Rust Belt

Can the Rust Belt Learn From Dixie?

Pete Saunders — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:21:35 -0500

Aaron Renn's recent piece on the Rust Belt has some formidable strengths that can be the foundation of its revitalization, but it has a set of structural problems that must be confronted to achieve true revitalization. Current revitalization strategies, he suggests, are outside of each city's system or fail to bring the appropriate heft to lift all those who need lifting -- largely because they only obliquely address the structural challenges. The challenges:

Racism
Corruption
Closed societies
Two-tiered environment and resulting paralysis

I won't rehash Aaron's assessment, but I do agree with it.

What occurred to me is that, if you think about it, the South's cities were in the same position following the Civil War -- and faced the same obstacles -- until after World War II. Racism clearly plagued Southern metros and hindered growth during that era; many places were well known for their corruption. The South certainly had a reputation for being a closed society, unwelcome to outsiders, and its history of reliance on low- and moderately-skilled labor made the South perhaps more skeptical of highly educated labor, just like in the Midwest.

Following World War II, however, Southern metros began to make great strides to catch up with and even surpass Northeastern and Midwestern cities. I'm no scholar on post-war Southern growth, but it appears Southern metros took on these strategies to move upward and onward:

Tolerate Newcomers. After World War II Southern cities realized that they could no longer rely on intra-region growth if they were going to prosper, particularly during a period with widespread migration of blacks to Northern cities at the time. Southern business leaders rightfully recognized opportunities to bring businesses and residents to the South from other parts of the country.

Seeing education as an asset. It's no coincidence that the Southern metros that have developed the strongest post-war economies -- Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Raleigh, Nashville -- are home to significant educational institutions. After the war the colleges and universities of large Southern metros became integral to their growth.

Becoming a low-cost alternative to the rest of the country. Prior to their turnaround Southern cities probably described themselves in terms of what they lacked in comparison to Northern cities. They did not have the impressive skylines, the classic neighborhoods, the exceptional park systems or the infrastructure that were the legacy of Northern cities. However they did have cheap land and cheap labor, and those factors became the driver that facilitated the development of what they lacked.

The above strategies, combined with the widespread use of air conditioning that made the Southern climate more tolerable, allowed for the growth of Southern metros.

The Rust Belt should take note. While the South only address race as the federal government made them, perhaps the Rust Belt can become a leader in addressing race matters. If the South can learn to become more tolerant of outsiders, the Midwest can as well; it does have a legacy of immigration that can serve as a foundation. Advocates of the Rust Belt Chic movement may turn the low-cost strategy on its head -- the Rust Belt has a unique physical and social legacy that those who've grown up in places with less would welcome. And the Rust Belt has perhaps the greatest collection of public research universities in the nation (even if most are located in smaller metros and not the big cities), and they could be a huge driver of revitalization.

Clearly, the South did not get everything right. But when faced with an existential crisis not unlike what the Rust Belt faces today, they adapted. The Rust Belt must find its strengths and play to them.

East Coast, West Coast – What about Our Coast?

Pete Saunders — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:17:51 -0400

Most Americans take it as an article of faith that there’s a strong connection and relationship between the major cities of the East and West coasts. Indeed, there may be 3,000 miles separating New York from Los Angeles, or San Francisco from Washington, but psychologically the cities each seem to be more connected to each other than, say, Dallas to New York or Atlanta to San Francisco. Of course, in the minds of the coastal crowd, the rest of the nation has become “flyover” country. That wasn’t always the case. How exactly did that happen?

Lots of factors helped to develop America’s west coast. Certainly the pioneer spirit that initially brought settlers west led to a strong sense of individualism and entrepreneurism that pushed development forward. The allure of the weather brought many transplants west. But I think the West Coast benefitted much more from the kinds of connections identified by Jim Russell at Burgh Diaspora (and now at Pacific Standard) – the West Coast had an effective talent attraction strategy, created strong bonds with the East Coast, and never let them go. It’s a lesson that the shrinking cities of the Rust Belt should heed and practice.

I’m no historian, nor am I the ultimate authority on the development of cities. But it’s clear West Coast cities did some things that Rust Belt cities did not. As we all know, the settlement of California was kicked off with the Gold Rush of 1849. Prior to that California was a sparsely-settled former Mexican territory with no physical or institutional infrastructure. The Gold Rush propelled Eastern financiers to provide the money to develop San Francisco as the financial center that would open up the west, and give it the physical and institutional resources to deliver its goods to the rest of the nation. San Francisco never relinquished those ties.

Further south, Los Angeles used its fabulous and consistent weather as a means to attract parts of a budding film industry previously based on the East Coast. The growth of the film industry ultimately led to the growth of the media industry in Southern California, and voila – the economic underpinnings of a major metropolis are established. Like San Francisco, LA never relinquished those ties. (Side note: I don’t think you can understate the importance of the Rose Bowl in luring Midwesterners in particular to Southern California. The “Granddaddy of Them All”, started in 1902, annually brought the Big Ten’s best and brightest for a few weeks of sun and fun in winter. The strategy paid off.)

The lesson here for the Rust Belt is talent attraction, and maintaining the connections over time. San Francisco was able to parlay its Eastern financial connections into the development of a strong financial center, which later served as the financial apparatus for the tech industry. Los Angeles was able to do the same with the film industry and media, and it could be argued that the city’s ties to Midwestern interests led to the growth of the defense industry there.

As for the Rust Belt? It seems that what sets it apart from the West Coast is that it remained content to be the industrial hearth of the nation, instead of seeking other avenues to leverage its advantages for even more growth. That, and the fact that West Coast cities understood the importance of maintaining strong connections with East Coast partners, and East Coast cities understood the financial upside – for their own cities – of staying close to those on the West Coast. Can the Rust Belt do the same?

This piece first appeared at Corner Side Yard.

NCR Leaves Dayton for Atlanta

Aaron M. Renn — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 02:43:28 -0400

There was terrible news for Dayton this week as the city's last Fortune 500 company, NCR, founded locally in 1884, announced it was moving its headquarters to Atlanta. The Dayton Daily News is the place for complete coverage.

This is bad news not just for Dayton, but for the state of Ohio and the entire Midwest. Firstly, it illustrates the plight of the smaller cities of the Midwest, the ones below one million in metro area population that I usually don't write much about. These cities, including places like Dayton, Youngstown, and Toledo, are often struggling. Unless they are a state capital and/or home to a major state university, they just don't seem to have quite the scale necessary to operate in the globalized economy. These cities have special challenges and I won't profess to have answers for them.

Secondly, this is further damage to the economic reputation of the Midwest as a whole. Loyal readers know that I've been skeptical of cross-regional collaboration as a panacea (though I've also written some positive things about it). However, there are clearly issues that affect the Midwest as a whole. It has, for example, a collective reputation as the Rust Belt that probably only Chicago is able to overcome.

This reputation creates formidable brand headwinds in trying to attract the talent needed to compete in the 21st century. The Atlanta Business Chronicle had an interesting take on the NCR move, with one anonymous source attributing it to talent issues with Dayton. "They [NCR] can’t recruit talent to move to Dayton, Ohio."

So what, you might say. It's Dayton. But my town is way cooler than Dayton. Well, the problem extends well beyond Dayton. Consider Ann Arbor. If any city in the Midwest can claim to be a winner in a the knowledge economy, it has to be the home of U of M, the best public university in the Midwest. But according to an article in the Journal, "Despite Ann Arbor's educated work force, employers here find Michigan's reputation as a failing manufacturing economy can deter potential hires from moving to the state."

In short, this thing affects everybody. Even the best regional performers will be fighting horrible brand headwinds as long as the region in which they are embedded continues to fail. It's like a larger version of what I've long said about the Hoosier State, that there can't be a long term prosperous Indianapolis without a prosperous Indiana.

The lessons of Dayton and NCR are not being lost on people locally and around the state at least. Local blog Dayton Most Metro asks, "Are we ready to wake up yet?"

And a columnist in the Cleveland Plain Dealer chimes in with a call to arms for his city.

When Ohio cities lose storied corporate birthrights to the likes of Beijing, Calcutta, or even the green fields of Ohio suburbia, I understand potentially insurmountable market forces at work.

But when we continue to lose to the likes of Georgia, I only recognize underperforming leadership and a criminal failure to anticipate market realities.

In trying to understand the meaning of it all, we should reflect on the somber and lonely sentiments of a Dayton Daily News editorial that noted Wednesday that the city is now on its own.

Closer to home, Cuyahoga County continues to inch closer to its civic funeral. Not only do we continue to bleed off population and shutter what is left of our industrial base, we continue to act in a predictable political fashion that hastens our day of reckoning.

The inability of Cuyahoga County officials to agree on government reform tells the world that Northeast Ohio continues to be no place to do business. Like Dayton, our region remains a corporate cherry-picker's fantasy.

Soon there will be nothing left to govern in Cuyahoga County.

This post originally appeared at The Urbanophile.