As a driver of policy, it's lacking.

The map, or giving the region more attention? The former I agree with, it is not the best way to do this, but the latter I have to disagree. There is an underlying driver behind the regional approach, and it is the problem-centered policy. What I hope this article might accomplish -to what degree is debatable- is that policymakers or people active within the democratic system learn to value the region as a good geographical scale, to approach a plethora of problems. I'm not informed enough about those regions to know how they approach this.

Of course it is not the naming itself that is beneficial: just calling something a region isn't gonna make much of a change. What can be useful is the way the region is used. The noun region doesn't matter, it's important whether it is used as a tool or not. The region as a tool is what America2050 aims for, I think: to view the highspeed rail network ideas not on the nation scale as it is usually proposed, but on the scale that matters more to those actually using that rail network. The scale that can compete with the ubiquitous road and air infrastructure that is already laid down. Competing with the 3 to 4 hour trips, like it does in Asia and Europe.

I hope that some people will see this map and realize that focussing on the regions will be better for a lot of problems. Could have been done better, but hey, I didn't make it and it did spur some discussion.