Significantly, most of the obstacles are political, and social, rather than technological. First of all, the establishment of a META City system will involve international treaties between participating nations, with some national constitutional redefinition of national sovereignty being required in some nations. Getting such treaties passed will be a formidable task. There are precedents, however. Free trade zones already exist in many countries. Also membership in the European Common Market required constitutional changes by participating countries because of EEC infringements on traditional concepts of sovereignty. Nevertheless, ardent nationalists in many countries may supply considerable initial opposition to the plan.

Looking at the city level, there are obviously many problems involved in getting cities to acquire the land, invest in the physical installations and provide the sort  of interurban electronic network which the system will require. While there are ample precedents in municipal ownership of utilities and port facilities and air ports, we can expect considerable resistance to such developments as acquiring a large block of land via eminent domain, massive city investment and the need to link the citywide cash registers to a central computer. On the one hand, the possible devolution of power from the federal to the local level, a natural if not inevitable development of the Communications Era, may clear away some obstacles, current distrust of government and the apparent growing economic fundamentalism in same quarters will make it initially difficult to gain wide support for the plan.

Current deep tensions and distrust which exists between developed and underdeveloped nations (not to mention those existing between the Communist and noncommunist blocs) will not be easily overcome. The relative economic strength of some key developed nations may tempt them to stay out of the system in its early period, thereby threatening to weaken its impact.

There are of course tremendous areas of uncertainty. Although certain developments can be anticipated for the early decades of the META system, there is no way that we can confidently predict what the long term impact of its operation could be. If it is successful, as we believe it can be, then there could be enormous economic realignments within national regions, and significant changes in the status of the nation states themselves.