Report Analyzes Booming Megapolitan West

By Matthew Frank, 7-19-08

	Caption: Click the image to download the executive summary of Mountain Megas. Click here for the full report (PDF).

A new report by the Brookings Institution assesses the dramatic population growth and economic and demographic shifts redefining the southern Intermountain West.

As all eyes turn to the West for the Democratic National Convention, now exists "a teachable moment for the region itself and us to convey the new realities on the ground," said Mark Muro, fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "The region is perpetually misunderstood and constantly caricatured, and we think this is an opportunity to address the real nature of its challenges."

The megapolitan regions analyzed in the report are Colorado's Front Range, Greater Las Vegas, Northern New Mexico, Arizona's Sun Corridor and Utah's Wasatch Front.

The 80-page report, entitled Mountain Megas: America’s Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper, surveys trends and federal policy challenges in these areas and draws a number of conclusions, including (in summary):

1. The Intermountain West -- dominated by its five vast “megapolitan” areas -- has emerged as America’s fastest-changing, most surprisingly urban region.
   
   The report cites the region's ongoing and surprisingly urban population explosion, its rapidly changing economy, demographic changes due to in-migration from other states and aboard, and that the boom will very likely continue -- the five megas are together projected to add nearly 12.7 million residents and more than 8 million jobs by 2040.
   
   "The region is neither the Old West, nor the New West. It is the New New West, continuously unfolding."
   
   
2. These changes have brought many benefits to the Intermountain West but they also are posing a series of complex, mega-scaled challenges.
   
   The report cites inadequate transportation networks and water and energy systems and grids; the need to enhance research capacity and high-value industry clusters; the need for training and educating an increasingly diverse population; and, despite the existence of mountains and Indian reservations that have led to relatively high-density urban spaces in the West, the need to undo the legacies of auto-oriented development.
   
   Muro adds: "The greatest of the design challenges is retrofitting the auto-scape, and turning a relatively dense but largely monotonous development field into a more varied and complex pattern." He called light rail "urban shock therapy."
   
   
3. Given these challenges, the time is right for regional leaders and Washington to fashion a new partnership to surmount regional challenges and assert leadership in the nation and the world.
   
   "Western leaders require a steady, supportive partner in the federal government to offer leadership on certain uniquely federal, border-transcending issues like inter-mega transportation, basic science research, immigration, and climate change responses even as it works more frequently to empower the rising megas of the West."

	Click the image for a larger version

The report is part of the Brookings Institution's assessments of federal public policy, which focus primarily on metropolitan areas. "We turned to the region, unbeknownst to the rest of the country, as the most urban region in the country," Muro said.

It excludes the northern states in the Intermountain West -- Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. But Muro said there's a "new round of incipient megas." The Boise area, for instance.

"This dynamic is ubiquitous," Muro said. "It just happens that the Southern Rockies manifested in an incredibly Western way."

On Tuesday, July 22, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper will host a public presentation of the report's findings with remarks from Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. It will take place at the Law Offices of Moye White, 1400 16th Street, 6th Floor, from 11:30 - 2:30, in Denver.

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. Mountain Megas was prepared as part of its Blueprint for American Prosperity.

Invoking Wallace Stegner, Muro said of the report's thesis: "We need a mega-urban society that's livable to match the scenery."
[End of article]