Cleveland’s Eaton Corporation is asking the Cuyahoga County Port Authority to loan it $170 million so it can move its corporate headquarters from downtown Cleveland to move to suburban Chagrin Highlands, The Plain Dealer is reporting. ...
... I’ve heard some people comment that this is necessary to prevent Eaton from becoming Cleveland’s NCR.
NCR recently announced a move from Dayton, OH to Atlanta, GA. The implication is that Cleveland will sacrifice urban density for jobs. Why not use tax dollars to move Eaton from downtown Cleveland to downtown Dayton?
Apparently, Eaton "threatened to move to another state". Imagine Ohio holding onto NCR, leveraging the talent pool in Columbus. Obviously, that wouldn't go over too well in Dayton. But that's better than the jobs heading to Georgia. I doubt that Eaton couldn't find the space to grow in downtown Cleveland. Even if that were true, I'm sure that Youngstown or Toledo could accommodate Eaton expansion. Akron would also qualify and employees wouldn't have to move. My guess is that Eaton wanted to be closer to the residences of its workers.
Likening Eaton to NCR is instructive. Doing so highlights the geography of economic competition. Cleveland is at war with everywhere not Cleveland. Dayton is at war with everywhere not Dayton. The same is true for Pittsburgh and every other Rust Belt city. As long as this parochial perspective holds, Atlanta will continue to win.
8 comments:
It reminds me of the Westinghouse example, where Allegheny county realized that the jobs were better in Butler than they were in Carolina.
I think the state governments, particularly Columbus, need to take on a bigger role in recognizing that location fights should be about cities, but are about regions.
If I've understood your argument correctly, your point is that a region with a single city (Georgia has Atlanta) is better positioned to compete for companies than a region with many feuding cities (Ohio has Cleveland/Columbus/Cinci).
It's a fair point. There's enough sniping between Ohio cities that a non-Ohio city is in great shape to lure away employers.
Can we imagine regional cooperation in Ohio? Would Dayton have willingly given up NCR to Columbus under any circumstances?
"If I've understood your argument correctly, your point is that a region with a single city (Georgia has Atlanta) is better positioned to compete for companies than a region with many feuding cities (Ohio has Cleveland/Columbus/Cinci)."
I'm not sure I've made a coherent argument. I was thinking through the Eaton/NCR comparison as I was writing. Ohio is challenged with an unusual number of big cities clamoring for state resources. However, I was trying to get at the zero-sum game problem plaguing the Rust Belt:
Suburbs vs. City
City vs. City
Region vs. Region
State vs. State
Anti-NAFTA sentiment or carping about Rust Belt politics looks silly when Cleveland frames its competition as Pittsburgh. Headquarters moving to Georgia, China, or Indiana all mean the same thing to Ohio. But switching from downtown to suburb or Dayton to Columbus isn't a politically palatable alternative.
The idea that Georgia can put a lot more eggs into the basket of Atlanta didn't occur to me. I see the dysfunctional political geography and parochial mindset of the Rust Belt as benefiting Atlanta.
But there are states like California and Texas who have just as many substantially sized cities as Ohio. What are they doing right (or, if not right, than at least better)?
Paz: What are cities in CA and TX doing better?
My 2c: The comparison isn't entirely fair, actually. Although CA and TX seem comparable, their large cities are actually pretty far apart.
Silicon Valley is a 6hr driver from LA. Within Silicon Valley, there's a labor force that can move around between jobs/cities pretty easy. The same goes for the LA area.
In Texas, Dallas, Houston, and--to a lesser extent--Austin are all pretty far apart. That means that they don't compete between each other for the same laborforce.
In OH, however, the cities are *very* close. Cleveland is 2 hrs from Columbus; Columbus is 2 hrs from Cinci. As a result, they end up fighting with each other for overlapping laborforces.
"But there are states like California and Texas who have just as many substantially sized cities as Ohio. What are they doing right (or, if not right, than at least better)?"
I doubt that state-level politics makes all that much of a difference. There's too much economic variance between cities in the same state. (See the Brain Drain Index for Dayton and Columbus) I'm referencing false perceptions, such as the notion that Youngstown expatriates are all flocking to the Sun Belt. Most of them are in Cleveland or Pittsburgh.
A while back, I posted about Braddock. The population decline in that city is notorious enough. Chris Briem remarked that most of these people stayed within the region, often moving to the suburbs. But that's outside of the popular brain drain narrative.
We tend to misunderstand the relocation of corporate HQs. It ends up looking a lot like a sports stadium boondoggle. Rust Belt cities are mostly victims of their own civic pride.
We focus a lot on Rust Belt cities, and in those cities we see a lot of companies choosing to relocate outside the CBD. The Eaton example is a case-in-point. When these moves occur, we fret about CBD vs. suburban competition.
Our mistake, however, is to think that this is a rust belt phenomenon. Actually, it's a national phenomenon. City centers across the country--NYC and Boston included--don't see that much growth anymore. It's way cheaper to build office parks on undeveloped land.
Another thing to keep in mind with the Eaton news: Eaton is proposing to relocate to a suburban campus and *expand*. That's pretty common for large corporations. They like having their own campuses. This is normal. It's not necessarily a good thing sprawl-wise, but it's normal these days. The Cleveland region should be happy that Eaton wants to expand.
"Another thing to keep in mind with the Eaton news: Eaton is proposing to relocate to a suburban campus and *expand*."
Agreed. And more than just Greater Cleveland should be celebrating this news.
Post a Comment