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Gary is a founding and current member of the World Undersea Tunnel Association

What Others Have Said About Gary Alan Spanovich and the Wholistic Approach

  • “Gary Alan Spanovich has attempted to bring together his professional experience as a planner with his longstanding interest in a practical and holistic approach to spirituality. He incorporates what I think of as fundamental human values. I believe his explanation of how spirituality can be introduced into the workplace will have a compelling appeal to anyone interested in creating a more peaceful and happier world, whatever work they do”.  The Dalai Lama, the 1989 Nobel Peace Laureate

  • “I am writing on behalf of Gary Spanovich. I hope you will decide in favor of funding this important project to promote world peace and intercultural communication”. United States Senator Mark O. Hatfield - Oregon

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  • “I do believe that we can’t survive at the beginning of the 21st century with the ethics of the 20th century. We need to change the value system.” President of Costa Rica Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez & 1987 Nobel Peace Prize

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  • “It is indeed wonderful of you to have such an enormous interest and warm heart about peace establishment not only on the Korean Peninsula but across the world”. Former President of South Korea Kim Dae Jung & 2000 Nobel Peace Prize

 

Partial List of Clients

 

Port of Portland; Clark County, Washington; Port of Tillamook Bay; ODOT; LCDC; Clackamas County, Oregon; West Linn, Oregon; City of Olympia; Cogan Owens Cogan; Portland & Western Railroad; Western Oregon University; Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon;  World Undersea Tunnel Association, Seoul, South Korea; World Trade Center Association, New York, New York & Dalian, China; Korean Transport Institute, Seoul, South Korea; other clients.

 

Books Published

 

  • “A Book of Gentleness; Developing a Dialogue with God” - College text book in College Religion and Philosophy Departments.

  • “How to Achieve World Peace; 6 Nobel Peace Laureates Answer the Question” - College textbook.

  • “A Wholistic Approach to Planning & Decision-Making” – With A Two Forward by the Dalai Lama, 1989 Nobel Peace Prizewinner recommending Professor Spanovich’s Wholistic Approach 

Policy Feedback for “Emerging Cross-Border Mega-City Region in NE Asia and Sustainable Transport Development Strategy”

By Gary Alan Spanovich, A.I.C.P.

Wholistic Peace Institute: Transportation Research and Futures Program

The Conference and its Focus

I was honored to participate in a conference this year co-sponsored by The Korea Transport Institute and the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Korea Transport Institute is a research arm of the South Korean Government, similar to the Transportation Research Board in the United States. The East-West Center is a part of the University of Hawaii and brings research and people together from Asia and the West.

The Conference was on “Emerging Cross-Border Mega-City Regions and Sustainable Transportation” from August 12-13, 2010. A number of experts gathered from all over the world to review research and critique each other’s work on this important topic; one which has huge policy implications for the nations of the world and the architects, engineers, and other professionals that much care for and keep our cities of the world in smooth harmony; especially with providing transportation services for what is becoming larger and large urban metropolitan areas.

 

The Importance of Adopting a 100 Year Approach and a Wholistic Approach

The future is unknowable and yet we must discern it! We cannot know the future by simply extrapolating past trends in land use, transportation, or in other areas. Henry Ford once said “if I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. Tomorrow belongs to those with vision and those that display leadership. The key to understanding mega-cities is to realize that they are a new phenomenon; one which has never existed on the Earth so we can observe them in the present time frame but we cannot understand them from the past; for they belong to the future. During our most informative conference I heard many times about the feasibility of undersea tunnels which might connect nations and some commented on the English Channel “Chunnel” being a waste of money. However as peak oil begins to severely decline, any and all mass transit systems across the Earth will become increasingly valuable. In today’s time we can make simple judgments and simple assertions and we can look back over the last few decades and also make simple conclusions. But for the remainder of this century, the next 90 years; no such data exists or even wisdom exists as to what humanity might be facing or how we will respond to it; this I call the “changing phenomenon of the 21st Century”).

 

As our world cities begin to attract populations of 50 million people or more; and these world cities begin to grow into huge regions, or mega-cities; where will the funding come from to build the infrastructure to service them? Will people be able to live together in civil society or will there be periods of anarchy? Sustainability might take on a wholly different priority, one which relates more to survival rather than a “good idea”. What about fresh water, where will it come from as the Earth becomes increasingly desertified? How will bring transportation services to all, so all can work who wants too? How will storm drainage and sewer treatment be handled; where will the funds come from to build this? The key to the future will rely on new thinking; new approaches; and both visionary thinking and visionary leadership by our architects, planners and engineers and geographers. As long as we have one eye on our past, we will miss preparing for the opportunities of the 21st Century.

In order to introduce this 100 year approach, I have put together a simple summary of the “changing phenomenon of the 21st Century” in Part C. It is against the back drop of these significant world trends that the city researchers must relate to. Many of the papers presented at the conference simply extrapolated past trends; however the future and the changing phenomenon will require new leadership, new creativity and new innovation in approaches and methodologies. What these new approaches will do is to sound an “alarm bell” for the Presidents of the countries of the world as to what we will be facing as architects, engineers and professionals who are charged with keeping our cities running. I have tried to offer this perspective, both at the conference and in this paper. I was also encouraged to do so by Dr. Yoon Hyung Kim, one of the conference organizers and also the Senior Fellow at the East-West Center as well as a Professor of Foreign Studies at Hankuk University in Seoul. Dr. Kim encouraged me to write from a longer range and bigger perspective to assist the professors of today to take leadership and to use new methods to understand urban phenomenon that will occur for the first time in human history. Without new leadership in understanding the future; we will not be prepared to meet it; and so our world cities may begin to decline in this century.

 

Major World Trends That Must Influence Our Thinking on Mega-Cities and Sustainable Transportation

Changing Phenomenon of the 21st Century a Global Perspective

A 100 year approach will tell us that the changing phenomenon of the 21st Century will require new ways of thinking and new world infrastructure; phenomenon such as: the end of peak oil; greatly reduced supplies of fresh water; major portions of the planet will succumb to desertification causing migration or the need for pipelines to bring in fresh water; the melting of the polar areas, exposing land for mineral extraction that has never been available; technological advances;   the population increases and the redistribution of population; etc.

Climate Change & Hurricanes: How Will Mega Cities Deal With This?

  • The largest sized hurricane ever recorded occurred in the early 2000’s and covered half the Atlantic Ocean; the same year the highest wind speed ever recorded for a hurricane occurred (will hurricanes evolve into tornadoes); today the hurricane season starts earlier and ends later

  • The phenomenon of the 21st century will not be the phenomenon of the 20th century and we will have to create new methodologies and philosophies to understand and respond to them.

Changing Population of the 21st century (UN Statistics): Implications for Mega Cities

  • World Population Trends:  

    • 1900-1.65 billion people

    • 1999-6 billion people (last billion was added in only 12 years)

    •  2013-7 billion

    • 2028-8 billion

    • 2054-9 billion

    • 2100-10 to 12 billion people

  • World Life Expectancy:

    • 1950-45 years

    • 2000-65 years

    • 2050-76 years

 

The Top Five Most Populous Countries of the World: This Helps Us Understand Where Mega-Cities Will Occur

1950                                                   2004                                                   2050

China: 562 million                          China: 1.3 billion                             India: 1.6 billion

India: 370 million                           India: 1.07 billion                            China: 1.4 billion

US: 152 million                                US: 294 million                               US: 420 million

Russia: 101 million                         Indonesia: 239 million                   Indonesia: 336 mil.

Japan: 84 million                           Brazil: 184 million                           Nigeria: 307 mil.    

 

Changing Distribution of the World’s Population: The Mega Cities of Europe Will Pale next to the Mega Cities of Asia and Africa

                                                1900               1999               2050               2150

Africa                                    8.1%               12.8%            19.8%            23.7%

Asia                                       57.4%            60.8%            59.1%            57.1%

Europe                                  24.7%            12.2%            7.0%               5.3%

Latin America                     4.5%               8.5%               9.1%               9.4%

 North America                   5.0%               5.1%               4.4%               4.1%

Oceania                                .4%                 .5%                 .5%                 .5%

Other Major Trends in the 21st Century:

  • Large cities today will become mega-cities in 100 years

  • Today our largest cities are: Mexico City-27 million; Tokyo SMSA-32 million

  • Tomorrow: Mexico City-50 million; Tokyo-+50 million; 50 million person cities in India; China; Indonesia; Nigeria; Brazil

  • Ten world cities of 50 million or more by the end of the century

  • These cities of 50 million could become ungovernable and unserviceable

 

A Wholistic Approach™ To Planning & Decision making offers a new alternative to understanding the changing phenomenon of the 21st century and to planning for situations that are brand new in scope.  The Wholistic Approach can be defined as: “planning that recognizes that all finite resources are in relationship with one another and that it is the relationship between discrete parts that is more important than the discrete parts themselves”, i.e. “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. It understands that everything is connected; everything is inter-dependent; and offers new theories and new analytical methods to understand “underlying causes” of problems and their potential solutions at a more fundamental level. The need for a Global Transportation Plan and a “Public Works United Nations” to determine Global Transportation and Infrastructure needs: Water; Storm Drainage; Sewer; and especially transportation to move people, goods, natural resources between markets, population centers and Mega-cities and nation states world-wide.

Understanding the Need for a World Transportation Plan

 

  • Changing phenomenon of the 21st Century will require new ways of thinking and new world infrastructure

    • The Wholistic Approach To Planning & Decision Making

    • The population increase and the redistribution of population will

    • change how the world does business

  • The need for a Global Transportation Plan and an Infrastructure

  • UN to determine Global Transportation and Infrastructure needs

    • Water; Storm Drainage; Sewer; and especially transportation to move people, goods, natural resources between markets and population centers world-wide

    • The importance of building the Bering Strait Undersea Tunnel and others such as the Korea-China & Korea-Japan Undersea Tunnel

 

The importance of World Undersea Tunnels in connecting mega-cities; economic regions; opening up new land for resource development, especially in the Polar Regions: The Bering Strait Undersea Tunnel to connect North America and Asia through Russia and the United States; The Korea-Japan Undersea Tunnel; and the Korea-China Undersea Tunnel.

 

Author’s Review of Papers

Feedback on Paper 4: The Emerging Cross-Border Mega-City
 

This well written and researched paper offers a very good explanation of the phenomenon of mega-cities and how they have come about and their importance to both the world economy as well as the economy of the nation states of Korea, China, and Japan.  The author’s identification of the “bottoms up” approach of local city and political leaders and investment firms to stimulate trade and development and investment between countries has been this author’s experience. I have been involved in working to develop four World Trade Center buildings (80 stories each) in Dalian, Changchun, Shenyang, and Nanning China. Local political and city leaders have in most cases offered both free land and major tax and utility incentives to locate these developments there, versus another country and versus another city. These market and investment forces are very powerful, especially in China and serve to fuel the “mega city” the authored describes in his paper.

The author relates the following characteristics of mega-cities: Local political leaders seek to form strategic alliances with complimentary local economies; Neither side waits for state subsidies; local political leaders lead this based on market opportunities; The new “bottoms up” approach versus the traditional “top down” approach; Market forces are the chief architect of these new cross border economic regions; China is the economic engine of the Korea-China-Japan economic region; Trade and investment interact in a mutually reinforcing way.

It is this authors experience in China, especially in Dalian, China, one of the cities in the PYSR, that confirms for him that Paper 4 is right on the mark in its understanding of the economic forces which are creating the mega-cities which cross borders.  This author can report that Intel’s 5 Billion dollar investment in Dalian, China; means that Intel has moved R & D functions and corporate functions to Dalian, also that many other corporations wish to make Dalian their corporate home, moving their executives there.  This confirms point of Paper 4 that now firms are responding to Chinese local market demand and product cycles are getting shorter.

To service this cross-border mega-city it is my viewpoint that the smooth movement of people and goods are necessary. Transportation being a “derived demand” from interacting land use activities.

The author’s conclusions were:

(1) the need for a new vision for regional development.  This author recommends that the Regional economic and infrastructure and political leaders of the PYSR should be brought together annually to: take a Wholistic view, i.e. the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; to share technical information and future plans; clarify objectives of their collaboration; to build a joint sense of identity like the EU; to plan for infrastructure.

(2) Reduce competition and increase collaboration; annual working group meetings will help this.

(3) Once the informal economic strategies have been implemented there should be a second step of a formal MOU between member countries to strengthen institutionalization.

(4) Deficient financial resources; investment bankers and firms such as KPMG; Deloitte; PWC should be invited to these annual meetings;

(5) Need for joint research and new NGO’s should be started such as the World Undersea Tunnel Association;

(6) Building the common vision; this becomes the most important point, creating an “identify” and offering to the world a “brand”;

(7) Complementariness among cities; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts;

(8) Fortify institutionalization and

(9) Strengthening the Central Government Role; through the appointment of government offices to formally coordinate with, say "Undersecretary of Mega Cities", new positions and new roles for government.

 

Feedback on Paper 5: The Busan-Fukuoka Mega-City Region

 As contrasted to the “bottoms up” approach discussed in Paper 4; the Busan-Fukuoka mega-city region was initiated from different market and political forces.  It was initiated by President Lee Myung-buk and a number of Korean and Japanese political leaders which was institutionalized as the Governor’s Meeting for the Japan-Korea Strait zone, an incubator for the Japan-Korea Strait Zone; and the Busan-Fukuoka Economic Cooperation Council which has initiated joint projects.  The Council has laid out a strong vision and basic strategies, policies and projects to move the Mega-city forward.

This too is a well written and researched paper and offers an analysis of how to initiate and move a mega-city to further develop it as an economic engine that will cross-borders and create jobs and wealth. It is interesting to note that the Region includes as its foundation stones: a concentration of universities; technology and R & D centers; large scale markets; etc.  Also the paper makes the point that the two cities, Busan and Fukuoka are supposed to encourage transportation companies to increase services of existing high-speed boats, ferry boats and planes, and airlines. The newly established marine and ferry connections have played a significant role in helping to define this mega-city. Also the high level policy interest of the Korean and Japanese government in creating and identifying this mega-city and economic region was instrumental in its formation.

Both Paper 4 with its discussion of the driving force being local elected and market and investment forces; and Paper 5 with its discussion of its high level political initiation and institutionalization policies, offer two contrasting ways to nurture a mega-city across borders. If both the governmental policies of the Busan-Fukuoka mega-city could be combined with the market, investment, and mayoral impetus of the PYSR mega-city this would then be ideal.

 

Feedback on Paper 6: Sustainable Transportation Development Strategy in the NE Asia Mega-City Region

Another excellently written and researched paper makes the point that the NE Asia mega-cities must be served by new infrastructure, constructed to establish transportation systems so that they can achieve the goals of cooperation between neighboring mega-city regions, is all right on the mark.

This author recommends that the Public Works officials of both the local, state, provincial, and federal governments should share their long range and short range infrastructure plans; and should jointly meet to look at long term transportation investments, such as undersea tunnels. Especially looking at the transportation needs and the demand for multi-modal transportation services in the 2035 year; the 2050 year; and even the 2075 year.  To this end this author believes that annual conferences should be held on these issues. Also the author as President of the World Undersea Tunnel Association offers its NGO to play a coordination role on the “very future” transportation needs in this mega-city cross border corridors.

Paper 6 makes the point that “moving travel from the single occupant automobile to train or rail” moves the transportation system in the direction of sustainability. This author agrees with that, with the phenomenon of global warming and the impact of carbon based emissions, surely the automobile is one of the most environmentally debilitating ways for human beings to move around between land use activities.

This author agrees with the conclusions of Paper 6; the Japan-Korea tunnel should be pursued; the Korea-China tunnel should be studied now with a possible future year construction date; with the train-ferry between Korea-China being the most efficient solution now.

Conclusions

Major conclusions that can be ascertained by these three well written and researched papers are as follows:

  1. In this author’s view the three papers offer a “whole” view, when combined as to how to understand mega-cities and their cross border impacts and how to both nurture them and to make them stronger.

  2. Globalization, as Paper 4 states: “globalization puts regions into borderless and unlimited competition; regions have to find an independent way to survive and prosper rather than depend on nation-states…It is a critical strategy for a region to construct an economic belt as a cross-border mega-city region. This author believes that the mega-city and its economic engine will become the economic driving force of the 21st century.

  3. There is a world-wide need to understand world economic and political trends that cross national borders with an economic and dynamic force of their own.  The map below offers what a connected world transportation system would look like:

  4. The author agrees with Paper 4 that to successfully develop a mega-city region, the most urgent task is to build transportation and logistics networks that allow people and freights to freely move within the cross-border mega-city region.  In a sense the building of the Chunnel connecting England and France across the English Channel was an attempt to service the European Union Cross-border mega-city.

  5. The Undersea Tunnels could be paid for by the following means: a consortium of banks and construction companies between nations (such as the Chunnel was paid for); or by national governments; or tolls; possibly a head tax; say a US citizen pays $100 annually; a Kenyan citizen pays $1 annually; after the money is collected it is spent on the Korea China Undersea Tunnel; how will this work with equity issues; Gas Tax: Money collected in Alabama is spent in Oregon in the US; Nation Contributions: US contributes $100 billion annually; Switzerland $10 million; this money is then spent in Nigeria.

  6. Today there are roughly 6 billion people on the planet; by the end of the 21st Century this will grow to 12 billion. Today the world’s most populous countries are: China: 1.3 Billion; India: 1.07 Billion; US: 294 Million; Indonesia: 239 Million; Brazil: 184 Million. By 2050 the five worlds’ most populous countries will be: India: 1.6 Billion; China: 1.4 Billion; US: 420 Million; Indonesia: 336 Million; Nigeria: 307 Million.  The world’s population will distribute itself as follows over the next 100 years: Africa, 12.8% today to over 20% by the end of the century; Asia will stay stable with roughly 60% of the world’s population; Europe will decrease from having 12% of the world’s population to 6%; Latin America will increase slightly from 8.5 % today to 9% by the end of the century; and North America will decrease from 5% today to 4% at the end of the century.  These changing statistics of world population (United Nations figures) numbers and the distribution will also affect the understanding of mega-cities. The 21st century will be the century of the city; we will see cities of 50 million or more exist as traditional political units in countries in Africa; China; India; Indonesia; etc.  The existence of mega-cities in Africa and other of the poorest countries will prove challenging to the provision of modern infrastructure and road and rail systems. Their connection with developed country mega-cities should be explored.            

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