demandand
growingeven as the United States has stumbled seriously in
responding to the global challenge of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
Concurrently, no vision emerged of how the nations
metropolitan regions, center cities, and growing varieties of
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
238
DNA? Not true, said Yaro and his colleagues. They invited his-
torian Robert Fishman to the Urban Summit to present his
research showing how two grand national plans actually laid
the groundwork for Americas flowering as a world leader
Gallatin Plan in the 20th century. First came the 1808 Gallatin Plan under
President Jefferson for western settlement, leading to the
Americas Homestead Act under President Lincoln. Second was Americas
conservationist
movement conservationist movement, sparked by President Theodore
Roosevelt with this 1908 resource-based economic development
national plan, laying the groundwork for the TVA and other
expansive federal development ventures in the 1930s, and even-
tually the interstate highway system.
Fishmans analysis emboldened participants to endorse
a broad range of initiatives that a reawakened and revitalized
American federal government could and should embrace.
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
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American National Planning:
As Old As the Republic
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symbolized the radical new federal approach. The view was national
a president from New York State pushing a broad program of forest
and farmland preservation and rivershed planning that saved the most
devastated regions of the country from disaster and set the stage for
development of what would become the post-World War II Sunbelt.
Also under FDR, the National Resources Planning Board of the 1930s
began preparing for a nationwide system of superhighways; the trans-
continental system was finally realized in the interstate highway system
proposed and enacted into law under President Eisenhower.
Historian Fishman argues that the interstatesthis massive exer-
cise in national planninggave American capitalism its second wind
after the Depression and World War II, and has been the most impor-
tant initiative in creating the country we know today.
Since the 1970s, initiative in the federal system has passed back to
the states. Yet with growing challenges in transportation, energy sup-
In 1908, President
Theodore Roosevelt ply, and sustainability in a carbon-challenged age, a period of renewed
hosted the first meeting federal initiatives may become mandatory. If 1808 and 1908 were the
of the nations governors
key launch years for the past great plan thrusts, Fishman asked, what
at the White House
to discuss conserving might 2008 bring?
Americas natural
resources. Attended by
39 governors and several
Cabinet secretaries and
Supreme Court justices,
this gathering marked the
beginning of the National
Governors Association
(NGA).
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Building with Building Americas Future, a nonpartisan coalition, led
Americas
Future by Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell, California governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger, and New York City mayor Michael
Bloomberg, focused on elevating the status of infrastructure
investment as an issue of national concern.
megaregion strategies
Participants agreed that the new lens of megaregions is critical
to national economic prosperity, sustainability, and quality of
identify the life. It is necessary to identify the assets and clear challenges
assets
of each megaregion, then establish agendas of how the federal
and state governments can aid and abet their efforts.
Megaregions differ in their self-awareness. The Northeast
Corridor and Southern California are among those with the most
debates on shared futures. Yet in some megaregions, it is difficult
arouse public to even arouse public awareness about joint issues and predica-
awareness
ments. A prime example is the exuberantly expanding PAM,
or Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion.
Megaregions everywhere, however, share issues
boundary- demanding cohesive, boundary-crossing policies. The Texas
crossing
policies Triangle (San AntonioHoustonDallas-Fort Worth), for exam-
ple, needs to collaborate across hundreds of miles on water
issues, including protection of such irreplaceable resources
as the Edwards Aquifer.
The Great Lakes megaregion, derisively labeled Frostbelt
in recent years, needs to make a fundamental transition: from
the three often-polluting C sectors of corn, coal, and cars
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
Cascadia
The vision for Cascadia links Seattle, Portland, and
Vancouver, British Columbia, with high-speed rail,
while protecting the areas unique and pristine
environment. Other strategies highlight these cities
shared high-tech competencies, commitment to
environmental sustainability, and creative clusters
in film, music, and green building.
Northern California
Texas Triangle
The high quality of life, cultural
By 2050 about 35 million people,
heritage, and environmen-
or 70 percent of the population
tal assets of the Northern
of Texas, will live in the metropol-
California region make it an
itan areas that compose the Texas
attractiveand expensive
Triangle. Three of the nations 10
place to live. How can sustain-
largest cities are in the Triangle,
able land use strategies be
including Houston, which has
employed while limiting the
a port that handles more foreign
skyrocketing cost of living?
tonnage than any other in the
United States. Cultural cohesion
creates the potential for collabo-
ration among the metro regions
of the Triangle to address land
use, transportation, and environ-
mental concerns.
Piedmont Atlantic
The low cost of living and high quality
of life in the Southeast are two reasons
for this megaregions booming popula-
tion, which is anchored by Atlanta but
stretches east to Raleigh, North Carolina,
and west to Birmingham, Alabama. The
region is facing challenges associated
with its growing population, such as
increased traffic congestion, runaway
land consumption, and inadequate
infrastructure, which it hopes to address
with sustainable solutions.
Florida
The Florida megaregion is one of the fastest growing in the nation
and possesses a wealth of diversity, with six of every ten new resi-
dents in the last decade coming from foreign countries. It is both
dense and populous, with the major international city of Miami
acting as a gateway to Latin America. Regional strategies to protect
the Everglades have preserved the natural heritage of the state.
Source: Regional Plan Association 245
6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
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Megaregion initiatives face big hurdlesfirst public and
political muscle, then sources of funding. The Summit panel-
ists had no easy answers to those challenges. But they saw
21stcentury strong opportunities in use of 21stcentury electronic tools to
electronic tools
visualize and animate choices for growth, stimulate citizen
envisioning processes, and employ online voting to reveal and
strengthen the publics preferences.
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The Piedmont-Atlantic Megaregion
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Necessary Roughness:
Sustainable Breakthroughs in Atlanta
Shirley Franklin
assertive management is a large part of my formula for preparing
Atlantathe de facto capital of the new American Southfor 21st
century realities. During my first year in office I raised property taxes
50 percent, laid off 12 percent of the work force, and required all employ-
ees to take five days of furlough. I proposed tripling the water and sewer
rates. Each time I tackled a tough issue, my favorable rating went up.
My motto: Tell the truth and do what you say. I had won my first term
by only 181 votes. For my second term, I got 91 percent of the vote. We
did what was necessary first, no matter how difficult.
Issues of race, class, and personal property versus community benefit
Mayor of Atlanta, are certainly still driving our public policy debate. However, sustainability
Georgia, U.S.A.;
is one issue that is particularly hard for people in my region to swallow.
plenary speaker
My city has few sidewalks and the longest commutes of any region. Our
public transit system is still largely limited to two of 28 counties. Our
wide-open spaces are perfect for SUVs and trucks. So were tied to our
carsthe bigger the better. And even with 5 million people, were still
building all over the region with septic tanks, which only defers the cost.
Our region has hit the wall on air quality as well as water quality and
runoff. People say our main problem is traffic, but its really a shortage
of water.
Its clear that to turn more attention to sustainability, we need
a real cultural shift. When the U.S. Conference of Mayors was debating
its Climate Protection Agreement, a fellow Southern mayor said to me,
Were from the South and we dont believe in this stuff. You cant vote
for it. Well, a growing number of mayors from the Southeast have now
joined me in supporting this agreement, but the cultural traditions of
the South remain a real constraint in our part of the country.
The good news is that were already seeing a positive shift in Atlanta.
The Beltline and the Peachtree Corridor Redesign are two examples of
major improvements on a par with efforts in lead cities across the United
States. Originally proposed by a graduate student at Georgia Tech, the
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Beltline is a 22-mile rails-to-trails transit and denser development project.
The city had to create a special tax district and a zoning overlay and
has now raised about $200 million of the long-term $500 million budget
for new infrastructure. This project has already stimulated $1 billion
in new development.
The Peachtree Corridor project, the start of a 25-year effort to remake
Atlantas legendary main street, was launched jointly by the city and
private corporations. A $1.5 million redevelopment plan produced a
design that will revive the streetcar and create a tree-lined pedestrian
environment that links to MARTA at five points.
I intend to use the last 900 days of my mayoralty identifying the
stakeholders of an Atlanta sustainability plan for the next 50 years.
The idea is to get people thinking on a broader, more multifaceted scale.
For instance, when the city and region consider a second airport, we
will measure its potential environmental impacts on the region but also
look intensely inward to move from fuel- and energy-guzzling to a more
sustainable future. And we need federal regulations and incentives to
force us to seek alternatives to our current small-town traditions. After
all, if it werent for a federal judges order, I might never have become
the sewer mayor.
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European Megaregion Success
modern-day europe has been several steps ahead of the United States
in recognizing and acting on regional and megaregion issues. Through its
Structural and Cohesion Funds, for example, the European Union system
atically targets funds for 1) helping lagging nations and regions bolster
their economies and 2) fostering more efficient trans-European transpor
tation networks encompassing all modes (motorways, waterways, rails,
and airlines).
The economic resurgence of entire nationsIreland and Spain, and to
a lesser extent Greece, for instancemarked dramatic early success of the
funds. But while individual metro areas face serious problems in lack of social
cohesion, poverty, unemployment, or criminality, the overall attention of the
EU has moved to them more slowly. One early metro success was in helping
Manchester, England, through job training and environmental restoration.
Europes best-known megaregion was originally identified as the blue
banana, a strip of extraordinarily prosperous urbanity stretching from the
northwest of London to Milan, gaining its name from the curvature of the
band including such cities as Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Zurich.
But European urbanists see a dramatically wider network emerging, its
arms reaching into northern, eastern, and southern areas. Dutch spatial
expert Leo van der Meer nicknames the multiple interlinked regions the
red octopus for its many directions and tentacles. It would include such
new east-west megaregion corridors as 1) Amsterdam/Rotterdam-Ruhr
Area-Braunschweig/Goettingen-Berlin -Poznan-Warsaw and 2) Stuttgart-
Ulm-Munich-Vienna-Budapest-Belgrade. The north-south axis would
be enlarged by connecting central Europe to Hamburg, Copenhagen,
and Stockholm.
Discussions are under way about how to strengthen southern Europe
by defining a new diagonal megaregion stretching from Lisbon to Milan,
including Madrid, Barcelona, and Marseilles. With heavy North African immi-
gration, this diagonal would reflect many of the same cross-border issues
of merging Global North and Global South seen in Southern California and its
intimate ties, economic and social, through San Diego into Baja California.
Europes megaregions are prospering together around a continental-
scale high-speed rail network financed in part by the EU and its plan to
create a trans-European network of modern rails, roads, and intermodal
goods-movement systems.
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in most MPOs, were severely underrepresented in relation to
their actual population.
Some potentially significant shifts have occurred in
recent years. Many center cities, notwithstanding the uneven
a population playing field, began a population comeback in the 1990s, in
comeback
most cases aided by a significant tide of foreign immigration
(the browning factor of Hispanics, but also Asians in signifi-
cant numbers). In the New York region, the urban core cities
in the 1990s suddenly caught up with the suburbs in growth
rate. Numerous factors, in addition to immigration, have been
cited, from the increasing lack of affordable suburban housing
and baby boomers forsaking crabgrass for urban amenities to
the success of a maturing nonprofit community-development
sector in providing islands of housing and reviving local neigh-
borhoods to the influx of young professionals attracted to both
jobs and homes in revitalized center cities.
stark Still, stark differences remain in income, education,
differences
remain and savings between successful and fast-growth suburbs on
one hand, and the left-behind sections of older cities and aging
inner-ring suburbs on the other. A central challenge, as U.S.
population rises sharply in this half century, is to break down
exclusionary zoning that denies opportunities to working class
families, forcing ever-more sprawling development.
Participants explored ways to prevent affluent commu-
nities from simply opting out of regional accords and strate-
the linchpin gies. Housing is the linchpin of sustainable development,
of sustainable
development noted Sunne McPeak, formerly Business, Transportation, and
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should be encouraged and assisted, through a mixture
of self-help and outside assistanceprovided at least an even
playing fieldto prosper in an extraordinarily challenging
century. An entire megaregion must function well, noted
PolicyLinks Angela Blackwell, for the entire megaregion to
competitive be competitive. Such an approach and mind-set, combined
with imaginative new federal initiatives, succeeded with
sensational nation-building results from the Jefferson to the
Eisenhower administrations.
Accomplishing as much in the 21st century may be
more complex than in earlier times, given the way metropolitan
regions and megaregions, where most Americans now live,
tend to defy historic city, county, and state boundaries. In addi-
tion to urging responsive new federal policies, Global Urban
mobilize state Summit participants also pointed to the need to mobilize state
governments
governments, with their impressive constitutional powers, to
intervene on behalf of their own economically trailing regions.
Whatever the levelmegaregion, state, single metro region,
and citythere was clear consensus that a winners-all set of
strategies and tools were never more needed.
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An early point of attention, Yaro said, should be to the
special economies and potentials of urban centers that fall
outside of the newly defined megaregions. Examples would
include Louisville and Memphis, key hubs, respectively, for
United Parcel Service and Federal Express, the United States
two leading just-in-time-delivery entities. Other such leading
cities in their respective parts of the United States would be
Denver, Kansas City, and Salt Lake City.
Many of those cities, in fact, serve as regional centers
for geographically huge parts of the nation. Yaro insisted
that just as Presidents Jefferson and Lincoln looked to the
great land spaces of the West, and the two Roosevelts focused
on large natural spaces for economic regeneration, includ-
ing roadways and the expansive navigation systems on the
Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, America 2050s agenda must
be inclusive, working for the entire United States, not just
the megaregions. This is not about feathering the nests of
successful places, he said, but making sure every place can
succeed; the notion of fairness must be imbedded in our
national DNA.
The Great Plains, for example, could be positioned to
an alternative- become the new Persian Gulf of an alternative-energy world.
energy world
They are the locus of hundreds of millions of acres of relatively
fertile land, ideal for growing environmentally acceptable
forms of biofuels. Additionally or alternatively, they could,
with wind farms and solar power, be critical producers of
extraordinarily promising new alternative-energy sources.
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Embracing Science:
Preventing a Diminished Future
Ron Sims
when the university of washington evaluated King Countys pros-
pects for 2050, the results were frightening. With reduced snow pack in
the Cascades, the region was headed for wintertime flooding. In other
seasons there would not be enough water for either people or fish. If
we continued on our current path we would not be able to handle the
300,000 additional people projected to live in King County within a few
decades. When faced with this diminished future, we made the decision
to embrace science.
As we explored all angles of the climate change issue, we realized
that reaching carbon neutrality for the region was our first priority. The
County Executive, repercussions of our not doing so could be great not only for us but for
King County,
the rest of the world. Some experts believe that entire citiesincluding
Washington, U.S.A.;
plenary speaker Alexandria, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Lagoswill be indefensible without
a 40 to 60 percent drop in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. King
County is now committed to 80 percent CO2 reduction by 2050 and we
will be implementing a worldwide cap-and-trade system. Requiring clear,
measurable results, cap-and-trade is especially promising in developing
regions. Africa, for instance, one of the globes lowest-volume carbon emit-
ters, could (with more transparency) be a huge cap-and-trade beneficiary.
In King County, we also knew, however, that we had to build resil-
ience to the effects of climate change that were already in progress. So
the county constructed 300 miles of levees and dissolved all the smaller
flood districts, creating one district at the county level to cope with
the inevitable deluge. In anticipation of major species changes among
trees and animals, the county took steps such as developing new feed
systems for salmon. To keep the city dense yet livable, we decided to
separate roadways from bikeways, make the public bus fleet much more
fuel-efficient, and develop plug-in systems for electric and hybrid cars.
Climate change is now a multi-sector issue. For example, end-
ing sprawling development is not only good for the environment,
but improved land use can help prevent obesity, diabetes, and other
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public health problems: Studies have illustrated the benefits of building
pedestrian-friendly cities. So we began efforts to retrofit existing neigh-
borhoods to make them more walkable, a prevention strategy initially
targeted at communities at greatest risk (those of people of color and
new immigrants). Today walkable neighborhoods are highly popular
among all communities in the region.
Considering the connections and interdependencies among disci-
plines from urban planning to public health and among countries from
the United States to Nigeria, combating the negative effects of climate
change is a complex challenge that calls for worldwide efforts.
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impacts; and 2) Direct: to the extent that global warming
advances, the United States itself will be subjected to serious
coastal flooding, loss of snow packs, droughts, species loss,
and other detrimental effects.
As the worlds largest importer of oil and gas, the
United States is sending immense sums of money annually
the most to some of the most hostile and unstable regions of the world,
hostile and
unstable undermining the nations economic vitality and security.
regions
Participants concluded that the United States must jump-start
the investments critical to a cleaner energy future by legisla-
tion that puts a price on carbonthrough a carbon tax, a cap-
and-trade program, or other vehicle. The country must make
a strong commitment to develop renewable energy sources
(wind, solar, hydrogen, etc.). It must move rapidly to improve
building efficiencies, commit to such renewable energy sources
as solar, wind, and geothermal power, and make the trans-
portation sector greener, with biofuels (beyond ethanol) and
by producing more fuel-efficient autos. And the United States
needs to begin serious planning for resilience to the devas
tating effects of climate change that, despite current and
future mitigation efforts, are already inevitable in vulnerable
low-lying coastal communities.
Every single U.S. communityno excusesmust be
part of the carbon reduction program.
A research agenda should also focus on 1) future uses
of hydrogen, 2) the viability of nuclear technologies based on
fission and fusion, 3) the development of carbon capture and
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storage technology for coal-fired power plants, and 4) national
models for green zoning (land plans that reduce roadway
travel through such devices as transit-oriented development).
strong Strong federal action is required, participants noted,
federal action
to counter entrenched regional and corporate interests, prin-
cipally from the coal and automobile sectors, and then assist
those industries in adopting new energy technologies and eco-
nomic opportunities in other sectors. The federal effort should
include an executive order requiring a climate action plan for
every federal agency and encouraging similar plans at every
level of government.
Finally, existing consumer lifestyles, built on high lev-
els of personal consumption that constantly increase energy
demand, need to be modified through a broad program of
education urging Americans to embrace the old New England
adage Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.
transportation
Increased mobility in and around Americas megaregions
was a major focus of Summit discussions on how national
transportation policy should be formulated. Priorities identi-
fied included the following:
Put megaregions and global gateways first in a national
transportation investment program. Why? New investments
need to be as ambitious in scope as the interstate system, but
with much greater focus on intermodal connections, goods
movement, rail, and reducing the effects of the sectors air
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Leading by Example:
Government on Conservation
Earl Blumenauer
during my six terms in congress, I have worked with my col-
leagues to provide federal support for more sustainable communities.
We directed $5.5 billion to trails and bike paths around the country,
passed the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act (aimed at making devel-
oping countries access to safe water and sanitation a major goal of
U.S. assistance), helped reintroduce streetcars to the U.S. urban fabric,
and bolstered our intercity rail system by keeping Amtrak alive.
But more needs to be done. A demographic shock wave is coming
in the United States, not just from aging residents but from a popula-
tion increase from 281 million people in 2000 to 420 million by 2050,
Member, House of doubling the populations of many communities. Yet our housing market
Representatives
is askew: While single-person households increase and baby boomers
(Oregon), U.S.A.;
plenary speaker find fewer buyers for their large homes, we continue to produce a sur-
plus of 20 million McMansions.
Its time for the federal government to catch up with the numer-
ous states, cities, religious institutions, and college campuses that
are already working to combat the negative effects of climate change.
More than 700 cities have signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate
Protection Agreement, underscoring a fresh perspective across the
country on responding to global warming. My home town of Portland,
Oregon, for example, pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
in 1993 and has since cut them by 1 percent, despite a 17 percent growth
in the population.
The federal government must lead by example. Why not rename
the General Services Administration the Green Services Administration
and have it sport a policy that forbids it from buying any building or
renting any vehicle that is not green? The Department of Defense is the
largest manager of infrastructure in the world (including a half trillion
dollars worth of buildings and bridges) and it is the worlds single larg-
est energy consumer. Why not decrease its energy appetite, which com-
manders know is constraining our military effectiveness, and make it
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another conservation trailblazer? We need to give serious consideration
to a federally imposed carbon tax or cap-and-trade system for green-
house gas emissions.
We must also find new ways to fund badly needed infrastructure
investments. If the federal government had simply retained develop-
ment rights around interstate road entrances, we would have generated
enough revenue to pay for the entire system. Today, we could fund essen-
tial investments in roads, water, airports, and rail systems by instituting
a system like the Base Re-Alignment Commission (BRAC) procedure for
military bases: a panel of experts could prioritize a capital budget, which
Congress would then accept or reject with a single vote.
Foundations can also play an important role in supporting com-
munities sustainability efforts. They can help jump-start conservation-
related efforts from organizations they already support (in community
or mixed-use development, for instance) or they can help leverage
investments and focus the media on relevant societal problems and
policy choices that otherwise would get little public attention.
The public is ready to take action. Whether its the growing interest
in streetcars, the willingness to fund conservation and open-space initia-
tives, or the recognition that our children need to be able to walk and
bike to school safely, the public is way ahead of officials on the issues that
make their communities more livable and sustainable. If we give the pub-
lic choices that make sense and treat them as partners in the planning
process, they are ready and willing to support these conservation and
sustainability efforts. Our national security and the future of the planet
are at stake.
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carbon dioxide sinks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
and supports local agriculture and recreation. One major
goal must be reduction of diesel toxicity around major ports.
Build social equity and environmental and land-use crite-
ria into federal transportation decision-making guidelines.
California does this by devolving transportation project deci-
sion-making to the MPOs in its regions, which then judge
projects against their comprehensive planning framework.
To provide adequate transportation revenue, Congress
should consider either indexing the gas tax to inflation or
consider a tax on vehicle miles traveled to ensure a constant
revenue stream in the face of greater fuel efficiency, electric
cars, and the adoption of biofuels.
Congressional earmarking of transportation projects hampers
rational decision-making. Consideration should be given to
the Base Re-Alignment Commission (BRAC) method of military
base closings, with a single up or down congressional vote,
based on recommendations of an independent commission to
determine priority national transportation investments. (The
BRAC idea was subsequently incorporated in the January 2008
report of the bipartisan National Surface Transportation Policy
and Review Commission.)
landscape
The America 2050 panel recommended that in the spirit of
Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior should be
instructed to conduct a thorough, constantly updated National
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
Megaregion Boundary
Urbanized Land
Unprotected Landscape
Protected Landscape
Estuaries
Credit: Regional Plan Association, adapted from the Appalachian Mountain Club
270
Landscape Survey. Why? The scenic, historic, working land-
scapes of America are threatened on multiple fronts, ranging
suburban from suburban sprawl, mining, and deforestation to climate
sprawl,
mining, and change. University of Pennsylvania researchers calculate that
deforestation
if todays rate of urbanization continues, the United States will
develop more land in the next four decades than in the past
four centuries.
In the Eastern United States, vast areas of the Central
Appalachians are being destroyed by mountaintop mining for
coal, while the great coastal estuaries are threatened by pollu-
tion and the spread of low-density subdivisions. In the West,
public lands are threatened by strip mining, clear-cutting,
and overgrazing. Along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico
coastal areas, barrier beaches and islands and wetlands are
threatened by second home development and sea rise. Across
the country, national parks suffer from under-maintenance
while some of the most productive agricultural lands in
or near metropolitan areas are being fragmented by large
lot subdivisions.
National A National Landscape Survey would identify critical
Landscape
Survey areas to be protected. Examples include geological, hydrologi-
cal, and ecological areas with important mountain ranges and
significant aquifers and recharge zones; areas of high biodiver-
sity; critical wildlife habitats; geneways (pathways for species
migration that call out for protection); areas with important
cultural, historical, archeological, or visual resources that could
be degraded or lost as a result of controlled or incompatible
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6. america 2050: u.s. strategy for the next half century
future steps
The urgent America 2050 message, the Summit panelists
suggested, could be spread (even relaunched) in a well-planned
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collaboration in which the Regional Plan Association (which
gave birth to the idea) works with other national networks, such
as the Urban Land Institute, the Council on Competitiveness,
PolicyLink, the American Planning Association, Brookings
Metropolitan Policy Program, and National League of Cities,
as well as a variety of major business, environmental, religious,
and social justice organizations. The reality is, however,
Summit participants noted, that major national issue cam-
paigns require millions of dollars and years of effort; the
America 2050 agenda will likely be no exception.
Yet there was little doubt about the necessity of broad
vision and an ambitious targetto bring an America 2050
like agenda to public prominence as quickly as possible,
National introducing a modern National Growth Strategy worthy
Growth
Strategy in spirit of the earlier national development frameworks
advanced by President Thomas Jefferson in 1808 and President
Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.
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