Tucson leaders like ASU President Crow's plan for Sun Corridor

Arizona State University President Michael Crow's message of regional collaboration by Tucson and Phoenix to compete in the global economy went over well with a large, sold-out audience of Tucson-area business and community leaders.

After his talk in Oro Valley last week, officials in government, business and academia agreed that it's time for these long-sparring communities to go beyond their parochial interests and start dealing with the entire region's problems.

Before 600 people, Crow said that the idea that individual cities or metro areas can by themselves compete with other regions is outmoded. His vision is of a Sun Corridor region consisting of Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties working together to compete for new jobs. In another way, Crow was pushing a message of self-sufficiency, saying that business and community leaders need to find other ways of raising money to build their economies than relying on cash-strapped governments.

Crow said people should instill in themselves the idea that the basic economic barometer for this region is not the health of Phoenix or Tucson. "It is what is the region capable of competing for on a global scale? What does Arizona have that can compete with central Texas and Shanghai?"