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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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The world is flat, the economy is global, and on any given day you're as likely to speak to a call center in India or the Philippines as you are to visit your grocery store. The world's boundaries have blurred, but at the same time the easy and immediate communication of a Twitter or Facebook makes the planet feel smaller and more connected. Dr. Catherine Ross, editor of "Megaregions: Planning for Global Competitiveness," a collection of essays about urban planning, puts it like this: "If one of us sneezes, everyone catches a cold." Ross, who is director of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at Georgia Tech, has watched the concept of "megaregions" emerge over the last five years. The early work focused on the idea of creating "central cities" as an impetus to global transactions, but she said it soon became clear that the term didn't go far enough in conveying the "subtle metaphorical merging of the continents."
