What happens to Cascadia when U.S. wanes

I missed President Bush's State of the Union speech tonight because I was reading about how much the world has changed since he took office.

It's worth reading this article from the Sunday New York Times Magazine, which shows how the world is dividing into three superpowers (U.S., China and the E.U.) that will increasingly compete for the growing "second world" countries like India, Turkey, Brazil and Vietnam. There are plenty of statistics and anecdotes showing how this trend accelerated during the past eight years and will continue to do so.

I find myself thinking immediately about what this means for Cascadia. If the bellicose behavior of the U.S. over the last several years hurt America's stature, and if Canada is so small as to be irrelevant globally, what about our region? Apparently there's more trade in the Japan-India-Australia triangle than across the Pacific and more Chinese study in Europe than the U.S. Does it mean no more booming ports in Seattle and Vancouver; fewer Chinese professionals who fondly recall living in the Northwest during school?

The article offers a series of ideas for the next couple of presidents. But this region needs leaders who appreciate the examples of other countries and our peer metro areas around the world. It needs vigorous diplomacy on a regional level. And it needs more-sustainable development here to insulate us from potential global shocks through more efficient transportation, better use of resources and improvement of the cultural draws that make this part of the world a desirable place to live.

I'll try to work this out some here in the coming months. What ideas am I missing?

Comments

[brian]

That article was certainly insightful but I think too quick to place blame or assume the trend to be negative.

The loss of hegemonic power by 300 million in a world of over 6 billion seems natural to me.

[Dara]

I'd had the same questions, actually, when I found that article back in January. One thing I really think we need is better cross-BC/Washington State crossing, to make that as easy as possible within region, specifically to try to work around some of the abuses perpetrated upon people coming here to study, work, and so on. We need more programmes like Shoreline Community College's international school, programmes that are attractive enough to overcome the policies and attitude of the Federal government.

And we need better in-region mobility, so that if, say, BC has better luck at this than Washington State or Oregon (or vice-versa), then the benefits of (and to) the entire region can be shared. (Say, if BC had successes, participants could more easily take advantages of UW research facilities, just for example.) The train link between Oregon, Washington State, and Vancouver needs to be expanded in every way - and lengthening it wouldn't be a bad idea, either - but really, it's mostly about making border crossings easier, not more difficult.

I liked the original idea Washington State had for the special-driver's-license-as-passport-equivalent-for-BC-crossings. It's gotten expanded out quite a bit now - a bit too much for my tastes because of the whole Federal identity document baggage. So I'm not sure what I think about that right now. But I want something like that which would allow free movement within the region, even if it isn't recognised past that.