HOUSTON — Leaders and researchers in the southern United States met in Houston to address and work on issues that impact the entire country.
The Ten Across Summit is a vision for the southernmost part of the U.S. It includes cities along the I-10 corridor, from Los Angeles to Houston to Jacksonville. Duke Reiter, the founder of Ten Across, said the mission is to have leaders from those cities come together to find solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing our country like social, economic, and climate change.
"We think this is a laboratory for the future, and if you pay attention to this area, it's what's going to be coming to the rest of the country. It's just happening here early," Reiter said.
Reiter said because cities across the I-10 corridor face similar issues, he decided it's important to join forces.
Getting young people involved from institutions like Rice University is one of the goals.
"We're growing the faculty and we're making investments to position the university both in terms of people, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of programs to really be able to solve these huge problems that we're facing in Houston and across the I-10 corridor," Reginald DeRoches, the president of Rice University, said.
Infrastructure is one of the big topics, especially how it has historically impacted low-income and minority communities.
"In the past, when those infrastructures were built and when the investments came down from the federal government, many communities were left out and left behind. We can't make those same mistakes," Robert Bullard the director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice said.
Learning from the past is what these leaders said will help us have a better future.
"The future is knowable. It's just a question of whether we can look and really learn because we often ignore the stuff that's difficult," Reiter said.