A brave new world in the old frontier - Cascadia area of the Pacific Northwest, inclusive of Oregon, Washington and Canada, explores its future for binational economic cooperation

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 9, 1994 | by Philip Gold

The final and most ambitious, semicircle -- usable perhaps only for broad matters such as ecology and forestry -- encompasses Montana, Idaho, Alberta and Alaska. Here the gap between aspiration and reality becomes most obvious. Christopher Gates, director of the economic development division in Alaska's Department of Commerce, sees possibilities for eventual cooperation but holds that in Alaska, "There are not many options for earning a living. We're trying to raise ourselves to the level where you can have [larger] concerns." Montana Lt. Gov. Dennis Rehberg says his state's main interest is the nascent Rocky Mountain Trade Corridor, running from Edmonton to Mexico. "We go north-south," he affirms. "But if anybody wants to do business with us, we could look to east-west."

Hardly the delirium of those who can't wait to be absorbed. Still, the notion of Cascadia has a reasonably solid grounding in the region's past and style. Residents share a common cultural heritage and a keen sense of their ecology's fragility: a fear sometimes expressed in virulent antigrowth politics. (Cascadia backers argue that cooperation and integration would do more to preserve the environment and quality of life than rampant competition or stasis.)

The people also share a certain bemused antipathy toward the two national capitals. Many Americans living in the Pacific Northwest regard their place in the cosmos as (to adapt a famous Mexican lament) "so close to God, and so far from Washington, D.C." Bull contends that in British Columbia, "the real enemy is Ottawa" and that whatever the effects of Yankee dominance in other regions, the good people of Vancouver feel quite comfortable dealing with the people of Seattle as equals.

"We're working on a regional consciousness," Bull concludes -- one that would transcend both national and local loyalties and provide the basis for permanent cooperation. That consciousness is manifesting in many ways. Some are minor. The Seattle Mariners play exhibition games in Vancouver; the Seahawks draw ticket holders from as far away as Montana and Alaska. Local television stations no longer cut off their weather maps at the border. More importantly, the region has developed considerable experience in working the seams of law and bureaucracy Dana Rasmussen, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator, says that numerous environmental issues have been handled via regional commissions and other means short of full government-to-government interaction. "If you get too structured," she states, "you get into treaty issues." This relatively informal approach to regional problem-solving has flowed into other areas. "There's a tradition here," she says, "of communication and cross-border task forces" -- a tradition that has generated a bewildering array of informal organizations dedicated to advancing regional integration by means short of national action.

Such organizations, usually created for limited purposes, provide the ingredients for progress. But two major catalysts set the process in motion, according to Miller: Seattle Mayor Norm Rice's decision to lead a Cascadia task force of government leaders from all levels and branches of the Vancouver-Eugene corridor and the formation of the private-sector Cascadia Economic Council. Says Bruce Agnew, director of Discovery's Cascadia Project, "In March 1994, things began to reach critical mass."