A New Vision for American Development

THE BEST NEW IDEA SINCE SLICED BREAD

...is the title of a contest being held by the SEIU, in an attempt to engage the citizenry in a national dialogue about how to rebuild the competitiveness of this country.

I've submitted an entry, which can be found at:

http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/idea/15115

Other people have submitted ideas like teaching peace, not war, to the nation's children. This is a great idea. But what about all those people who drive around... with peace sign stickers on their bumpers? That is, consuming oil that has a good chance of coming from a foreign country where we go fight wars to ensure our access to the oil, all the while claiming that the solution is to embrace peace, not war.

Another idea is to use mass drivers to shoot our nuclear waste into space in sealed cartridges, presumably en route to the sun. I'm not sure this is such a good idea -- except that the mass driver might turn out to be the best way to get *anything* into space, except perhaps humans, depending on how the g-forces are calibrated for lift-off.

However, what about the country below? I would say that we need to rebuild the national public transportation system to include high-speed rail connecting the major regions, with fast, efficient, high-quality transit connecting all population centers of 1,000 people or more. New development of homes and jobs needs to be concentrated around this network, and business incubation/workforce training centers distributed near most of the hubs (stations) on the system. The idea is that most Americans who live in towns or cities would be able to walk/bike to the corner store and the transit station, and some of them even to work.

Job training centers could include union co-ops, which would make great additions to communities where jobs and housing are clustered around stations that act as hubs on an upgraded national public transportation system, one that is high-quality, high-speed, efficient and accessible to most Americans living in towns of 1,000 or more people.

Peace is just part of the picture. We can only have peace once we no longer have the internal demand within our country for oil that is externally produced. I think the big picture is to rebuild our national infrastructure so that jobs and housing can be concentrated mostly within walking distance of an upgraded national high-speed, high-quality public transportation system.

Development of homes and jobs should be concentrated around this upgraded national public transportation system, so that people can easily walk/bike from home to work to the corner store to the pub... without needing their cars. Also, workforce development and business incubation centers should be located near the hubs on this system, to further help kick-start the local economies.

We can find new transportation technologies, or use existing ones, but integrate them into a comprehensive national system, around which most new development of jobs and housing must be concentrated. I'm talking about a fast (high-speed in most cases), high-quality, efficient public transportation system that serves most towns and cities over 1,000 people in population. It would be built by union labor, but the Transit Oreinted Developments around it would incubate business and train workers for both union and non-union positions (it's hard to unionize people that work for themselves or in an extremely small/start-up business). I call this the new vision for American development, and it's expanded here:

http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/idea/15115

What do you think?

cheers,
~Garlynn