Cultural and racial diversity advances dramatically, year by year, as an historically white Anglo-Saxon culture loses its majorities. Globalization is driving deep and growing differences of income between the skilled and unskilled, tearing at our social fabric. Fast-advancing technology poses an array of opportunities and perils. Faceless, sprawling physical development devours land, endangers our air and water, and threatens the very character of our communities. Socially dysfunctional families and poor education throw an ominous cloud over the preparedness of our workforces, the key to our future in fierce global competition.
Splintered governments make coherent regional governance immensely difficult.
Yet we found that civic entrepreneurs are struggling imaginatively with these challenges, starting to forge solutions in regions across the nation. The answer is clearly no. But those which remember that the struggle is never over, which make alertness, fresh thinking, and constant readaptation their normal mode of operating, will have the best run at the globalized age. Indeed, with their sense of adventure and experimentation, precisely those cities and regions are likely to be the most stimulating communities of the times. The kind of place one would choose to live.