Going Places: The Transportation Network

Economics Without The B.S.**:

[**  Double entendre intended.]

Going Places:  The Transportation Network

Our national landscape is being renovated by an upgrading of our transportation infrastructure.  The global economy that emerged in the 1990’s is slowly re-integrating our rail, trucking, and interior waterways along with air.

The Panama Canal is being upgraded to handle larger sea-going vessels and the bigger ones to come in the nearby future.  Sea-going ports around the nation are spending hundreds of millions of dollars at each port to upgrade their facilities to capture future business, with our largest port, Los Angeles-Long Beach, spending billions.  The Savannah, GA/Charleston, SC port is aiming to compete with the West Coast ports for some of that business with Asia, both ways as Wal-Mart and car manufacturers in the Southeastern States see opportunities ahead.

Since the 1990’s the Inland Empire Area of Southern California has been transformed from a rural agricultural belt to a national transportation hub including rail, truck, and large distribution warehouses that feed the national byways with freight coming from Asia.  The dairy farms that once populated the area are being priced out of the region.  There have been so many massive warehouses built for the new business that the regional utility company has entered into agreements to utilize the roof-tops for solar panels for generating electricity for the region.

In the inland water-ways the Ohio River is being upgraded all along the river as more movement of freight is being revived.  The development along the Arkansas River still has potential as Wichita, KS is a small center where manufacturing is a significant part of the economy – twice what manufacturing is to the national economy.  And over the last couple of decades there have been large beef processing facilities built to handle the cattle raised in the old Dust Bowl Belt.  All of this feeding into the Mighty Mississippi, which is undergoing its own redevelopment along with the modernization of the Port of New Orleans and Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas.
          In addition, the I-35 Corridor has been in effect since the 1990’s, running from Canada to Mexico.  Laredo, Texas has sprung up to take advantage of the trade that has developed along the route.  A route that runs North and South through the middle of the continent, connecting with all the major arteries running East and West and going through metropolitan areas that can take advantage of the developing trade avenues.

The developing infrastructure will be there for America to revitalize its industrial base and expand its manufacturing capability and increase its exporting prowess.  In addition, as the Panama Canal develops, there is the potential for the rest of Latin America to follow.  It is a great opportunity for economic development that would raise the living standards, bring progress to the fore, and ease the immigration problems which has burdened several of the countries.