Saturday, February 08, 2014

Cleveland’s Pittsburgh Moment

Cleveland is dying just like Pittsburgh was back in 2004 at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence.

Subject Article: "Did Burke Lakefront Airport Miscalculations Add to Hopkins Hub Troubles in Cleveland?"

Other Links: 1. "The Robots That Saved Pittsburgh: How the Steel City avoided Detroit’s fate."
2. "United Airlines ending of non-stop to Oklahoma City could crimp Ohio shale gas development."
3. "Chesapeake CEO Makes Surprise Stop in Region."
4. "Chesapeake forging ahead despite job cuts: Recent job cuts and reports of corporate restructuring at Chesapeake Energy have hit local operations."
5. "United Airlines exit is a major setback that reflects this region's failure to fix the fundamentals."
6. "Terminal Sickness: How a thirty-year-old policy of deregulation is slowly killing America’s airline system—and taking down Cincinnati, Memphis, and St. Louis with it."
7. "A Tale of Two Rust-Belt Cities."
8. "Dismantling Pittsburgh: Death of an airline hub."
9. "Who the hell does this Sienna Miller skank think she is? Question submitted by: Pittsburghers everywhere"
10. "A Neighborhood's Comeback: Part of Pittsburgh Finally Recovers From 1950s Planners; Google Sets Up Office."

Postscript: What's driving the economic turnaround in Pittsburgh? One theory is that the Innovation Economy is converging. The group of metro winners is growing. Silicon Valley's dominance is eroding. Another possible theory is the divergence of the Legacy Economy. A new set of winners are forming with the rise of the next economic epoch in the wake of the Innovation Economy's decline. I think the Innovation Economy is converging in Cleveland. Meanwhile, the Legacy Economy is converging in Pittsburgh. Thus, the disparity between brain hubs.

3 comments:

Matthew Hall said...

So, the earth IS flat. Everything is happening everywhere.

Pete Saunders said...

I believe the Legacy Economy will work for the Rust Belt -- auto technology has the ability to transform Detroit. But what keeps Detroit from sealing that deal is not having a Carnegie Mellon, Stanford or MIT -- a private, STEM-oriented research institution that can attract the best and brightest. UM fills the bill somewhat but I don't think so. I'd love to see a Ford University in Detroit.

Allen said...

Since my high school years I've had been a bit too geeky about aviation. Over the years I've noticed the recurring claim about the need for direct flights. During much of the same time I witnessed my dad frequently traveling for work to places that had no direct flights. A couple times those facilities were expanded and got new product lines to make. It seems some would insist on saying "despite the lack of direct flights".

Don't get me wrong, I think there's something to be said for Aerotroplis. Nevertheless, these claims about the importance of direct flights forget that most of the people doing traveling are salaried. Whether it takes them 2 hours or 4 hours to make the trip, it doesn't affect their company's bottom line. More so, there a lot more costs to look at than those incurred by a couple people travelling. I think those folks will do just fine flying Southwest via Atlanta to and from Akron or via Chicago to get to CLE.