Resuscitating The Rust Belt

Joel Kotkin and Richey Piiparinen posit that America’s erstwhile industrial heartland “could well be on the verge of a major resurgence, one that should be welcomed not only locally but by the rest of the country”:

Two factors drive this change. One is the steady revival of America as a productive manufacturing country, driven in large part by new technology, rising wages abroad (notably in China), and the development of low-cost, abundant domestic energy, much of it now produced in states such as Ohio and in the western reaches of Pennsylvania.

The second, and perhaps more surprising, is the wealth of human capital already existent in the region.

After decades of decline, this is now expanding as younger educated workers move to the area in part to escape the soaring cost of living, high taxes, and regulations that now weigh so heavily on the super-star cities. In fact, more educated workers now leave Manhattan and Brooklyn for places like Cuyahoga County and Erie County, where Cleveland and Buffalo are located, than the other way around. …

The rustbelt revival relies not on mimicry but on embracing the regional culture that values production of things over simply their mere consumption. Cities like San Francisco, Portland and Seattle may have started with industrial roots, but their recent success has been tied to such factors as attractive geographies and, to Midwest sensibilities at least, mild climates. These regions have been enriched for decades by the migration of people from the rustbelt—Microsoft’s former President Steve Ballmer (suburban Detroit), venture capitalist John Doerr (St. Louis), and Intel co-founder Andrew Noyce (Iowa) are just a few examples.

But the cost of housing, among other factors, is changing the calculus:

Housing prices in most rustbelt cities, adjusted for incomes, are one-third those of the Bay Area and at most one-half those seen in the Los Angeles, New York, or Boston areas. This can be seen not just in distant exurbs or suburbs, but in prime inner-city neighborhoods. Whatever dreams millennials have are likely to center around affordable single-family housing, as they begin to marry and start families. The rustbelt offers this younger generation the kind of choices, and middle class standards, that are increasingly unattainable in the superstar cities.

(Photo: Monessen, Pennsylvania, 2007. By Flickr user christine592)