The role of metropolitan mega-regions and significant attitude changes are key in addressing the economic challenges caused by global warming, says Neal Peirce, a leading social observer and writer about the political and economic dynamics of metropolitan areas.
Peirce says that energy inflation and climate change are “the two big cause-and-effect phenomena that we need to focus on.” For that, Peirce believes “determined local action” by individual cities, towns, and counties
is necessary to take “the specific climate changing steps that need to occur.” The issues, he says, include tighter land controls, urban sprawl, transportation, gas consumption, and carbon emissions; “the gravity of the global carbon crisis—our willingness to be responsible world citizens—suggests it’s time for some radical attitude changes.”
“All inherent problems of mega-regions anywhere is their very size and splintered governance,” says Peirce. For the Central Valley, he says, “There is some good news…your state government has shown clear interest with its California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, created by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2005.”
Peirce sees an “emergence of a so-far chaotic but unmistakable, massive green push by local governments, businesses, and many citizen groups--no single silver bullets to solve our energy and climate changes, but a significant start to the cascade of new approaches, lifestyles, ways of transportation, radical recycling, [and] community designs.”
