You make a good case for the shortcomings of the existing regional groupings (policy institutes, think tanks, what-have-yous) for the purposes under discussion in this and similar blogs.

So yes, in general, the more the merrier in the discussion and in the thinking and action-taking — many ideas from many sources.

I’m only wary of absorbing too many resources in building parallel structures and of balkanizing our thinking. Have you any idea how many people are reading this and the other blogs listed above? Ideally, we’re all sampling from a wide variety of them and not just sticking close to home. The capacity for building linkages being, of course, a hallmark of the internet.

BTW: Your piece on your Global Midwest Blog (
http://globalmidwest.typepad.com/global-midwest/) on the possible uses of Wal-Mart for solving more than one issue in the City of Chicago is exactly the kind of “opportunistic” thinking that we need to overcome the boundaries on maps and in our minds that can get in the way.

There really are no Midwestern regionally-oriented policy institutes that not only look at the region as a whole, but try to link the various issues — urban, rural, transport, education, etc. – to each other and, especially, do this from a Midwestern base. That is, there hasn’t been until now. That’s the mandate of our Global Midwest Initiative, just getting off the ground, but trying to fill this gap in the same way that, say, the Southern Growth Policy Board, tries to do in the South. Check us out at http://www.globalmidwest.org.

This is not to knock the Northeast-Midwest Institute or Brookings’ Restoring Prosperity Initiative.

The former does some valuable research, but exists mostly as a Washington-based lobbying organization for Midwestern and Northeastern interests, as defined by the state governments. As its name implies, it focuses equally on the Northeast. So far as I know, it’s never tried to put together a Midwest Congressional Caucus, which we so badly need.

The latter is closely linked to Brookings’ Great Lakes Initiative, which published the invaluable report, The Vital Center. This was done by John Austin, who’s now back at Brookings and continuing this work. Anything that John does has to be good. But, like the Northeast-Midwest Inititive, this is Washington-based and, quite naturally, sees everything from a Beltway point of view — basically, how can federal policy impact Midwestern problems. This also is very valuable, but is no substitute for a program run from the Midwest, seen from the Midwestern point of view, and asking how the Midwest tiself can impact its own problems. GMI and Brookings are working closely together. John Austin is on our advisory board. Our goal is to complement each other’s work, not compete.

in addition, Restoring Prosperity is aimed at revitalizing America’s older industrial cities. This is not a specifically Midwestern project, although a lot of Midwestern cities are under their microscope, for obvious reasons. It hs nothing to do with, say, rural issues or smaller cities or interstate cooperation or other issues that GMI embraces.

GMI is not a regional think tank. We sponsor some original research. but we’re we very sensitive to the fact that thunderbolts of wisdom hurled from the Olympan heights of Chicago might not always be apprecited outside Chicago. Rather, we see ourselves as a forum, bringing Midwesterners together to talk about common problems. Brookings sees itself as more of a think tank, quite properly.

As you can see, any number are playing. This is good. Until now, the Midwest has suffered from a deficit of regional thinking. So the more voices are heard, the better. Monmouth is part of this, and I hope they don’t remain the only college involved. Urbanophile is part of this, as are the many other Midwestern blogs. GMI and Brookings and other institutions are part of this. The more the merrier.

Gingerman’s other points are also good, but I can’t resist pointing out that I made all of them in my book. At the risk of sounding like a book salesman, I hope he’ll get a copy.

Rather than simply compete on cost, the Midwest should concentrate first on innovation in fields that are close to home (e.g., metal technology, fresh water-related research, etc.) and that are new and have many dimensions to explore and are yet to be applied in many fields (e.g., nanotechnology, renewable energy, etc.). These are fields in which our great universities can give us an incomparable advantage.

If we never dream it, it never will happen: reciprocal tuition, HSR connecting the universities and the cities where students come from and go to, joint projects, etc. And if we get bogged down in the details, it’ll never happen: e.g., whether it’s 60 or 75 minutes by HSR between Chgo and Indy. We should keep the big picture in mind.

… and hooray for Monmouth! There is a distinct Midwestern sensibility connected to our physical region and its history. We should tout it!

NIMBYism is a problem, but one that California is already dealing with with reasonable success. High-speed rail can have many noise mitigations, such as sound walls. In the Chicago suburbs it might not even need them, as the trains would not be able to go at full speed. High-speed trains are designed to be aerodynamic, and electric traction is quieter than diesel traction, which means a high-speed train at 110 mph may not be any noisier than a low-speed freight train at 79 mph.

First I think high speed rail holds the potential of greatly reshaping metropolitan Chicago from a sprawl to more dispersed, but concentrated, suburbs. I can easily imagine places like New Buffalo, Michigan, Michigan City, Indiana, or even Madison becoming the hot bedroom communities. But wouldn’t such a drastic change in the development scene threaten Illinois’ property interests?

Second, I noted some heated opposition in Chicago’s suburbs to the Canadian National’s purchase of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway. The CN intends to capture more freight traffic around the city but the diversion of freight to new routes produced a strongly negative reaction in the communities in line to pick up the traffic. To what extent will HSR result in significant rerouting of freight through the suburbs? Will HSR require reconfiguration of freight routes to bypass the Chicago freight “bottleneck”?

For the foregoing reasons I fear that HSR will run into an orchestrated “not in my back yard” campaign in Chicago’s suburbs. Suburban homeowners may well be told that HSR threatens home values and will bring either a host of freight trains to their neighborhood, or noisy 110 mph passenger trains “blasting” through.

Third (and disappointingly the Obama administration seems to be burying this), highway funding faces major fiscal problems as hybrid and high mileage vehicles become more common. Right now a pure electric car pays no highway use taxes (with the possible exception of Oregon). It seems apparent (to me at least) that tolls and congestion pricing for highways is “needed” to fund roads (or even a road use fee using vehicle mounted GPS and telematics). But politically these ideas are going nowhere, and the highway construction interests have a vested interest in the current transportation system and protecting its funding. HSR promises to worsen the situation for these interests by cutting further into available funds for highway construction.

Also, Amtrak’s CASM or Cost Per Available Seat Mile, (dare you to bring this up during happy hour when talking to a hot chick) is 23 cents vs. 9 cents for a discount airline. Moreover, airports can raise revenue bonds through PFCs. No chance this MW rail network would make it without a major operating subsidy from taxpayers.

Precisely because Indy is NOT a passenger air hub, there is good service at good prices to almost all the other Midwest cities. Almost all of them are a hub for one airline or another: MSP, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis [though American is de-emphasizing it], Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we \punch higher than our weight\ in the convention business.

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I agree with Alon about laying out urban transit in a network for Midwestern cities, and would shade Richard’s comments in that direction: unless and until the \second cities\ of the Midwest have good transit webs, HSR won’t serve as a regionalizing tool by connecting CBD to CBD. With a good web of intra-region transit, the actual HSR connection point becomes less important.

The recent Brookings study shows an inexorable march of job share (if not jobs) out of the CBD in most cities, including the Midwestern ones. In other words, the suburbs and exurbs have much higher job growth, so CBD-centered \hub and spoke\ public transit would serve a lower and lower percentage of work commuters with each succeeding year in any given metro.

There’s a reason cities still build ring roads and crosstown boulevards: they go where people want to go. Why not \ring trains\ and crosstowns?

Long-distance rail means different things depending on how good the service is. In European and Asian terms, Chicago-Cincinnati is a short-distance potential HSR corridor; SNCF’s plan calls for Chicago-Cincinnati service in 1:45. What you say about air service is only applicable within a country with poor passenger rail. When rail travel times shrink, so do business decisions. Both Lyon and Lille have had some reinvestment once the TGV drove them closer to Paris.

Commuter rail is separate from light rail. It’s usually not cost-effective unless you run it mostly on legacy rail lines, which fortunately the Midwest has plenty of. Tram-trains, which mix commuter rail and light rail, are only a good idea for small cities where the only important destination is the CBD – see explanation by Jarrett Walker about the Karlsruhe system. Otherwise, it’s important to serve multiple hubs, and maximize coverage with timed cross-platform transfers and stations in major neighborhoods. German S-Bahns and the Paris RER, which are effectively rapid transit on a larger scale, should be considered the epitome of good commuter rail; the Metra way, which assumes nobody would ever ride rail except peak-hour commuters to the Loop, is the epitome of bad commuter rail.