Update: Rust Belt Immigration

Richard Herman posted another round of immigration news on Wednesday. Among the tidbits is a late November story about Pittsburgh's connection to the Great Lakes mega-regional initiative. The link resurfaced today in a Buffalo newspaper:

The Capitol Hill visits cap an effort that began a year ago “to try and approach the federal government collectively and with a strategic perspective for dollars and policy to revitalize what we believe is a multi-regional economic super-region: the Great Lakes,” said Andrew J. Rudnick, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

Rudnick noted that the effort pre-dated the economic downturn. And Barbara McNees, president of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, said the chambers have a vision that goes far beyond the $789 billion stimulus package that Congress is expected to finalize shortly.

“This is all about long-term investment in the Great Lakes region,” McNees said.

One of the suggested long-term investments is in attracting high-skilled immigrants to the Rust Belt. Doing so will mean retooling the currently besieged H-1B visa program. Economic downturns tend to be a time of scapegoating outsiders. Pushing through some progressive immigration legislation will be very difficult.

And since Barbara McNees is one of the faces of this mega-regional effort, where is the Pittsburgh media? There is a lot going on in Washington, DC this week concerning the future of Rust Belt cities such as Pittsburgh. But you wouldn't know much about it if you just read Post-Gazette or Tribune-Review. If I'm wrong about that, I'd appreciate someone pointing out the articles I'm missing.

Solving My Own Riddle

My riddle not only applies to Pittsburgh or other Rust Belt cities, but to Atlantic Canada as well:

Since education makes a person more likely to leave your region, how do you justify your investment in human capital?

Peter Panepento (Global Erie) laments Erie's lack of investment in human capital. Cleveland+ has designs on playing matchmaker between local talent and industry. Workforce development can help individuals, but how it will benefit the community footing the bill is somewhat of a mystery. More education increases geographic mobility, the best and brightest the most likely to leave.

We should understand how a brain drain crisis is typically framed:

Dr Richard Wilson, chief executive of Tiga, the trade body representing computer game developers, said "mammoth" tax breaks and subsidies in Canada are putting British businesses at risk and warned that thousands of jobs that could have been created in the UK are going overseas.

If Britain produced enough talent, then computer game developers wouldn't be going anywhere. Any place hoping to lure Tiga will have to do much better than offer bigger tax breaks. Tiga won't move to just anyplace. Otherwise, we would see virtual game production booming in the Carribean or in some other tax haven (Isle of Man?).

Richard Florida, perhaps more than anyone else, has honed in on the density of talent driving the migration of enterprise. Appealing to workers is a smarter bet than kowtowing to industry with incentives. Perhaps how you serve your government pork is the best way to discern between Kotkin and Florida.

By now, the absurdity of retaining talent should be crystal clear. The elephant in the room is actively exporting brains. Ah, but how can you justify higher taxes for education if you ship your graduates to sunny and beautiful Boulder, Colorado?

Erie's problem is Pittsburgh's solution. Southwestern Pennsylvania is ready to ship video game developers to the UK and software programmers to Bangalore, India. Eds and Meds Pittsburgh could endeavor to solve labor shortages around the world. That's a good bet locally since a shrinking population will soon fail to support all the regional colleges and universities. Pittsburgh higher education must broaden its market.

More importantly, prodigious talent production will eventually attract business. To give my hometown of Erie some love, embrace the green industry paradigm. But train workers to fill positions where they are most needed (e.g. Front Range of Colorado). This may sound suicidal, but it is far from it. And servicing local labor demand is a proven non-starter. The garage start-ups will inevitably occur and a few companies will either move to Erie or open a branch office in order to gain a leg up on the competition for employees.

The supply of talent, not cheaper production costs, will define the next round of globalization. We've witnessed the advantages of the geographic mobility of enterprise. Now we'll see what nomadic labor can do.

Movable Pittsburgh

As I struggle to figure out the logistics of returning to Pittsburgh, the Front Range of Colorado seems to redouble its grip on my life. I live in a vibrant region with exciting short term and long term prospects. Most indicators are pointing towards a Colorado boom and I'm already living in a great place for riding out the current global economic bust. Also, I'm active in my community and I see a number of interesting opportunities on the horizon.

One of the strong pulls of Pittsburgh are the numerous relationships both my wife and I maintain in that region. But virtual contact has proven to be surprisingly satisfactory. As if that wasn't enough, some of our Pittsburgh friends are moving to the Denver area. More of Pittsburgh in Colorado is an attractive option as we weigh a critical relocation decision.

This moment of doubt may soon pass. I've lived in enough places to know that there is always somewhere else. Life in Colorado is comfortable, but it is the problems facing Rust Belt cities such as Pittsburgh that get me up in the morning. Do I need to move there in order to address these issues?

Connectivity Paradigm

Richard Florida has a new article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic. Florida tries to envision what a post-economic meltdown geography will look like in the United States. He throws Pittsburgh a bone:

Many second-tier midwestern cities have tried to reinvent themselves in different ways, with varying degrees of success. Pittsburgh, for instance, has sought to reimagine itself as a high-tech center, and has met with more success than just about anywhere else. Still, its population has declined from a high of almost 700,000 in the mid-20th century to roughly 300,000 today. There will be fewer manufacturing jobs on the other side of the crisis, and the U.S. economic landscape will be more uneven—“spikier”—as a result. Many of the old industrial centers will be further diminished, perhaps permanently so.

I think Dr. Florida is saying that Pittsburgh needs to do more, much more. An interview in the same issue makes clear what he has in mind (for Pittsburgh as well as Ontario):

Here are one or two things that I think could pay dividends, in addition to broadband and Internet and all of this connectivity. One, I think the United States needs to upgrade its airports. I mean, I recently met an Austrian friend at a conference in Moscow, and she said to me—and it was heartbreaking—“You know, when I fly now from Shanghai or Beijing to the United States, it reminds me of when I was a little girl and I used to fly back from Eastern Europe to Western Europe because the infrastructure looks bad.” Obviously, international airports and international global connectivity are really key to a global economy. We need to bring our airports—Dulles Airport, for example—into the 20th or 21st century.

Secondly, rail connectivity within the mega-regions. There are the fast trains along the Boston/New York/Washington corridor that have allowed Washington, in effect, to become a commuter suburb of greater New York. But how about a place like Detroit? If Detroit were better connected to Chicago, one could imagine Detroit having a better reason for existing. Or Pittsburgh. If Pittsburgh were better connected to Chicago or even to Washington, D.C.—it’s only a four-hour drive—that could spur growth.

In this era of globalization, connectivity is king. During my first year of blogging, connectivity was a major theme. It also informs the Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh. However, alpha global cities aren't the only relationship targets. I see value in greater connectivity with Youngstown, Akron, Cleveland, and Columbus. Direct lines between Pittsburgh and Chicago is a losing proposition. But other Rust Belt cities plugging into DC through Pittsburgh could work.

Which city would be the best middleman between Pittsburgh and Chicago? The Urbanophile might have a good suggestion.

Erie Exodus?

GE Transportation announced yesterday that it is laying off hundreds of worker from the plant in my hometown of Erie, PA. Currently, this story is the most e-mailed at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. What is news in Erie interests a lot of people in Pittsburgh. I'm keeping an eye on what Global Erie's Peter Panepento has to say.

How will these layoffs impact Erie? My Rust Belt out-migration started with a shrinking workforce at the same GE plant. The economic downturn pushed my father, and thus my family, from Erie to Schenectady, NY and eventually Burlington, VT. Job seekers could hit the road again. I hear that Pittsburgh-based manufacturing is starved for talent. Regardless, I expect to see some Rust Belt reshuffling before the economy recovers.

Brain Drain Mythologies

Libertarians are fond of saying that people vote with their feet. The usual line of reasoning offered is that high-taxes push folks (and businesses) out and everyone heads to where government is smaller. You want to stop brain drain? Then cut taxes.

There is some truth to the above policy prescription, but it is overstated (to put it mildly). Consider the top 10 states where the natives aren't so restless:

1. New York
2. Louisiana
3. Michigan
4. Pennsylvania
5. Ohio
6. Illinois
7. Iowa
8. Wisconsin
9. Massachusetts
10. Minnesota

82.1% of the people currently residing in New York State were born there. The same is true for 73.8% of residents living in Minnesota. Contrast that with where I live. Only 46.9% of my fellow Coloradoans were born in-state. Keep that in mind the next time someone suggests lowering taxes in order to keep brains from leaving. Boondoggles come in all shapes and sizes.

Extraordinary Aliens in Pittsburgh

This Pittsburgh immigrant tale has three parts. In the first act, Australian artist falls in love with Larryville:

The more we saw of Pittsburgh in the days following our arrival, the more we thought we might have found our new home at long last.

On our first Saturday here, there was an open day where punters could wander into the various local Lawrenceville studios and see artists standing proudly by their creations. T and I spent a glorious sun drenched afternoon wandering from site to site, pouring over paintings, photos, hand-made graphic novellas and encyclopedias, 'found objects', all the while chomping on corn chips and chugging down wines. Everyone we met was happy and relaxed. They told us how cheap it was to live, which meant it was possible to live as an artist and not starve. One woman, a photographer, had moved here from California and her business was now booming - so much so that she had recently purchased a beautiful old former 19th working man's singing school for $80'000 and was fitting it out into a photographic studio, artist rooms, performance space and multimedia complex.

For Act II, local politician Bill Peduto rescues immigrant artist in distress:

As we rose to leave from our lunch, Bill suddenly said: "Don't worry, I'll help you. I know everyone involved in the local not for profit arts and welfare sector. I can help you find a job. And I know a Congressman who can help with the visa process too. Together we got a friend's wife released from a Chinese prison where she had been held for her Fulan Gong beliefs. If we can do that, we can help an Australian stay in America". I felt shumbled again, as Bill had now beat the record of complete strangers wanting to help me out - we had known each other for less than an hour.

There are happy endings, even in a cloudy Rust Belt city. Act III:

I like to think these two jilted brides have been sped along the highway by 'The Great Whatever' and much of the net is starting to become visible. T is now teaching in the film faculty at Point Park University, developing video projections for Squonk Opera (an innovative multimedia troupe based in Pittsburgh) and together we are working on a series of promotional films for one of Pittsburgh's great regional parks - The Grandview Scenic Byway Park on Mt Washington - which is enormous fun. I was recently granted a 3 year artist's working visa - not easy to get, but I was apparently able to convince US immigration I was an "extraordinary alien" despite having no experience with inserting anal probes into earthlings or creating crop circles using lasers from spaceships hovering several miles in the air.

The miracle on Butler Street likely surprises only cynical locals or bitter expatriates. A self-deprecating Pittsburgh tends to overlook the changes happening under its own nose. The natives are always the last to know.

Update: Read the Pop City story about the Jilted Brides.

Pierogi Trust

It is Pierogi Night at Domku Cafe in Washington, DC:

Pierogi are popular in the Midwest and along the Rust Belt -- generally, you can find pierogi anywhere you can find a large Polish or Ukrainian population. Indeed, the Midwest takes their pierogi quite seriously. Every summer, Whiting, Indiana holds a pierogi festival, featuring the world's largest pierogi, Eastern Bloc-themed Jeopardy!, and Mr. Pierogi and the Pieroguettes. Pierogi are a bit harder to find in this part of the country, but you can get your fix at Domku Cafe in Petworth.

I imagine the Midwestern Diaspora gathering once a month to share in a celebration of home. In DC, Pittsburgh and Chicago seem more like next door neighbors than hundreds of miles apart. But back in Pittsburgh, even nearby Cleveland might as well be halfway around the world:

Interesting, I would like to make it [to Cleveland] sometime to make my own comparison [with Pittsburgh] some time soon. I can't believe I've never been there yet it is so close.

Diaspora populations have an expanded sense of home and therefore a much larger trust network. An effective way to build a regional identity is to actively engage the people who left that area. The distance between Pittsburgh and Buffalo all but disappears when meeting another Rust Belt expatriate in Charlotte, NC.

Boomerang Atlantica

One of the more intriguing boomerang initiatives I've come across is East Coast Connected (ECC). ECC stood out because of its approach to promote brain circulation instead of mitigating brain drain. Actually, I'm more interested in the networking opportunities ECC fosters for Atlantic Canadians in destinations such as Toronto. But evidence is emerging that a signficant return migration is taking hold:

In 2006, faced with thousands of their best and brightest fleeing the region for western employment, 600,000 copies of a glossy workers-wanted magazine were delivered to residents of East Coast provinces and in Alberta. The hope was that worker families would urge their breadwinners to return or that homesick ex-pats would be enticed back by Atlantic jobs in energy, engineering and research sectors. ...

... If the boom dies too abruptly and the nomads get laid off en masse, the paycheques they send home will stop and they'll return to lousy job prospects in provinces where unemployment rates hover between 8.6 per cent and 14.3 per cent.

Is New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham worried? "Very much so," he lamented to Calgary reporters. "Those (Alberta-employed) New Brunswickers file taxes in our province that helps contribute to our education system, our health-care system."

Labor will often return home and ride out the economic storm there. I doubt ECC will be throwing welcome home parties. Of course, this isn't the brain circulation Atlantic Canada has in mind.

The blue collar Alberta migration reveals an important dynamic for regional workforce development. Exporting talent can be advantageous if the right connectivity infrastructure is in place. I'm not suggesting the embrace of Canada's strange tax regime. I've observed that intellectual capital follows the same pathways as financial capital. Brain circulation isn't as nearly as important as brain networking.

Update: An Atlantic Canadian economic development blogger suggests a few solutions of how to address the talent migration problem. My favorite:

Share those alumni lists with repatriation and investment attraction efforts. I realize you are trying to guard those lists religiously but if there is a VP in company in New York that graduated from your school, we need to talk with him/her about expanding in this region. Don’t obstruct. Help.

The Three Cities within Youngstown

Janko expanded upon my post about the peaks and valleys of globalization in Ontario. Youngstown is mulling over its own urban triage. Some neighborhoods may be forsaken in order to improve the health of the entire city. I scaled up the metaphor, demonstrating how similar considerations are happening at the regional and mega-regional level. The geography of globalization is forcing us to make some tough choices.

Returning to Richard Florida's research, even global cities such as Toronto are faced with the same problems as Youngstown:

Later this year, [University of Toronto Professor David Hulchanski] – associate director for research at the U of T's Cities Centre – and a team of researchers will release an update of their 2007 report The Three Cities within Toronto. Their new analysis of data from the 2006 census confirms a trend they found in the first study: the income gap between Toronto's rich areas and poor areas is growing, while its middle-income neighbourhoods are disappearing.

If Youngstown can successfully globalize, then the urban redevelopment will be dramatically uneven. The spatial pattern will begin resemble that of Toronto. From Youngstown's perspective, something is better than nothing. But be careful what you wish for ...

The fate of the urban middle class is of increasing concern. Just to offer a point of consideration: Is our romanticizing of the middle class just as much of an anachronism as an industrial economy? Is the shrinking of the middle class necessarily a bad thing?

Update: Somewhat related, consider Ryan Avent's comments about ideas to restructure how infrastructure money is doled out:

Along those lines, see Ed Glaeser on infrastructure spending, and Chris Bradford (the Austin Contrarian) on Ed Glaeser. Chris actually suggests we get rid of the DOT and let metropolitan areas keep their own transportation funds. That plan would have the salutary effect of preventing revenues raised in metropolitan areas from going to politically driven projects in rural places. On the other hand, if transportation revenues are primarily derived from gas taxes, it might encourage short-sighted cities to try and facilitate more driving. And I wonder if metropolitan-based spending, with no national coordination, might impede development of regional transportation networks.

Metro-driven federal spending would exacerbate the dominant geographic patterns stemming from economic globalization.

Blog Release: Pittsburgh Comeback Tour

From the folks who brought you "My Tale of Two Cities: A Comeback Story":

Stay tuned for the "Pittsburgh Comeback Tour" as part of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Day

Screenings of "My Tale of Two Cities" are currently being planned as "Pittsburgh nights" around the country the week of March 20th, in honor of Fred Rogers' birthday and as part of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Day. Wear your favorite sweater in memory of America's favorite neighbor that day and do something to give back to your community. Further details about "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Day will be available soon through Family Communications website, www.fci.org.

If you are interested in helping organize a screening or know of an appropriate venue in your area, please email mytaleoftwocities@gmail.com. These "community" screenings can be free or used as a benefit for a local cause in conjunction with the movie benefitting the "Youth and Media" Initiative of the Steeltown Entertainment Project, giving young people in challenging family situations a chance to help tell their stories of hope and transformation and learn about career possibilities in the entertainment industry.

We appreciate you helping us get the word out by forwarding to this to those who may be interested and by joining the "My Tale of Two Cities" Facebook group. Just Click here.

Labor Mobility: Southwestern PA

Singapore is worried that rising economic nationalism will deter foreign-born talent from immigrating. Despite shedding jobs, Microsoft is still pushing for a more liberal visa regime for high-skilled workers from other countries. The Pittsburgh region is also concerned about a labor shortage amid rising unemployment:

Lester Sutton was one of the employers hiring students from the vo-tech school. The co-founder of Aggressive Grinding in Latrobe, Sutton has for the past several years had trouble finding qualified machinists. Last summer, he decided to do something about it. He and his staff have since invested more than 1,000 man-hours and tens of thousands of dollars to renovate the school's machine shop. ...

... Sutton is one of many business owners in Southwestern Pennsylvania who are concerned about a shortage of skilled labor. Despite the deteriorating national economy, skilled trade jobs have been going unfilled as older workers retire. Like Sutton, employers are turning their attention to high school vocational programs, hoping to enhance the educations of their future workers.

Regional workforce development has struggled to keep up with the dynamism of economic globalization. Even if you properly retool local education, your new labor pool may be obsolete by the time it graduates. Furthermore, an increase in the supply of skilled labor might benefit business, but it is bad news for the workers.

Concerning workforce development, the interests of employees and employers are fundamentally at odds. Policy tends to be employer-centric. Pittsburgh's balkanized political geography is an artifact of that reality. Even communal investment in human capital tends to ignore what is best for the individual. Tax payers effectively subsidize the training that local enterprise requires. None of this attends to the needs of the workers. Short of a return to the era of unions, greater geographic mobility is the only answer.

Book of Pittsburgh Connections

I don't know if exactly replicating the Book of Scottish Connections makes sense, but the premise is promising:

As part of Homecoming 2009 Scots who live overseas are being encouraged to register key events in their lives in the Book of Scottish Connections.

It aims to help build and maintain links with the Scottish diaspora.

The first certificate from the book is being presented to Lolita and David Lavery, who married in South Africa.

They will return to the online record to register another life event in July when Lolita, who is expecting triplets, is due to give birth.

Enterprise minister Jim Mather said: "The Homecoming celebrations present the perfect opportunity to kindle pride in Scots at home and connect with the many millions of people overseas who are of Scottish descent or simply love Scotland.

Tying important life events to a certain geography is a powerful way to build a sense of community. The way the Steelers are tied to the Pittsburgh landscape represents a similar opportunity:

Nick Neupauer is president of Butler Community College in northwestern Pennsylvania. He’s 41 years old, married with two kids, and he wears a tie to work every day.

He’s also been a Steelers fan his entire life, which makes him, well, sick.

Take his 1994 wedding to his wife, Tammy. At the reception, Nick got on one knee to slide the garter off his wife’s thigh.

Instead of grabbing the undergarment, however, he pulled a Terry Bradshaw doll from one sleeve of his tuxedo, a Terrible Towel from the other and then cued the disc jockey, who began playing the Steelers’ fight song.

Steelers fans exhibit all the trappings of nationalism. Add to that the wedding cookie table or the Eastern European cuisine that now represents Pittsburgh-ness. Now wash all that down with a German style pilsner.

Actually, such traditions are older than nationalism, which was born in the late 19th-century. Not coincidentally, the social sciences started around the same time. States assumed the responsibility of regulating populations and disparate cultural exhibitions were appropriated. Weaving together parochial landscapes and forming a coherent nation-state was a feat of redoubtable engineering. The grand narrative was reinforced by the science of geography and demography. I see the PittsburghToday project in the same light. Missing is the grand narrative.

Columburgh Corridor Update

As far as the economic stimulus is concerned, road versus rails should be an interesting debate. In the spirit of Richard Florida's recommendations for Ontario, I think greater connectivity between cities is a good idea. However, I don't think the mega-regional scale that Florida is suggesting is tenable. The Michigan-Ohio Fingers is more like it and greater connectivity between Columbus and Pittsburgh makes sense:

The Columbus-Pittsburgh Corridor Committee directed its members Friday to begin discussions about creating a toll road between the two major cities.

The committee, which represents the seven Ohio counties along the route, asked its members to talk with county commissioners, mayors and other governmental leaders about potential support for such a funding plan.

The goal of the committee, which met Friday at Longaberger Golf Club, near Hanover, is to complete a 160-mile, four-lane, limited-access highway connecting the two major Midwest cities.

Notice that no Pennsylvania counties are represented on the committee. Does Pittsburgh pay attention to what is going on across the border? Now would be a good time to shed the bunker mentality and look for economic growth opportunities beyond downtown and Oakland.

Miserable Chicago

Forbes doesn't think much of Chicago:

Lousy weather, long commutes, rising unemployment and the highest sales tax rate in the country are to blame for the Windy City being near the top of our list. High rates of corruption by public officials didn't help either.

Other factors considered include violent crime, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, and income tax rate. Also among the Rust Belt miserable are Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, Buffalo, and St. Louis. Your city can't do much about the weather. Perhaps Forbes is suggesting that better ownership and management of your local professional sports franchise might make up for all the cloudy days.

Hamiltion (Ontario) and Pittsburgh (PA)

I browsed Richard Florida's vision for Ontario. I don't intend to offer a critique because I am mostly interested in the way the economic geography is re-imagined. At this point, a synopsis is more prudent. The goal is to plug the Ontario mega-region more effectively into the Toronto globalization engine. Toronto will serve as the interface with the world. As for the rest of the province, connectivity to its closest global city is critical.

The Nashua problem I raised early today is instructive in understanding what Dr. Florida is proposing. The software company moved from Nashua to Lowell in order to get closer to Boston. Why not retool and extend the infrastructure so that Nashua is also part of the Boston commuter shed? The concept is clear when the report discusses the Hamilton advantage:

The second set of places includes older industrial cities like Windsor, Hamilton, Oshawa, and others. Of all of these regions, Hamilton appears to be adjusting the most successfully. It is almost in Toronto’s commuter shed and can be made more so. Hamilton is beginning to show the value of aligning within the larger region. It has had longer to adjust, as a steel town, its decline came much earlier. The comparison of Hamilton to Windsor or Oshawa is much like the comparison of Pittsburgh to Detroit. It has had time to try to rebuild. The other industrial legacy cities are more closely tied to the automotive industry. Success for these cities will require massive retooling, either within or away from the auto industry.

Hamilton and Pittsburgh provide, ironically, a striking contrast. Pittsburgh is not close to any global city's commuter shed. I think you could make a case for DC, but that's a big stretch. Nonetheless, Pittsburgh is in the class of a Hamilton without the benefit of a nearby Toronto. Either DC is closer to Pittsburgh than anyone thinks or something else is going on in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Geography of Economic Reinvention

The Canadian province of Ontario is now Richard Florida's sandbox. Urban-centric economic development is the paradigm of choice and the resulting landscape might raise more than a few eyebrows:

The authors clarify the view by mapping out three different Ontarios. The first is an Ontario of successful city regions, including Toronto, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo, which are "well positioned for the creative age." The second is the heartland of failing industrial cities and towns that will require "massive retooling, either within or away from the auto industry."

Third is a rural hinterland doomed to decline, its only hope being to forge new connections to "larger, denser regions where people and ideas are fast-moving."

Exactly what those connections might be, and how they might work, is anyone's guess. The theory of the creative economy focuses on the urban centres, where everything happens. The best hope for the margins - the entire focus of current economic anxiety in Ontario, and the constituency that reliably forms majorities at Queen's Park - is to bask in the glow of big-city success.

I'm troubled by the apparent upscaling of city triage. Ontario has a few of its own Braddocks, places left for dead as growth is concentrated in a few strategic places. Just as Toronto turns its back on struggling neighborhoods, Ontario is considering targetting its resources in the areas of greatest return. To use Florida's terms, spiky Ontario will get spikier.

The conumdrum is figuring out how the valleys of globalization can benefit from the further agglomeration of talent in city centers. The brain drain from the "rural hinterland" should accelerate, the pressure to move to Toronto becoming even greater. But there are more than bucolic villages at stake. Consider the plight of Nashua, NH:

Nashua software company Kadient packed up and moved its 60 employees to Lowell, Mass., last weekend to take better advantage of the Boston-area work force, the company announced Tuesday. "We did it all of a sudden. We packed up on Thursday. We worked remotely on Friday," Chief Executive Officer Brian Zanghi said. "It's a mess here, but the phones are working." ...

... Zanghi said the company does a lot of recruiting from Greater Boston, but has had trouble convincing recent college graduates and interns to drive over the border to work in New Hampshire.

"A lot of the students wanted to be closer to an urban environment," he said. "Trying to convince that person to drive up to Nashua . . . it was more of a challenge."

The news is particularly disappointing for Nashua because the city has a reputation as the state's high-tech hub – a place with a highly skilled and educated pool of workers.

The pull of Boston is too great. Second-tier and third-tier cities should take note. If you are too far from Toronto, the Florida plan will do more harm than good. The gravity of the global city is only going to increase. Getting the entire province to buy in is going to be difficult. Even the beneficiaries of this strategy might find the futurescape too draconian.

Update: Northern Ontario has its own ideas:

The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario is being touted as a 25-year policy for development and investment planning in the North, developed for Northerners by Northerners.

It will be designed to focus on achieving a sustained pattern of growth, recognizing the challenges of Northern Ontario, including youth out-migration, creating sustainable regions and improving infrastructure needs.

Torontophobia?

Update II: More on the commissioned Florida report here and here. Quote of note:

The authors say the boundaries separating old industrial cities, Canada's North and rural regions from the burgeoning hotbeds of creative, knowledge-driven activity must be torn down. The creative economy must give rise to a new geographic structure consisting of a series of cities and suburbs linked together by rapid-transit systems and communications networks, the report says.

"In the past, you could have your own island economy," Dr. Florida said. "Now we have to connect mega-regions."

I'll need to read the report in order to comment further.

Bollywood Ball

Sheffield has a professional ice hockey team nicknamed the Steelers. In fact, there are many connections between Sheffield and Pittsburgh. The third leg of this Kevin Bacon tale is Mumbai and bringing these places together is Akshay Hari:

HOT young Indian singers and dancers are flying in to Sheffield from around the world to perform at a glitzy Bollywood-themed ball to raise money for victims of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. ...

... Meanwhile Akshay Hari, 17, is flying across the Atlantic from Pittsburgh, in the US, to sing and dance partnered by Smita Ravichandram, 16, also from the States, who has been learning Indian classical music since she was seven. They will perform to a medley of Bollywood tunes.

Since Pittsburgh's foreign born population is so small, Hari's efforts make news. His journey represents network migration opportunities for Pittsburgh to explore. If the region is serious about attracting immigrants, then Pittsburgh should be a visible sponsor of this fundraiser in Sheffield.

Brain Bank Pittsburgh

How might a region benefit from out-migration? Even in the best case scenarios, brain drain (i.e. net loss of talent) is bad for the local economy. The best solution to the problem is to import more talent than you export. Unfortunately, most policy targets young adults in attempt to keep them from leaving.

Fighting out-migration is foolish, but some communities feel that they have no choice. Many places are simply unable to attract enough newcomers to replace the brains that leave. But the lack of high density human capital is not a death knell for a region. When talent emigrates, it is not necessarily lost:

Another important channel through which the home country can benefit from emigration is via an exchange of ideas and technologies between domestic innovators and its diaspora. A recent research paper by Agrawal, Kapur, and McHale sheds light on this very issue using Indian data.* The authors argue that the emigration of an innovator leads to a reduction in the number of domestic innovators but at the same time, it can also lead to access to foreign-produced knowledge through the links with diaspora. In other words, ‘brain drain’ can transform into a ‘brain bank’, accumulating knowledge abroad and facilitating its transfer back to domestic inventors. This effect can dominate when there are strong connections to the diaspora.

Pittsburgh would benefit from a lot more "foreign-produced" knowledge. Pittsburghers leaving home is a given. In-migration is poor and not likely to get much better, at least in the near term. Instead of another anti-brain drain initiative, why not foster a knowledge relationship with the Burgh Diaspora?

Inter-Regional Variance

Kiwis are heading to Australia in record numbers. The United Kingdom is fretting over brain drain, particularly in the "thriving videogame development and publishing industries". (Pay attention to that talent migration, Pittsburgh.) Here in the States, emigration doesn't seem to be an issue. In fact, many of the typically geographically mobile are currently stuck with an albatross of a mortgage in a collapsing real estate market. However, the current economic crisis still should inform a new pattern of inter-regional migration:

Imbalances that can emerge among different multistate regions in the U.S. can also play a role in achieving “full employment.” An industry shock to a particular sector that is highly concentrated in one region may displace workers whose job opportunities may be emerging in another region. Past Midwest experiences are a case in point. The region suffered inordinately through the double-dip national recessions of 1980 and 1981–82. The chart below compares the District’s unemployment rates with those of the nation from two periods: the 1980s and the current decade. By the end of 1982, the nation’s unemployment rate approached 11%, while the District’s unemployment exceeded 13%.

This wide gap of the early 1980s came about from underlying currents having distinct geographical accents. In particular, high oil and natural gas prices were buoying energy exploration activities in many parts of the West and Southwest; rapidly expanding federal spending to rebuild national defense stocks were lifting many regions of the South and West; and the rapidly rising value of the U.S. dollar contributed to moribund exports of farm products and manufactured goods from the Midwest (as well as to stiff import competition).

In contrast, the recession of 2001 and its immediate economic aftermath had fewer inter-regional differences. As seen above, unemployment rates between the District and the nation were very similar. As the remainder of the decade unfolded, however, the profound structural changes going on in the automotive industry did begin to negatively affect District labor markets; the District’s unemployment rate began to rise higher relative to the national average. The Detroit Three automakers (Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co., and General Motors Corp.) and their suppliers experienced significant losses to foreign-domiciled auto plants located in other regions and to imported automotive products as well. While (post-2001) job levels largely recovered in the District, Michigan experienced continuous year-over-year job losses.

Now, amid a sharp regional downturn, employment statistics will be keenly watched to help guide our decisions regarding job search, education and training, local investment, home sales, and migration.

The domestic migration of foreign born workers is probably the best indicator of the looming population shift. The ability to move where the jobs are located is a distinct advantage in any labor market. The most geographically mobile demographics will dominate boomtowns and immigrants are well aware of the best relocation strategies.

But given how talent is tethered to home ownership, enterprise starved for highly-skilled workers will be scrambling to fill open positions. Global migration patterns suggest raiding foreign labor pools, which is why I think Pittsburgh headhunters should be scouring the UK. But I also think we will see a lot of domestic boomerang migration. Of all the regional victims of the great out-migration of the early 1980s, Pittsburgh is in the best position to benefit from this talent flow.