Rust Belt Community Anchors

Via the Creative Class blog, an article about how colleges are helping struggling communities make the transition to a post-industrial economy:

In old mill towns and declining manufacturing centers, in the Rust Belt's former company towns and in the rural South, small, private liberal-arts institutions like King's are assuming a greater responsibility for community and economic development. They and their alumni are raising money to purchase abandoned buildings. They are relocating college facilities, like bookstores and residence halls, to buoy up urban cores. They are working to better connect faculty experts with local entrepreneurs.

College alumni are acting in the very same capacity I envision for urban diaspora networks. Seems to me that educating locals and sending them away to find success is beginning to pay off for these communities.