News this week that the Cleveland Browns have launched long-term planning that could end with a new Browns Stadium is at once encouraging and distressing.

We're encouraged that the Browns have the foresight to begin planning more than a decade out for a project that likely would cost close to $1 billion and draw on precious public resources. That's far better than creating a crisis at the last moment, as happened with the proposal to renovate Quicken Loans Arena last year.

But we are distressed that the Browns are thinking about the stadium in a vacuum.

Over the next three decades, we will be talking about the need for far more than a new football stadium. We'll likely need a new arena and baseball stadium. We might want to talk about building a modern airport, maybe at the Ravenna Arsenal. We should be talking about a far better public transit system, with expanded light rail.

What if Greater Cleveland began laying the groundwork for those projects, and the mechanisms to fund them, right now, so that we have a thoughtful approach and the money to pay for it all when we are ready to build?

And what if we made it a regional approach? The entire region benefits from having the Indians, Cavs and Browns in Cleveland. The entire region uses the airport. The entire region could benefit from better public transit. Why should the city of Cleveland pay an outsized portion of the bill for projects, as it does now? Why should Cleveland have an outsized role in making the decisions?

If we created a regional funding mechanism - a half-cent tax on a gallon of gas, for example, which likely would require new state legislative authority - and started saving it now, could we bank enough cash over the next decade to pay for a vision of Northeast Ohio in 2035?

There was a time when corporate leaders led the charge on such visioning, but we have lethargy in the business community today. The tired leadership of people like Joe Roman, head of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, does not encourage confidence in a bright future.

Maybe it's time for the next generation to step up, people like business executive Bernie Moreno, University Circle CEO Chris Ronayne and Cleveland City Councilman Blaine Griffin. We need their spark.

The conversation that the Browns have launched with an early vision of a football stadium development should be about so much more than a place to watch the Browns. It should trigger a public, regionwide exercise about where we want Northeast Ohio to go over the next 20 years, how we get there and who will lead the charge.

To that end, what are your thoughts about our priorities as a region?

We've listed just a few -- new sports arenas/stadiums anchoring broader development; a new regional airport; improved regional public transit -- along with a new type of funding mechanism. But those are just pieces of the puzzle.

Let's start talking as a community about our regional priorities -- all of them -- and about how to get there, including with some fresh voices and more forward-looking ideas.

To be part of the conversation, add your comments to this post; email the editorial board c/o Elizabeth Sullivan at esullivan@cleveland.com; fax thoughts to 216-999-6114 with the subject line "Northeast Ohio's future"; or mail us at Editorial Board, 1801 Superior Ave., Suite 100, Cleveland, OH 44114. We will share in a future editorial the best of the best of those ideas and strategies.

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