This arti­cle is a lit­tle dat­ed, but cov­ers an impor­tant view into the sub­jects of Amer­i­ca 2050, “megac­i­ties” and the con­nect­ing high-speed rail net­work. The press is giv­ing slight cov­er­age, with lit­tle or no back­ground to present the entire picture.

To boost infra­struc­ture and build Agen­da 21 high-speed rail sys­tems (HSRS) across Amer­i­ca, (for­mer) Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Ray LaHood stat­ed (in 2012) that $470 mil­lion in unspent funds (were) still avail­able to states for such projects.

In 2011, Oba­ma called for these HSRS to be built in Amer­i­ca with­in the next 25 years. In Cal­i­for­nia, gov­ern­ment fund­ing for a HSRS across the Cen­tral Val­ley trades $4.5 in bonds for $3.2 bil­lion in fed­er­al stim­u­lus for a rail­way that links to trans­porta­tion lines.

The high speed rail­way is the brain­child of Amer­i­ca 2050, a non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion that sup­ports Agen­da 21 poli­cies in the US. Amer­i­ca 2050 claims that the rail­way will pro­vide more trains to the grow­ing pop­u­la­tion in Cal­i­for­nia and that this endeav­or is nec­es­sary to “close the gap” between North­ern and South­ern California.

Curt Pringle, Ana­heim may­or asserts that the HSRS will “be much more con­ve­nient than tak­ing a plane and cer­tain­ly much eas­i­er in time and fatigue than driving.”

Along with Cal­i­for­nia, HSRS will be built with pri­vate indus­try and gov­ern­ment fund­ing in Flori­da, Illi­nois, New Eng­land and along the entire­ty of the Pacif­ic North­west. This endeav­or is esti­mat­ed to cost $8 bil­lion to the taxpayer.

The Flori­da High-Speed Rail Author­i­ty has esti­mat­ed their project to cost $27 mil­lion per mile. When oth­er project’s esti­mat­ed costs are added up, it may run over $90 bil­lion which exceeds the $8 bil­lion set aside by the US government.

In the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (DOT) in con­junc­tion with the Depart­ment of Ener­gy doc­u­ment, Vision for High-Speed Rail in Amer­i­ca Final FRA HSR Strat Plan, LaHood states that “region­al high-speed cor­ri­dors” will con­nect mega-city res­i­dents in “select­ed US cor­ri­dors” in an ener­gy effi­cient and cli­mate change revers­ing trans­port system.

Cham­pi­oned by Oba­ma, the devel­op­ment of a “com­pre­hen­sive high-speed inter­ci­ty pas­sen­ger rail net­work will require a long-term com­mit­ment at both the Fed­er­al and State levels.”

Amer­i­ca 2050, in line with Agen­da 21, wants to see high speed rail­ways built along the east and west coasts of Amer­i­ca. These rail­ways will link the megare­gions and megac­i­ties which cre­ate Cas­ca­dia Final Ecolopo­lis 5 HSR in Cas­ca­dia May 4; an amal­ga­ma­tion of Seat­tle, Port­land, and Van­cou­ver, British Colum­bia with a high speed rail will ensure the pro­tec­tion of des­ig­nat­ed habi­tats for animals.

Cas­ca­dia will begin in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia and extend along the Pacif­ic Ocean.

The Ecoc­i­ty Builders is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion which is a col­lab­o­ra­tion of inter­na­tion­al net­works of asso­ciates that influ­ence and active­ly par­tic­i­pate in local city plan­ning projects all across the US. They focus on rework­ing cur­rent issues to match UN Agen­da 21 guide­lines in plan­ning for local cities includ­ing trans­porta­tion, ener­gy, archi­tec­ture, design, nat­ur­al restora­tion, devel­op­ment, plan­ning, and advocacy.

They char­ac­ter­ize the ecoc­i­ty as:

• Human set­tle­ments mod­eled after sus­tain­able devel­op­ment that func­tions with nat­ur­al ecosys­tems and liv­ing organisms

• Reduce the inhab­i­tants eco­log­i­cal impact on the environment

• Restora­tion of ecosys­tems after the recol­o­niza­tion of humans into dense cities

• Sus­tain­able liv­ing under Agen­da 21 sup­ports region­al, nation­al and glob­al eco­nom­ic systems

In New York, May­or Michael Bloomberg announced that through an ini­tia­tive to cre­ate Agen­da 21 style apart­ments, he will sus­pend zon­ing reg­u­la­tions to con­struct stack ‘em and pack ‘em 300 sq ft “liv­ing spaces”. By 2013 (now 2014), these apart­ment mod­els are expect­ed to be ready for residents.

Anoth­er vision of the mega-city apart­ment build­ing is the Flat Tow­er which is a sky­scraper that could house 400,000 people.

Flat Tow­er concept
Design­ers are look­ing to max­i­mize apart­ment inte­ri­or space could install fur­ni­ture that folds into the walls. Win­dows would also have trans­par­ent OLEDs. This tech­nol­o­gy was unveiled by Sam­sung back in 2010. A tele­vi­sion screen could be designed to be opaque on com­mand. This would also serve as a tem­per­a­ture reg­u­la­tor to save on ener­gy consumption.

Main­stream sci­en­tists like Michail Fragkias, chief sci­en­tist for the UIN’s “Plan­et under Pres­sure” pr_27_03_12_options_opportunities say that peo­ple should live in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed cities because “we cer­tain­ly don’t want them strolling about the entire coun­try­side. We want them to save land for nature by liv­ing close­ly [togeth­er].”