Do you know the best survival strategies when an earthquake hits? Would you know how to prepare for a tornado, lean into hurricane-force winds, escape from a smoke-filled room? If fire hit your home, would you know how to use that fire extinguisher you bought years ago?

The earthquake in Haiti, followed in close order by major seismic eruptions in Chile, Okinawa and Taiwan, should be a wake up call for a re-examination of readiness across the globe. We Americans should learn to be a little less obsessed with terrorism, much more about preparedness. The reality is that an earthquake or monster storm or wildfire epidemic could spell disaster for many more of us.

There’s a lot cities can do about this. And I got my first clue sitting on a plane to Fukuoka, Japan, as part of my work organizing the annual international city study missions of the Trade Alliance and Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The city, I discovered in my reading
materials, listed a disaster training center as a tourist attraction.

What could that be about? So on arrival in Fukuoka, I made a Sunday afternoon stroll to see what the center was all about. To my amazement, there was a line of families in the parking lot waiting to enter. I toured the facility and complimented one of the workers on parents bringing their children for training. She said, “That is not correct, sir. The children are bringing their parents. All school children must annually visit the center. They like it so much, that they bring their parents on the weekend.” The facility is run by the Fukuoka fire department.

Every major city in Japan, I learned, has an experienced-based disaster training center run by the city government. There is nothing like this in the United States. My discussions with local Red Cross and other officials suggest the American system is simply not effective. But the professionals I talked with were genuinely excited by the Japanese approach.

We brought our Seattle delegation to the Fukuoka center as part of the study mission. A sample of what they saw:

In one room there’s an interactive screen the size of a wall in one’s home. In the corner of the screen is a waste paper basket. Against the wall are four red fire extinguishers. Paper in the waste basket catches fire. The fire begins to spread. Four children run to get the extinguishers and spray them on the fire. If done properly, the fire goes out. If not, the room burns up!

It turned out that none of the over 74 Seattle delegates had ever used a fire extinguisher before, although all of them had one in their home.

Another room is set up as a kitchen, with a table, four chairs and a gas stove. Four of our delegates sat at the table. The room began to rock and shake to simulate either a 5.0 or a 7.0 earthquake. One turned off the stove while the others dove under the table and held onto the table legs. Afterwards, one of our business delegates said he would bolt his home to the foundation on his return to Seattle.

The center allows one to escape a smoke-filled room, learn about floods, experience typhoon-level winds, examine a medivac helicopter, and practice CPR. We discussed home safety precautions, smoke detectors use, and other day-to-day safety tips.

A U.S. Navy base in Japan uses a center near Fukuoka for the certification of baby sitters. Training for care givers from retirement homes and hospitals, school teachers and day care provider staff is possible. Every new Toyota employee in Fukuoka must go through the center.

Back home, prompted by what we’d seen and experienced in Fukuoka, the Seattle City Council appropriated $75,000 to hire a firm to do a feasibility study, visiting other Japan centers to flesh out its possible recommendations. We concluded the best metro site for the center would be at Seattle Center, which receives 12 million visitors annually. The facility could also be connected to the Pacific Science Center to add the science of fire, earthquakes or floods. We received contributions from insurance companies, hospitals and others to complete a phase two study. We also concluded that the Japanese approach was a perfect national demonstration for Homeland Security.

We asked Fukuoka to invite the Secretary of Homeland Security to visit its facility. It’s said in the Orient that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Perhaps President Obama, on his next trip to the Far East, should take along his Homeland Security advisers — and just as important, a delegation of mayors from across America — to visit the Fukuoka facility. The next step could be a series of demonstration projects in interested cities nationwide. The cost would likely be a fraction of what we spend checking bags and padding down passengers in airports every day — and in the long run, infinitely more important.

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Once upon a time in a lost world, urban regions worried about their neighbors and occasionally other cities around the nation. In today’s interconnected web of a global economy, where talent, capital and ideas are on the move like professional soccer players, an urban region like the greater Seattle area doesn’t just look to Portland, Ore., or even San Francisco. Instead, we must cast a global eye.

In 2008, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) and Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle developed the first‑ever International Regions Benchmarking Consortium. It’s a network of sophisticated city‑centered metropolitan regions that find it mutually beneficial to compare and learn from each other through economic and social data statistics and in‑depth research into specific issues of common interest. They range from Fukuoka in Asia to Helsinki in Europe to Melbourne “down under.” Others include Barcelona, Dublin, Munich, Stockholm, Vancouver and Daejeon, South Korea. Seattle of course is included, and Microsoft and Boeing each provided substantial funding to launch the effort.

The consortium came out of the International Study Mission program of the Trade Alliance–a sort of a traveling university in which we yearly take several dozen of our civic and government leaders to see, first-hand, how another urban region around the world is competing in the global economy. On a study mission to Barcelona we were struck by how a conservative state government, a liberal city government, a socialist labor leadership and business all came together around a common economic strategy for the region. Coming back from Barcelona, our region created a Prosperity Partnership to bring various interests of the region together around a common goal.

Soon that partnership sought to benchmark our region against other urban regions. Then we soon realized we needed to do this with international urban regions as well. And thus the International Benchmarking Consortium was born. We discovered that although there are some benchmarking efforts within Europe there are none across continents on a regional level. Analyzing data across so many systems is a challenge and a pioneering effort. But it’s happening now at a grassroots level among our participating regions.

Now the consortium’s 10 urban regions have begun to meet yearly at a conference focused on a common theme. Mayors, business people, educational leaders and other civic leaders of the various regions attend. The first year we met in Seattle around the issue of “Innovative Regions.” This November, the regions met in Barcelona on the theme of “Creativity and Talent.”

There’s broad agreement among the regions of the consortium that to remain prosperous they must attract talented people to enter their workforces–both from within their own countries and from other countries. Then, having built a highly skilled workforce, they need to take smart steps to retain those talented people, to dissuades them from moving elsewhere. The benchmarking consortium commissioned a report (PDF–written by Michael Luis of Luis & Associates) to better understand the dynamics of voluntary migration among highly skilled individuals, and then to provide tools to build a workforce attraction and retention strategy. We also conducted a survey of talented people in all ten regions to gauge what factors most attract and retain them to a region.

Here are the key findings that emerged:

1. Migration is critical for future economic success. Especially in the developed world, with natural population growth approaching zero in most regions, the only way to grow is to attract in‑migrants.

2. Economic opportunity takes precedence over lifestyle. Although lifestyle considerations are becoming increasingly important, most people place the highest priority on job opportunities. Simply enhancing the quality of life of a region will not, by itself, contribute to economic or population growth beyond an increase in resident retirees.

3. But once a region is able to offer high opportunity, then quality of life becomes a major factor as they compete with other regions.

4. “Superstar” regions have both high productivity and high quality of life. Superstar regions can maintain a virtuous cycle where the presence of high‑productivity employers attracts a pool of high‑value talent, and, in turn, that pool of talent attracts more employers.

5. Migration decisions have a push and a pull component. Before deciding where to move, people need a compelling reason to leave the region where they currently live (the “push”). Superstar Regions can “pull” high value workers by offering better employment opportunities, a more attractive lifestyle, or both.

6. Households trade off housing costs and commute times against wages and amenities.

7. Amenities can be packaged into “scenes” that appeal to specific demographic groups. These can range from the most avant garde music and arts scene to the most conservative, child‑oriented or retirement‑focused scenes.

What we’ve found is that the 10 benchmark regions have been successful economically and have, for the most part, grown faster than their nations. Part of the reason for the success is they look outside their narrow geographic boundaries. They are competing in the game as it exists–not as it once was.

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For 17 years I’ve been privileged to organize Seattle region delegations of dozens of business and civic leaders on study missions to citistates around the world.

Such heavyweight global regions as Shanghai, Munich, Dublin, Hong Kong, Helsinki, Melbourne, London, Singapore, and most recently Abu Dhabi and Dubai, have all been targets of our missions. The effort, still unique among U.S. regions, has been led and coordinated by my organization, the Trade Development of Great Seattle, an affiliate of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

What each visit has underscored for us is how central cities’ hopes, fortunes, and place in the world are tied to those of the entire metro regions around them.

In the 1970s, the vision of metro regions as national and world players was just in its birth — sparked by such mayors of the era as Wes Uhlman of Seattle (for whom I handled intergovernmental relations) and Thomas Bradley of Los Angeles.

Authors and analysts have helped the effort — among them Robert L. Bish with his book on the public economy of metropolitan areas, Bill Barnes’ writings on the common market of North America, and Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson’s concept of major metro regions as the citistates of the modern world.

Currently, the work of Bruce Katz and his colleagues in the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program has focused the compelling need for national development policy grounded in metro regions’ economic strength.

Thomas Cochran, veteran executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says Americans should focus less on the Gross Domestic Product measure, more on the Gross Metro Product (GMP) of our regions. The New York region’s total — $1.2 trillion dollars — is larger than India’s. The combined output of the “top 10″ U.S. metros, he notes, is greater than that of 37 states.

While we’re legally a nation of states, says Cochran, “our economy functions as a conglomeration of metro areas” — a fact that federal policies “do not yet acknowledge.”

Cochran talks of a new political alignment: “I have large counties,” he told a recent “Meeting of the Minds” conference in New York, “calling me and saying we’d like to join the Conference of Mayors. We ‘gotto get down’ and do the politics, form a political operation to demand” more responsive federal policies. “I’m going to start talking to urban county leaders,” he asserts.

The reality I see is that Americans, for too long, have remained oblivious to the increasingly competitive nature of the global economy — competition, hitting us from powerful metro regions worldwide, confronting workers, managers and owners in every office, factory and living room in America. Our jobs and businesses are now challenged on every front from software to airplanes, international education to automobiles, beef to medicine.

Our federal government, working collaboratively and responsively with the regions that are the core of our economic strength, needs to respond. President Obama, himself an urban man, ought to grasp this. A potentially key figure in his efforts should be his new Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, who saw the challenge first-hand as a member of our Trade Alliance’s board of directors for seven years (before advancing to the Washington state governorship).

Why a national effort? To me our metropolitan areas resemble the ancient Greek city states, which only united when the Persians, under King Darius, marched across their borders. Global competition is today’s equivalent of Darius, whose attacks awoke the Greeks to the danger they were in.

The federal government needs to respect the economic powerhouse of the regions, but also help them see opportunities and forge strategies.

Before other communities, our Greater Seattle region — 80 communities including Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Bellevue — was obliged to confront global realities. We found one of every three of our jobs (sparked by such industries as Boeing and Microsoft) was tied to the international economy. We staged our study missions precisely to keep and advance our competitive edge. The Barcelona visit in 2002 led us to create a metropolitan “Prosperity Partnership” that today is mapping our competitive course.

Every U.S. metro now needs a strong global strategy, with the federal government helping us to pull jointly, not separately.

Put another way, just as the urban policy of the United States is becoming metropolitan policy, so must metropolitan policy — to keep the United States competitive globally — become national economic policy.

Wes Uhlman used to quote Benjamin Franklin, who, as he signed the Declaration of Independence, said “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.” Franklin also created a drawing of a snake representing the 13 colonies with the slogan, “Join or Die.” Today, his drawing would best be titled — “Cooperate, or Decline.”

William Stafford is president of the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle. His e-mail is tdags@seattlechamber.com.

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America’s relations with the Islamic world, and the Arabian area specifically, are one of the most important in our nation’s future. While foreign policy is the responsibility of national governments, relationship building actually falls to people and urban regions who find themselves at the forefront of building these relations. The Greater Seattle region has begun building a friendship bridge to the Middle East.

We–the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle and the Greater Seattle Chamber–have been mounting yearly International Study Missions of civic and business leaders of our citistate for many years. Recently we organized an annual International Study Mission program to Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Our goal, as always: to study an urban region overseas to learn about how it competes in a global economy. The trips are a “traveling university,” with the student body encompassing the civic leadership of the Greater Seattle region.

The visit to the UAE was suggested by Boeing, with a goal of enhancing our leaders’ understanding of that part of the world and strengthening relations with it. We wanted to study the UAE’s successes and challenges, as well as to learn more about each other. Our delegation found the people of these two emirates to be warm and friendly and as interested in us as we were in them.

You’ve probably read about Dubai in the news–a city of indoor snow skiing, rapid growth and Texas-like fondness for all things large. But, Abu Dhabi is equally important, even if it does not receive as much public relations notice.

Abu Dhabi has 9 percent of the world’s oil reserves and could be expected to sit back and rake in the revenues. But, it’s a forward thinking place and is already preparing for a post-oil world. Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is an effort to create a zero carbon emitting city within the city, using new technologies and techniques in energy, recycling and building. It is a remarkable effort, even more so since it is occurring in a major oil producing state. The Masdar officials were interested in the Seattle region’s clean technology efforts and there is already talk of possible partnerships.

Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi’s airline) and Emirates Air (Dubai’s airline) are both ambitious enterprises which are expected to more than double their current fleet by 2015. Etihad is the fastest growing airline in aviation history and–from our perspective–a great customer of Boeing aircraft.

DP World manages the maritime activities of Dubai and has port operations all over the world. Dubai’s port is already one of the world’s largest and its aim is to be one of the globe’s four largest port complexes.

One way Dubai tries to achieve excellence is to partner with the world’s best. A key approach: building sector-specific cities within Dubai. For example, Dubai now has an Internet City, a Knowledge Village and a Health Care City. Group sector-specific companies and institutions are promoted in all these cities. Dubai leaders build these sectors by partnering with institutions they regard as the best around the world, as a step toward attracting other companies and encouraging growth. When they decided to build Health Care City, for example, they drew up a list of the top ten health care facilities in the world. They then called the top two–the Cleveland Clinic and John Hopkins–and offered to partner with them. Both of these institutions now manage health care facilities in Health Care City.

Dubai, which does not have much oil to speak of, takes such measures out of necessity, working aggressively to diversify its economy. The city has succeeded to a large measure, even in light of the recent worldwide economic downturn.

Our delegation was interested to see how both Abu Dhabi and Dubai have created and implemented long-term strategies for their urban regions, and how those strategies have led to success. They had resources, it is true. Black gold is a handy currency to have in your wallet. But many other countries and regions also have oil resources but have not achieved the success of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The United Arab Emirates is that rare combination of ample resources, strategic vision and ability to get things done. It’s a reminder that successful urban regions, whether in the United States or overseas, are well-advised to formulate smart long-term strategies.

The key to achieving success with Dubai and Abu Dhabi is relationships. We met with some of the most important leaders in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, including Seattle University graduate Mohamed Bin Ali Alabbar, now chair of Emaar Properties, one of the largest development companies in the world. UAE Prime Minister and Vice President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum met with our delegation and presented us with a personally signed book of his poetry.

Urban regions around the world, we have learned, are confronted with remarkably similar types of challenges. We have also found that we have much to learn from each other. Mohammed Omar Abdulla, Undersecretary for the Abu Dhabi Department of Planning and Economy spoke to our group during the mission. He had been to the Puget Sound area a year ago and spoke of building “a friendship bridge” between our two regions. Our recent trip put down some more planks on the bridge. In the coming weeks, months and years, we will construct more of the bridge bringing a distant land and different culture ever closer to our three ports and the entire Puget Sound region.

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