Northern California Megaregion

Multilingual Learning Programs hold immense potential to transform California’s education system and prepare student to thrive in an increasingly connected world. By addressing the current challenges and implementing the suggested policy recommendations, California can create a robust framework for MLL programs that will benefit students, teachers, businesses, families, and communities, while fostering a more inclusive, diverse, and prosperous state.

Much of the detailed planning for how to address these challenges is taking place at the regional and local level. The state supports those efforts by encouraging regional-scale collaboration, supporting local planning and adaptation projects, providing data and analysis, and enhancing public awareness of sea level rise risks and impacts.7 Much of this occurs through the Ocean Protection Council (OPC), a high-level state government panel created in part to protect ocean health in the face of climate change. Based on evolving scientific knowledge, the OPC develops state-level approaches that respond to the anticipated impacts of storms, erosion and sea level rise on coastal communities.

With 30,000 manufacturing companies, California is the largest manufacturing state in the nation. Together, those companies support 1.3 million employees; 34% of those workers are people of color, and 31% are women. Most of California’s manufacturing companies are small, with 64% having fewer than 25 employees. Manufacturing companies account for 11% of California’s total economic output. Their activity contributes to a balanced economic structure in the state and provides middle-skilled jobs that offer good incomes and upward mobility for a segment of the workforce.

This report explains interconnected nature of the economy in Northern California Megaregion and examines the economic potential that a more efficient rail transit system could bring to the megaregion. The report examines how unlocking the transbay bottleneck with a new transbay rail crossing is an integral investment in building a connected rail network in the Northern California Megaregion and how that network would transform rail travel across the 21-county megaregion. 

Tri-Valley Rising was published in 2014 with the aim of taking inventory of the Tri-Valley region’s assets and resources, explaining its impressive economic success, identifying challenges that could threaten to impede its future growth, and providing policy recommendations to ensure its continued vitality. Among the report’s findings were that the Tri-Valley’s innovation assets were driving its economy, high-value connections between the Tri-Valley and the broader region were growing, a high quality of life was a large part of the Tri-Valley’s competitive advantage, and improving transportation systems between the Tri-Valley and broader region would support growing economic activity and improve competitiveness. This July 2018 update to Tri-Valley Rising builds on the findings and information presented in the first report, while also exploring more policy options for local and regional stakeholders to better connect and strengthen the Tri-Valley’s economy as it continues to grow.

This report, the tenth in a series of Bay Area Economic Profile reports produced since 1997 by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and McKinsey & Company, examines the region’s economy over the last decade, as it has emerged from the Great Recession to enter a new period of immense growth and innovation. As previous reports have done, it benchmarks the Bay Area’s performance against other knowledge-based economies to assess the region’s national and global competitiveness. It also examines the economic and policy challenges that continue to confront the region, even in a period of extraordinary growth, and looks to uncover the next wave of innovation and renewal.

As the population of Northern California continues to grow, challenges in housing, land use, jobs, transportation, and the environment have crossed regional boundaries and are linking cities, counties, and regions together across wider geographies. These issues make planning at a megaregional scale increasingly necessary to achieve a broader footprint of economic prosperity and for California to reach its carbon reduction goals.

This report examines the unique value the Tri-Valley brings to the Bay Area economy and how it is changing. The report addresses the following questions:
How is the Tri-Valley economy changing?
How are the region's innovation assets developing?
How is the region linked to Silicon Valley and the broader Bay Area?
How is the Tri-Valley's transportation infrastructure enabling sustained economic growth?
How is the region positioning itself for the future?