Strategic City Pairs, Gateways and Corridors
Case Synopsis
In this essay, Canadian transportation expert Barry Prentice looks at North American integration from a perspective often forgotten in the more globalization-oriented analyses of trade flows which assume that technology can make location less important. Prentice argues that North America’s economic architecture is made up of trade corridors, which he defines as “any pathway that facilitates the movement of goods between two or more nodes,” where nodes are cities which are connected via “links,” which are “the competing modes of transportation infrastructure” that form the pathways (p. 2). Prentice’s focus on infrastructure, geography, and transportation technology remind us that location still matters very much in the development of a regional economic system such as North America, and that history shows us that strategic city pairs are often at the forefront of carving out new trade geographies. He contrasts “hubs” and “gateways” and discusses how these two kinds of “nodes” play particular roles in trade corridors; and he notes how some strategic city pairs – via their political and business leaders’ entrepreneurial and creative vision, or via their ability to take advantage of technological change in transportation – are able to outcompete their rivals. The essay illustrates this with several historical case studies (St. Louis vs. Chicago in the late 19th century, and Winnipeg vs. Calgary in the late 20th century). Finally, he uses his conceptual and historical analysis to evaluate efforts towards promoting a Mid-Continent Trade Corridor running between Winnipeg in the north and Mexico City in the south, via key nodes such as Kansas City, MO (which outbid Fort Worth, Texas), and Monterrey, Mexico.
Educational Objectives
This essay can serve as a jumping-off point for a classroom exercise examining North American infrastructure as the “plumbing” that will make or break the future of the region.
Teaching Plan
The instructor can ask students to divide into four groups, each of which would research one trade corridor listed on the North American Forum for Integration website: http://www.fina-nafi.org/eng/integ/corridors.asp?langue=eng&menu=integ
Then in class, using an oversized map, each group would map their corridor, and the class would discuss the following features:
- Geographic logic
- Hubs and gateways
- Economic complementarity
- Environmental impact (i.e., roads vs. rail)
- Strategic City Pairs (in the context of national politics & economy)
- Intermodality (do roads meet rail?)
Relevant Courses
Apart from courses on NAFTA and North American integration, this essay could bring “North American” content and enhance theoretical discussions in courses in the following subjects:
Political Science
- International Political Economy: units on trade liberalization and regional economic integration, globalization; particularly useful for discussing how trade and transportation are still closely linked, and how regional economic systems are built via infrastructure and via the political machinations of business and government in key cities, as well as broader structural contextual variables such as geography or the broader patterns in the national and global economies.
- Globalization/Global Issues: Transportation and infrastructure are issues that are not looked at closely enough in this area, which tends to focus on how the Internet has made political organizing across borders via “global civil society” possible, challenging more nation-state-bound forms of interest articulation. Prentice’s piece notes the role of municipal governments and business interests in taking advantage of location, or even leveraging new technologies to create a locational advantage. It also discusses issues of sovereignty and jurisdiction, noting that national boundaries between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico still matter and still shape the forms that trade corridors can and do take. Finally, Prentice raises the issue of the environmental superiority of rail transport, and the recent move towards containerized commerce that poses particular challenges for port security in the post 9.11 age.
- Business-Government Relations/Public Policy: The trade corridor “movement,” which Prentice does not discuss directly but is illustrated in his case study of the Mid-Continent Trade Corridor coalition, is a fascinating window into how business-government relations have developed at the municipal level as NAFTA has opened up “international” trade opportunities for localities which previously had never considered such options. The piece also discusses “strategic city pairs,” and how various political and economic actors within those pairs work to compete with rivals in other city pairs, thus creating an often-overlooked dynamic of “creative destruction” within our regional economy. It also does a nice job of following the history of these developments, which in a public policy course could be examined from a more theoretical point of view: i.e., why are certain policy options “available” at given critical junctures, what actors can intervene to either shift or reconfigure the incentive structure for policy choice, and how are different levels of government involved in this particular policy area.
Suggested Bibliography
Belcher, Wyatt Winton (1968). Economic Rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago, 1850-1880. New York, AMS Press.
Cottrill, Ken (2002). "New Roads to NAFTA." Planning February 68(2): 32.
Dalmia, Shikha and Leonard Gilroy (2007). "The Conspiratorial Highway." Los Angeles Times, September 20, Part A, Pg. 23.
Stabler, Carol A. (1998). "The River of Trade." Industry Week, January 20, 246(2): pg. A1.
Taylor, Kelly (2007). "Express Route to Poverty." The New American, October 15, 23(21): 31-33.
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