The Great Lakes states aren't just key battlegrounds in Tuesday's elections. Fixing their imperiled ``Rust Belt'' economies and hollowed-out cities may be key to America's 21st century fate.
   
That's the pointed message of a just-released Brookings Institution report on the megaregion of states and communities that rim the shores of the Great Lakes shores and line the Ohio and Mississippi River watersheds, prepared by John C. Austin, Brookings senior fellow and vice president of the Michigan State Board of Education.

Should we worry about this massive marketplace of 97 million people? Isn't it already the generator of 32 percent of America's gross state product, site of a rare constellation of distinguished state universities, birthplace of supercomputers, home base for famed corporations and close to a third of U.S. scientists and engineers?

Yes, says Austin. But it's nonetheless teetering on the brink because its entrepreneurial spirit is lagging and its aging work force lacks the education and skills to fill new economy jobs. A quick check of the crisis facing Detroit's Big Three automakers suggests the depth of the problem.  Breakthroughs such as St. Louis' recent ``BioBelt'' advance into plant and life sciences are all too rare.

With the exception of Chicago, Minneapolis and a few other metro areas, Austin finds the Great Lakes' citistate regions ``economically stagnant, old and beaten up, plagued by severe racial divisions'' and continuing ``to bleed mobile, educated workers.''

The normal diet of cures for such ills ranges from tax breaks for footloose industries to scattered worker retraining programs. But the new Brookings report envisions something far broader. It urges an array of expanded research and development programs engaging lead regional scientists, a multistate energy independence compact, tapping state and local pension funds for investments in new technologies, multiple billions for restoration of the lakes, high-speed rail networks and more.

How would all this come to be? First, the report suggests, through a Great Lakes compact with the federal government designed to put the region on sound ground in the new economy. And to match that, a concurrent series of compacts and joint initiatives by the neighboring states -- possibly a model of how the ``megaregions'' of America will have to coalesce to position themselves in this century.

Austin came upon the idea of multistate accords while on trips to Europe sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. The Europeans had created a multinational ``arc of development from London to Milan,'' tied together by high-speed rail and other accords. ``I thought to myself -- we don't even have a map to think that way, to start turning the Rust Belt around.''

Austin recalls a French bioscientist summing up the megaregional imperative by noting: ``It takes 25 million people to make a good fight in the world.''

So the Brookings report is peppered with a series of inventive ``common marketplace'' compacts and agreements for the Great Lakes. The aim is to set higher education goals in science, technology and math and to build portable course credit, credentialing and pension systems across all the states. It also urges big new dollars for basic and applied research and development, a Great Lakes energy independence compact focused on clean energy sources.

Concurrently, there would be a Great Lakes venture fund to tap some portion of state and private pension funds and university endowments to grow new companies, along with guarantees of some tuition aid for all college students. A regionwide low-cost, portable health insurance plan is proposed, financed by employers and workers, as well as a ``fix it first'' strategy for roads and introduction of high-speed rail. And finally, the report calls for a ``North Coast'' focus on access to clean waters and natural vistas focused through national multibillion-dollar investment in Great Lakes environmental restoration.

To gain visibility and buy-in by Great Lakes leaders, Brookings has sponsored a series of rollout sessions from Chicago to Buffalo to Detroit. Building momentum, a series of meetings with governors, congressional delegations, business, university and labor leaders will be held early in 2007.

And that's not all. There'll be a clear message to 2008 presidential candidates  in battleground Midwestern states from Ohio to Missouri: If you want our support, don't generalize, instead be specific about a major federal-state compact to revive and strengthen America's Great Lakes heartland.

Would all this cause Washington billions it can't afford? No, says Austin, reprogramming of existing federal scholarship, R&D and transportation programs -- targeted, matching local commitments -- could cover a lot.

Would a geographically focused program work politically? Austin's reply: Areas such as the Sun Belt are already doing OK. But a vibrant, economically strong America without a strong Great Lakes region is hard to imagine.

Plus, as others (like the new America 2050 group) are now insisting, megaregions will be active units of the new global economy. Moral: It's time we wake up and smell the coffee.     

Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com