Sun Belt War Within

The rise of Texas would seem to be linked to the demise of California. Regionally speaking, East Coast dominance yielded to the rise of the Left Coast. Texas anchors the emergence of the nation's interior as an economic and political power. The most prominent thinker about this new geography is Joel Kotkin. Recently, he addressed the nativism taking charge in Arizona:

But there is a distinct danger for the GOP here, not only in Arizona but in the rest of the country as well. As Bill Frey of the Brookings Institute points out, there is a growing gap between the electorate, which is still largely white and older, and the much younger, far more rapidly growing Latino population. In Arizona Frey says the "cultural generation gap" between the ethnicity of seniors and children is some 40%, meaning that while 83% of senior are white, only 43% of children are. Nationwide, Frey estimates the gap in the ethnic composition of seniors and youths stands at a still sizable 25 points.

Arizona's large disequilibrium in the ethnicity of its generations is a product, in part, of the state's historic pull to white retirees. Yet its formerly booming economy, based largely around construction and tourism, required a massive importation of largely Latino, low-wage labor, much of it illegal. As a result over the past two decades, Arizona's Latino population has grown by 180%, turning what had been a 72% Anglo state to one that is merely 58% white.

You don't have to go very far--in fact just across the California border--to see what awaits Arizona's nativist Republicans. The Grand Canyon state's future has already emerged there. In the 1970s and 1980s California's generally robust economy made it a primary destination for immigrants from both Asia and Latin America. Comfortable in their Anglo-ness, papers like the Arizona Republic were dismissing California as a "third world state," particularly in the wake of the 1992 LA riots.

Arizona politicians are seeking short-term political gain. They are mortgaging the state's future in hopes of clinging to office during difficult economic times. Nationally, the GOP is trying to pull off a high wire act. The party must balance the anti-immigrant anger of its base with the growing ranks of Latinos. Perhaps nowhere is the handwriting on the wall clearer than in Texas:

Dr. Lloyd Potter talked about demographic characteristics and trends during the fourth annual Central Texas Economic Outlook Conference at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center. The event was sponsored by the Fort Hood Economic Region, formerly the Central Texas Economic Corridor, and Workforce Solutions of Central Texas. ...

... The Hispanic population in the state is increasing, he said, and it is estimated that it will exceed the Caucasian population in 2020. If current migration and natural increase trends continue, the Hispanic population among the Central Texas Council of Governments counties will exceed the Caucasian population in 2035 to 2040.

The current posturing in Arizona will command increasing marginalization nationally. The GOP will need to curry favor in Texas where Latinos are poised to become the majority. Arizona will be left to tear itself apart. The hard times could last decades and back to the ashes for Phoenix.

The Rust Belt Is Dead

Long live the Rust Belt.

I am still trying to process the mammoth Brookings "State of Metropolitan America" report. I plan to dig deeper into the chapter about educational attainment. For now, the big story is how Brookings has boldly served up a novel perspective on US geography:

In fact, my Brookings colleagues and I identify seven categories of metropolitan areas based on their population growth rates, their levels of racial and ethnic diversity, and the rates at which their adults have earned college degrees. Together, these indicators say a lot about not just these three dimensions of metropolitan populations, but also factors such as development patterns, age, household structure, economic history and trajectory, and income inequality. Associating metro areas in this way breaks them out of their traditional regional boxes, bringing together areas as far flung as Allentown and Jacksonville, Portland and Atlanta.

"Traditional regional boxes" describe an economy dominated by manufacturing. The post-Fordist world (if there is such a beast) is dominated by a network of global cities. World regional geography no longer makes any sense. I wish postsecondary education would wake up to that fact.

I argue that there are two geographic camps trying to map globalization. Richard Florida and his evangelizing of megaregions champions the old ways, simply retooling the contiguous abstraction for today's world. Brookings deconstructs Char-Lanta:

As leaders in these regions seek policy solutions and on-the-ground practices to capitalize on their demographic strengths and address their population challenges, they might think about looking beyond the metro next door. Indeed, Greenville may have more to learn from Little Rock than from Charleston, and Orlando might look to Phoenix rather than Miami. These leaders can also make common cause on the federal issues that matter most to their populations, such as expanding affordable housing supply (Next Frontier), educating immigrant children (Diverse Giant), or strengthening American manufacturing (Industrial Core).

Metro areas are where the demographic meets the economic. Our traditional regional identities will probably persist, but like Red Sox Nation, we have much to learn and gain from affinities that stretch across the national map.

Like Red Sox Nation. Like Steelers Nation. Like a diaspora.

Brookings identifies seven urban tribes. I'm having Joseph Campbell flashbacks. I'll call them metro cohorts. Indianapolis shouldn't be comparing itself to Cleveland or Detroit:

Those characteristics are redefining the Indianapolis area, making us less like industrial cities such as Cleveland or Detroit that we've been grouped with in the past and more like fast-growing Charlotte, N.C., or new immigration gateway Portland, Ore., the Brookings Institution says in a new report.

Sorry Indianapolis, there hasn't been a Rust Belt to unbuckle for some time. I don't know if Indianapolis was ever in the same boat as Cleveland or Detroit. I wouldn't be so smug. How do you compare with your new cohort?

Regional and megaregional thinking is a dead social science. It's a relic of late 19th-century British imperialism. It was popular among Nazi sympathizers. In the United States, the champion was Carl Sauer. If I'm confusing you, then I recommend you read this.

I don't know how it happened, but Brookings has come a long way in short time. Remember the Great Lakes Economic Initiative? John Austin's vision is buried six feet under. I think that's a good thing. The suggested megaregion was never coherent. More importantly, US politicians need a new geography to better understand a metro nation (if not an urban world). See Saskia Sassen.

In my opinion, Brookings has successfully pushed the geographic metanarrative forward. Get busy writing the next generation of textbooks for college students. Introducing the mental map of an urban-centric America.

Immigration Freakonomics

Okay, the following isn't your typical data analysis. But the results are just as counter-intuitive as anything you find in the book "Freakonomics":

The study, "Context Matters: Latino Immigrant Civic Engagement in Nine U.S. Cities," found that areas long accustomed to an influx of immigrants, including close-in jurisdictions of the Washington region, tend to focus more on trying to accommodate them rather than restrict them.

"The reality is that they're here already, so most cities and counties are trying to figure out how they can best incorporate these immigrants," said Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute and a co-author of the report. In states including Texas, California and Illinois, he said, "There is a sense that immigrants are a productive part of society."

An analysis of 1,059 immigration-related bills in 50 state legislatures in 2007 found that 19 percent of 313 bills expanding immigrant rights were enacted, while 11 percent of 263 bills contracting rights were enacted, the report says.

When we speak of tolerance, we tend to cite the lack of restrictive legislation. Furthermore, becoming more welcoming tends to be reactive instead of proactive. How does your city manage the tidal wave of inmigration?

New destinations for immigrants tend to react in a negative fashion. But the people keep coming. This should put to rest the idea that greater tolerance for outsiders is a way to attract talent. Traditional immigrant gateways are relatively more progressive with liberal attitudes towards newcomers. That doesn't seem to impede the rush to the suburbs.

Detroit Calling Pittsburgh

There's already some press feedback from the Lexington-Louisville tour of Pittsburgh:

"Where we are today took 30 years; it was not overnight," said Dennis Yablonsky, the Allegheny Conference's CEO. "I'm getting a lot of calls from Detroit these days."

How did it happen? The Kentuckians were told that Pittsburgh's public and private sectors came together to reinvent the local economy by creating new business sectors in the region's core strengths: manufacturing, energy and finance. "We created a balanced, diversified economy," Yablonsky said.

One key factor was long-term investment in higher education, especially the region's major research universities, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Thanks in largely to that research, the region now has 1,600 technology companies and advanced manufacturing plants.

Keep Pittsburgh Weird.

Tale Of Three Overlapping Regional Initiatives

Northeast Ohio (aka Team NEO) is the Cleveland-centric regional program. Power of 32 is the Pittsburgh-centric attempt at multi-county collaboration. The heart of the TechBelt is Youngstown. Team NEO has been a public relations disaster. From what I'm hearing, Power of 32 is already seeking a second chance. That leaves the TechBelt:

Last week, NorTech received a $300,000 federal grant to craft global business strategies for companies involved in energy storage, smart grids, electric-powered transport and biomass/waste-to-energy.

NorTech also joined an application filed Thursday by a "TechBelt" -- extending from Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Morgantown, W. Va. -- that hopes to land $130 million in federal money for bringing energy-efficient building technologies to market, NorTech President Rebecca Bagley said.

Large-company partners in the application include Alcoa Inc., Eaton Corp. and Sherwin-Williams Co., Bagley said.

I read the above as NorTech moving from Cleveland+ to TechBelt. At the very least, Team NEO is redundant. I'm more inclined to write that it is vestigial. Team NEO has always been regional in name, but parochial in deed.

Where does that leave the Power of 32? A day late and a dollar too much. If the steering committee ever rights the ship, then they will have to contend the TechBelt momentum:

Pittsburgh's appeal is its rebirth over the last two decades, as well as the fact that officials there and throughout Pennsylvania have united with their counterparts in Ohio and West Virginia to work together from a tri-state standpoint, Quick said.

Pittsburgh, in particular, has dealt with a lot of issues that are now facing Lexington and Louisville, he said. Kentucky's urban areas especially need to work together when it comes to dealing with the state legislature, which is controlled more by smaller cities and counties, he said.

The tri-state could refer to both the Power of 32 and the TechBelt, save that the former also includes Maryland. I doubt any officials would tout the Power of 32 to outsiders. There's nothing to share. As for the TechBelt, today is awash in news:

Northeast Ohio and Southwest Pennsylvania together constitute one of the 20 megapolitans Lang Nelson have identified. They call this region the “Steel Corridor,” a name that evokes its proud past but unfortunately does not point to a promising or particularly innovative and prosperous future. In 2007 Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan (OH-17) his counterpart in Pennsylvania, Congressman Jason Altmire (PA-04), tired of the continuing reference to the industrial past, coined the term “Tech Belt” and , in October 2007″ convened the first “Tech Belt Summit, inviting the region’s business and civic leaders to meet at Youngstown State University and begin to explore the shared future of this region. ...

... Youngstown and its political, academic and business leadership have been in the center of each effort, providing both thought leadership and a “third place” to meet and discuss the future of geography know, in earlier times, as the “Steel Belt” and the “Rust Belt” but now defining itself as the “Tech Belt.” We will discuss each initiative in greater detail in subsequent posts.

Youngstown is the center of this megapolitan, where Pittsburgh can honestly meet Cleveland. Team NEO and the Power of 32 should cut bait and follow NorTech's lead. Swallow your civic pride and get behind Youngstown.

Reinventing Richard Florida: Fishing With Strawberries

Aaron Renn reviews Richard Florida's new book, "The Great Reset". At the heart of the controversy (any good book review should have one) is the excoriation of Florida written by Alec MacGillis. Adding another voice to the critique, Tim Logan (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) strikes a more balanced posture:

In his new book, Florida acknowledges this; indeed, he takes it quite a bit further. The economy, he argues, is quickly sorting into “mega-regions.” Yes, the Boston-Washington corridor, but also Char-lanta, Hou-Orleans, and Cascadia (from Portland to Vancouver). In these places, jobs and talented people are pooling and feeding off of each other to drive growth. They have diverse economies with high “metabolisms.” They sprout ideas. Florida predicts an “intense clustering of jobs, innovation and productivity in a smaller number of big cities.” And, he says, we need to encourage this, to help these cities compete on the global stage. This means funneling talent in their direction, by giving people more flexibility to move. And it means letting go of dying industries elsewhere, like, say, auto manufacturing.

This sounds great, if you’re Chicago, Atlanta, or San Francisco. In Florida’s view, these are essential nodes of the global economy, magnets for talent, and wellsprings of opportunity. They’ll bloom even more. But for cities that now seem less essential, his view is bleak. There’s little talk in The Great Reset of how creativity might spark a Rust Belt revival, for example, or help carve a niche for smaller, out-of-the-way towns. Florida calls Detroit one of his favorite places, and says he’s “heartbroken” over its plight. But he predicts it and other blue-collar cities face a generation of decline.

The vitriol stems from the distancing of this new vision from the Creative Class enterprise. Lou Glazer (Michigan Future) explains:

But if our analysis is right, its not something that small metros and rural areas can do. They simply don’t have the assets – density being the most important – to create, retain and attract either knowledge-based enterprises or college educated adults at scale. So the new Florida analysis is likely right. That there are many places across the country that are unlikely to succeed– no matter how many resources they throw at it – to create places where talent will concentrate. Florida deserves the criticism that he sold many communities – including in Michigan – an unrealizable growth strategy.

What I think is wrong with his new analysis is that he also seems to writing off many big metros. The fact that Michigan’s three largest metros are not now talent magnets nor do they have the assets needed to become one, doesn’t mean that it can’t change. As we explore in our next annual progress report, Pittsburgh has gone from a declining industrial region to a flourishing knowledge economy. If they can do it, so can our three largest metros.

Michigan adopted the Cool Cities mantra and now Florida is leaving the state for dead. Or, so it would seem. Back to Aaron Renn's take:

I was eager to see what what he’d say of the Rust Belt. There’s been a lot of talk such as that of MacGillis that Florida has said many Rust Belt cities are hopeless, but I hadn’t actually seen him write it anywhere. In this book, Florida clearly recognizes the challenges facing struggling manufacturing towns. And he doesn’t sugar coat the fact that further troubles are likely for many of them, and that turning around places like Detroit will be a generational effort at best. This may sound harsh, but unfortunately it is likely true, especially for smaller cities that don’t have the critical mass of human capital and infrastructure to operate effectively in the knowledge economy.

But he definitely does not say it is hopeless, and in fact talks about some positive examples, such as Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh story is based around investments in educational infrastructure, grass roots neighborhood, initiatives, and a long time frame. The roots of the Pittsburgh turnaround are decades old. He thinks this is the path others will need to take.

A couple of an points I want to highlight. Renn and Logan have a different understanding of Florida's prescription for Detroit (and other struggling Rust Belt cities). Rich should try to clarify what he proposes. Also, note that Glazer and Florida agree on Pittsburgh as a model. There is a beautiful symmetry putting Pittsburgh at the center of Florida's makeover. Some of you may remember that the flight of young creatives from the campus of Carnegie Mellon University to the hip city of Austin stood as a metaphor for talent migration. Pittsburgh was Loserville:

While I was interested in the change in corporate recruiting strategy, something even bigger struck me. Here was another example of a talented young person leaving Pittsburgh. Clearly, my adopted hometown has a huge number of assets. Carnegie Mellon is one of the world's leading centers for research in information technology. The University of Pittsburgh, right down the street from our campus, has a world-class medical center. Pittsburgh attracts hundreds of millions of dollars per year in university research funding and is the sixth-largest center for college and university students on a per capita basis in the country. Moreover, this is hardly a cultural backwater. The city is home to three major sports franchises, renowned museums and cultural venues, a spectacular network of urban parks, fantastic industrial-age architecture, and great urban neighborhoods with an abundance of charming yet affordable housing. It is a friendly city, defined by strong communities and a strong sense of pride. In the 1986 Rand McNally survey, Pittsburgh was ranked "America's Most Livable City," and has continued to score high on such lists ever since.

Yet Pittsburgh's economy continues to putter along in a middling flat-line pattern. Both the core city and the surrounding metropolitan area lost population in the 2000 census. And those bright young university people keep leaving. Most of Carnegie Mellon's prominent alumni of recent years---like Vinod Khosla, perhaps the best known of Silicon Valley's venture capitalists, and Rick Rashid, head of research and development at Microsoft---went elsewhere to make their marks. Pitt's vaunted medical center, where Jonas Salk created his polio vaccine and the world's premier organ-transplant program was started, has inspired only a handful of entrepreneurs to build biotech companies in Pittsburgh.

Over the years, I have seen the community try just about everything possible to remake itself so as to attract and retain talented young people, and I was personally involved in many of these efforts. Pittsburgh has launched a multitude of programs to diversify the region's economy away from heavy industry into high technology. It has rebuilt its downtown virtually from scratch, invested in a new airport, and developed a massive new sports complex for the Pirates and the Steelers. But nothing, it seemed, could stem the tide of people and new companies leaving the region.

Read that last sentence again. What does it have to do with attraction? The narrative is about losing people to someplace else. My problem with the creative class approach to economic development is the selling of brain retention strategies. Truth be told, Pittsburgh already had it figured out. The program didn't have much to do with becoming the next Austin, which is good news for other Rust Belt cities.

Which brings me to fishing with strawberries:

As O'Reilly tells it, the banker chastises him with a metaphor. "You don't fish with strawberries," the banker says. "Even if that's what you like, fish like worms, so that's what you use."

At first, O'Reilly accepts this advice. Who can argue with the idea that customers should get what they want? But as he thinks it over, he begins to see things differently. "[A] small voice within me said, with a mixture of dismay, wonder, and dawning delight: 'But that's just what we've always done: gone fishing with strawberries,' " he writes. " 'And it's worked!' "

Before "The Great Reset", Richard Florida fished with worms. Communities wanted a working brain drain plug. He [in theory] delivered. I think that's the crux of the controversy and why some people are mad. Now, Florida is fishing with strawberries. But will the cities still bite?

Ironic Brain Gain: Scranton

In my little world, the current news cycle is dominated by Brookings "The State of Metropolitan America" report. As far as I can ascertain, the think tank sent tailor-made press releases to each metro region. The Scranton story stands out to me:

On the flip side, the region's much-deplored "brain drain" flight of educated young people may be easing.

The area's over-25 population with a bachelor's degree is just 21 percent - almost 7 percent lower than the average - but the proportion of residents with a college education increased by 3.4 percent between 2000 and 2008. The advance was marginally ahead of the U.S. average.

"Some people may be surprised because they think everyone that's young and educated is running away," Ms. Ooms said.

"That trajectory was in a positive direction for the region for the decade," Mr. Berube said.

The region also gained population between 2000 and 2008 from movement within the country. The 0.7 percent migration growth rate outdistanced the national average, which was zero.

"Most places that are having a population decline are net exporters of residents to other parts of the country," Mr. Berube said. "The fact that people are moving to the Scranton area from other parts of the United States is interesting and surprising."

There is a lot to unpack in the above paragraphs. Scranton is a lot like Pittsburgh, two shrinking cities undergoing dramatic natural decline. Chris Briem has some more about the unique demography related to the Brookings release.

Brain gain is commonly thought of as at odds with a declining population. Consider the good news for Worcester:

Of the 19 metro areas classified as “Skilled Anchors,” such as Worcester, 17 are in the Northeast and Midwest, including Springfield, Boston, and Akron, Ohio. They are slow-growing, with higher than average educational attainment, most with significant medical and educational institutions.

“Worcester has to be pleased with some of the findings,” said Alan Berube, senior fellow and research director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, and an author of the study. “Most notably, out of the 100 largest metro areas, Worcester experienced one of the highest increases in median household income, where there was a decline in the U.S. We know that it's related to the percentage of the population that has a college degree. They go hand-in-hand.

“I think Worcester continues to manage the transition from an industrial, manufacturing hub to a knowledge-based economy, with health, health technology and education.

In terms of growth in "college degree attainment", Worcester was #1 in the country. Pittsburgh comes in third (tied with Indianapolis) and Akron is 7th. Pittsburgh is also outstanding for "lowest growth/decline". Throw Scranton in that bottom tier, as well. However, Scranton is also near the bottom (along with Youngstown) for "higher educational attainment" rates.

Bottom line, Pittsburgh joins Worcester and Akron as Skilled Anchor as opposed to Industrial Core (low growth, low diversity and low educational attainment). The Industrial Heartland (home to moribund population numbers and relatively homogeneous) is shaking out between brain gain and brain drain cities.

The Cleveburgh Corridor ends up a curious mismatch of Industrial Core (Cleveland and Youngstown) and Skilled Anchor (Akron and Pittsburgh). When Joe Cortright came to Akron to speak to that community, he failed to understand the distinction. As I've cataloged at my blog, talent attraction experts and talent management consultants are unaware of the geographic details because they don't disaggregate the data. Treating Akron like Cleveland is a mistake.

I appreciate how Brookings has done away with the regional constructs of "Sun Belt" and "Rust Belt". The megaregion is a poor geographic abstraction, more of an anachronism than an emerging pattern. The analysis also challenges the idea of Northeast Ohio or the TechBelt. Youngstown is in excellent position to fish in the talent pools of Akron and Pittsburgh. I'm not sure where that leaves Cleveland.

Brain Drain Freakonomics

I'd guess that most of my readers are familiar with the Freakonomics phenomenon. If not, check out the video of author Steven Levitt discussing the economics of drug dealing:

Contrary to popular myth, he says, being a street-corner crack dealer isnt lucrative: It pays below minimum wage. And your boss can kill you.

Levitt's hook is to use data analysis to assail conventional wisdom. The approach has found an audience among sports fans:

These are just a few of the widely held sports beliefs economists David Berri and Martin Schmidt attack in their new book Stumbling on Wins, an analytical look at performance and decision-making in sports that is bound to provoke barstool arguments across America.

More important: A breakdown of wins and losses against individual stats shows that for all the access to data that's available to team executives, many continue to make the wrong decisions. Example: NBA players are disproportionately paid to score. Because so much of basketball success is tied to gaining (and maintaining) possession of the ball, players that rebound and commit few turnovers should be valued higher, they argue.

Leaders in a given industry can be operating under false assumptions. The same could be said about regions and cities. A good example is workforce development and the fretting about brain drain. Yesterday, Ben Winchester posted the following comment on my blog:

Long time lurker on your blog. I am a rural and small town researcher. Yes, people in the midwest do hear about brain drain ALL THE TIME - books like Hollowing out the Middle are written without a balanced perspective on the dynamics of population movement, rather they just look at the kids that leave. However, our towns are more proud of the fact they can prepare the kids well for the larger world.

My research shows that people aged 30-45 move to rural areas, and in many cases provide a balance to the kids that leave. I call this the Brain Gain. Yes, we lose kids making $7/hour and have a HS education - yet we gain 30-45 year old people, with life experience, education, and kids (in 4th - 8th grades).

Anyway, thought I would throw a note your way. You can google "brain gain of the newcomers" to find out more.

You can find a copy of Ben's research here. The brain drain is real. Surprisingly, so is the brain gain. The authors of "Hollowing Out the Middle" buy into the dominant narrative uncritically. Repeating the hype serves to obfuscate the challenges facing rural communities. The resulting policy suggestions are a step in the wrong direction:

Hilda Legg, a conference presenter who sat in on a session by YPEK, said she thinks Eastern Kentucky needs to overcome the perception that there are no jobs. The region needs a sense of empowerment and entrepreneurship.

"We've taught our children to leave, that there's no opportunity," Legg said.

The region needs a better sense of what is going on in terms of migration. In some (too few) parts of the country, the discussion is more constructive:

The fellowship is meant to address a growing threat to rural communities— the “brain drain,” or the loss of local talent to bigger cities with more perceived opportunities, organizers said.

“It’s a major economic development issue,” said Mark Rembert, co-director of ECC. “We encourage the best and brightest of our local youth to go off into the world, with very little encouragement to come back. When that happens, there’s no return on our investment as a community.”

“We invest so much into our youth,” he continued, “through the school system and elsewhere, and we want to retain some of that investment, and at the same time provide them with a unique opportunity.”

Preparing your community's children to succeed in the larger world is not a bad thing. The issue is figuring out how to get a return on that investment given all the educational success. That doesn't mean ignoring the talent that does stick around town. There's nothing wrong with linking graduates with local opportunities. I think the authors of "Hollowing Out the Middle" do a good job of making this case. However, they give short shrift to the rural inmigration that Ben Winchester details. Attraction is either insufficient or too culturally disruptive. We've only begun to explore the possibilities.

But the conversation can't start until we are willing to assess the situation more frankly.

Go Back To Ohio

Lest you think that only immigrants are the only targets of xenophobia, I present "Go Back to Ohio" South Carolina:

In most parts of South Carolina, people recognize illegal immigration as a real problem. But there is one group of problematic undocumented aliens that is often overlooked: Ohioans.

You might notice that the article in question was published way back in 2008. Tensions haven't eased. In a hilarious send up of the GBTO subculture, a classic boomerang migration story stands out:

Though plenty of Ohioans have moved to town and aren't willing to budge, not everyone's impressed with the Lowcountry's particular brand of Southern hospitality. Kristen Rhodes, an Ohio native, lived in Charleston for six years and managed to get repulsed.

"When I was down there, whenever I wrote anything critical about Charleston, I would get letters to the editor saying if you don't like it, leave. So I finally did," she says. Rhodes worked in Charleston as an art critic for City Paper and Charleston magazine before throwing in the towel and returning to Cleveland when her husband got a residency at Case Medical Center.

She was happy to go regardless. She says the over-self-confidence of locals bugged her the most. "What I notice in Cleveland is we're like Eeyore. We suck, we have low self esteem as a city. We're called the Mistake on the Lake. That's just what it is," she says, and she likes that. She'll take a self-deprecating town over a self-involved one any day.

According to Rhodes, the trouble with Charleston is "everyone discovers it and doesn't want anyone else to find it." It's true, locals do tend to exhibit Gollum-like tendencies toward the city. But you can't hide the Battery in your pocket, and you can't drain the Atlantic. With Conde Nast top 10 ratings, culinary superstars, and international festivals happening year round, keeping the "Precious" unknown is nearly impossible.

"It does seem silly, as an Ohioan, to have to defend coming to an area that kind of prostitutes itself as a tourist destination," Rhodes notes, adding that tourist dollars pay for a significant portion of the state's jobs. After all, tourism is the Palmetto State's No. 1 industry.

First, let me say that I know Charleston well. My family has been growing a carpetbagger presence there since the mid-1990s. Second, I love the city. I wouldn't live there, but enjoy every visit with my kin. I can appreciate the attraction. That said, can we dispense with the nonsense about the tolerance for outsiders? Concerning inmigration, parochial attitudes don't make a lick of a difference. With apologies to Richard Florida, let's kill that myth right now.

Somehow, the Charleston City Paper seems to have a better understanding of domestic migration than the so-called "experts":

Our charming neighbor to the north, Myrtle Beach, the Redneck Riviera (a.k.a. the gateway drug for Ohioans to Charleston), is particularly good at enticing beach-goers from the heartland. The Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce runs a 60-second TV spot in the Toledo and Youngstown markets in Ohio. They also have a significant online and TV presence on the CNN-style Ohio News Network channel. Myrtle Beach Chamber Public Relations Manager Kimberly Miles reports, "We just dropped a small property insert into Canton and Cleveland newspapers, which went to a combined 143,000 insertions, and on March 5 we dropped the eight-page vacation planner insert in Columbus."

Miles adds, "Online, we also have a general east-of-the-Mississippi online push that includes pay-per-click marketing, display advertising, and e-mail marketing. Ohio is under that blanket of outreach as well."

Former Charleston and current Ohio resident Kristen Rhodes can count her parents as those who have been enticed to come live in the Lowcountry. After retirement, her mom and dad moved to Charleston. "They went down to visit my brother who lives in Atlanta and stopped in Charleston. They loved it and decided on moving there from that trip," she says. Her parents have been Ohio expats since 1994.

The tourist experience has enticed many people from the Rust Belt to relocate. That's why you can eat at a Primanti Brothers in Florida. If Quebec was the 51st state, then there would be a Little Montreal in Tampa. We go where we know.

I'm sure I've mentioned the following. I remember a map from a college geography class that detailed where people from certain parts of the country vacationed. In many respects, the Rust Belt exodus was an amenities migration. Young adults wanted to extend the summer fun experienced as a teenager. Retirees turned a 2-week holiday into a 50-week shuffleboard tournament. Eventually, many of their kids followed.

I would think that the Southern backlash against these supposed economic refugees is obvious. It isn't. Many people believe that increasing tolerance is key to fostering more inmigration. That's folly, a boondoggle.

Postscript: Something inspired me to Google the author of the Charleston City Paper piece. Get a load of this:

Kinsey Labberton has Northwest sensibility, acquired southern charm, and the editorial acumen to write sophisticated copy for any genre. Born in Seattle and raised in Yakima, Washington, Kinsey moved to Finland for a year following high school to live as a Rotary Exchange student. Wanderlust still strong, following her sojourn in Scandinavia she attended the College of Charleston in South Carolina where she received her undergraduate degree in Communication: Media Studies & Journalism.

An internship with the Charleston City Paper renewed her interest in writing and since graduation in May 2006 she's worked continually as a freelance writer publishing in multiple magazines, newspapers, and weeklies. She currently resides in Burlington, Vermont with her fiance Daniel and their weimaraner, Trigger.

My family in Charleston should get a kick out of that.

Brain Drain Cincinnati

If you care about American cities, then you'll want to listen to this podcast featuring Aaron Renn (The Urbanophile) and Randy Simes (UrbanCincy). Urban redevelopment in Cincinnati is the focus, but the guests cover a lot of geography (e.g. Atlanta) over the course of the discussion.

Brain drain is one of the primary subjects. I'm familiar with Aaron's take on outmigration. Mr. Simes seems to share the same perspective. Bottom line, Cincinnati needs to pay more attention to talent attraction.

However, I would disagree with the characterization of the Midwest as somehow uniquely obsessed with those who leave. (Mr. Simes posited this dichotomy) It's a universal concern. Aaron does a good job of highlighting how little we know about other cities. Brain drain is almost completely divorced from good data analysis. Over the past 3 years, I've read about outmigration anxiety in Portland (Oregon), Dallas, Atlanta, Boston, New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Denver (To name a few ironic locations).

Later in the podcast, Mr. Simes looks at the differences between Cincinnati and St. Louis. The primary concern is the lack of attendance for the Reds relative to that of the Cardinals. (Two professional baseball teams) Why is there such a large discrepancy? Answering that question requires an intimate knowledge of both markets (not to mention the respective histories of the franchises). I would suggest that the brain drain story is similarly esoteric. A comparison is possible, but one should be aware of the different contexts.

Great Recession Talent Migration: Youngstown Paradigm

As the Greek debt crisis deepens, political uncertainty is on the rise. The downturn has effectively gummed up migration, most significantly in the United States. Promoting his new book, Richard Florida thinks this country needs a geographic mobility stimulus:

I think the great advantage that the U.S. has had in being a competitive, innovative and productive country, is that its had great labor mobility. What's happened now is that so many people are just trapped in houses they can't sell. U.S. mobility is at the lowest levels that it's been in decades. And I think this is the biggest long-run constraint on our ability to reset and recover.

Boy, oh boy, if folks are trapped in their homes - they can't get out; they can't sell them; they can't recoup their investment; they can't move - the long-term cost for them - as individual and families, for cities, but most importantly for the U.S. economy as a whole - I think that's really the thing that our president and our policymakers need to take into consideration.

In a jobless recovery, home ownership doesn't matter. Where are you going to move for work? With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Ireland and Iceland), the global pattern is one of hunkering down at home. Those stuck abroad when everything blew up are returning. The migration bubble has burst. Time to get back to the place you know best.

One of the narrative threads running through the Inc. article about Youngstown is boomerang talent migration:

Until about 2005, Youngstown was a hard sell to young creative types. Now, though, there is a small community of tech people who have come back to their hometown, to embrace the place as though it were the lost Holy Land. The group's guiding spirit is Tyler Clark, a 34-year-old musician and Web-strategy consultant who serves as YBI's "chief imagination officer," helping local businesses spruce up their websites. Clark grew up in Texas and went to Youngstown State University; as an undergrad, he was the musical director at the Youngstown Playhouse. He bounced around after graduation, living in suburban Virginia and Tucson, but then, in 2006, a good friend in Youngstown fell ill. Clark's wife, Jaci, a photographer who grew up here, came back, and the visit was a revelation. The Clarks bought a meticulously maintained five-bedroom Millionaire's Row manse, once the home of Sharon Steel president Henry Roemer, for $188,000.

For those of you in Pittsburgh who know Jess Trybus, Jaci's story is quite similar to hers. Both created their own jobs in order to move back home. If you want expatriates to return, then focus on the women.

I'm not sure if Youngstown has figured that out, but you shouldn't doubt that the re-purposing of the positive media is all about courting the Youngstown Diaspora:

In the meantime, supporters believe the positive press will be what's needed to bring Valley natives who've left the area back home again.

"All these articles that they're reading while they're in Columbus or California or Atlanta," said Phil Kidd, of Defend Youngstown. "That's what's making them want to move back, and they're going to bring all that experience and they're going to bring all those contacts and those networks back to Youngstown."

Phil Kidd and Jim Cossler are speaking directly to the displaced natives through these national publications. The sell is polished. The buzz is growing. To what end?

The trend is one of entrepreneurship:

The reasons many return to Michigan run the gamut. Some are lured by the desire to be near family and friends. Some see an economic landscape ripe for entrepreneurial opportunities, and others are heeding a call to invest in their native state and help bring Michigan out of its lingering slump.

They're also bucking a trend: In what's been dubbed the "brain drain" many college graduates and young professionals are leaving for greener pastures in other states. The repatriated Michiganians are undeterred by the state's high unemployment, the implosion of the automotive industry and a host of other economic woes.

"When times are tough, people tend to move back home," said John Challenger, a consultant at Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago-based business consulting firm. "Starting (a business) where you know people is crucial."

Now is not the time to throw caution to the wind and move to Portland, Oregon. Strong networks awash in social capital mean more now than they ever did. Greater numbers of Americans renting won't turn back that clock. Florida is out of touch with the current economic landscape.

If Rust Belt talent decides en masse to respect the homing beacon, then the Sun Belt is screwed. Industrial Heartland politicians should continue promoting home ownership. It's to their constituency's advantage. Come live like a robber baron at a faction of the cost. The best growth opportunities are now in the elder parts of urban America.

Better yet, policymakers should incentivize boomerang migration. Re-appropriate all the money earmarked for brain drain plugs to facilitating expatriate return. The brain drain boondoggles are in full bloom (post coming soon). Youngstown is the only US community I know about trying to go against the grain. Get on board, Senator Sherrod Brown.

Geographic Arbitrage Opportunities In Youngstown

Update: The wins for Youngstown continue pile up:

Jim Cossler, chief executive at the Youngstown Business Incubator, said the story already has garnered the attention of start-up businesses interested in moving to Youngstown.

A start-up from Austin, Texas, that was considering relocating to the incubator decided to make the move after seeing the article, Cossler said.

“I think it is just one more piece in our arsenal,” Cossler said. “It is telling a new Youngstown story, and that has people excited.

That's right. A start-up left Austin, Texas for Youngstown, Ohio.

----------End Update----------

My post about rail transit for Cleveburgh has generated an interesting conversation. The crux of the exchange concerns the value of high-speed rail between Pittsburgh and Washington, DC. Shrinking the distance between the two cities could make the geographic arbitrage opportunities in Pittsburgh more viable:

I was thinking about this today and my entire office could just as easily work in Pittsburgh without a problem at all. The only exception might be the sales staff which means a small satelite office and I'm not sure even that would be necessary. As someone who works in the defense and security tech sector in the DC area, many of our customers aren't local. They're coming from a military base somewhere else so being DC based confers no advantages in that case. Even agencies like the NSA want to decentralize so the part of the NSA a contractor may work with in the future may not even be in the DC area. Again it's the same thing.

There is also a lot of side benefits to signifigant portions the government, defense, & security tech in or linked to Pittsburgh. Since so much of the tech sector in the DC area is only here because of government in some way, the talent pool can sometimes be a bit insular. Being in or just linked to Pittsburgh would provide a broader based talent pool.

Generally, companies fail to take advantage of onshoring because they lack sufficient knowledge of places such as Pittsburgh. Ironically, they are more in tune with offshoring sites thanks to the well-established publicity about the benefits of locating in an emerging economy such as India or Ireland. In this regard, New York City is closer Bangalore than it is to Scranton. Scranton is aiming to change that:

Leaders in the Scranton, PA region, for that matter, crafted their Wall Street West strategy after 9/11 tobecome a redundant data solution for New York City’s financial firms. Their well-considered plans to house backoffice and secondary operations have garnered both federaland state support for necessary workforce and infrastructure investments, including a $25 million fiber optic network connecting Northeast Pennsylvania and New YorkCity to facilitate data transmission.

I think any kind of infrastructure improvements should focus on the above proximity benefit. Scranton is developing into an inexpensive alternative to New York City, a viable satellite city. Better to have a company relocate to Scranton than to another part of the world.

The emerging center of this value proposition is Youngstown, Ohio. The spread in this month's Inc. magazine is already paying dividends:

And the word is spreading quickly. [Eric Planey, of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber,] said a couple in Chicago read the article earlier this week and came here themselves.

"They actually drove, without announcement or without an appointment, straight to the incubator and ... knocked on the door and said we'd like to have a software company," said Planey. "We'd like to start one. What do we need to do."

Apparently, the couple was considering offshore outsourcing options before learning about Youngstown. The software company employs about 40 people and is looking to double its workforce over the next year. Forget pricey and crowded Chicago. Welcome to Youngstown. Imagine what you could here if the connectivity with Pittsburgh was better.

I get the sense that the Inc. piece has helped Youngstown reach critical mass. In my next post, I'll drill down into the burgeoning return flow of talent. Expatriates are keen to get in on the action of urban revitalization.

Rust Belt Cinco De Mayo

Discussing the miChicanos strikes me as an appropriate blog post on Cinco de Mayo. The Detroit Free Press supplies the fodder:

Grand Rapids, Ionia and Muskegon became home to those of Mexican heritage who worked for the railroads. Throughout the state, there are handfuls of Mexican-American communities whose residents are the descendants of those braceros who worked in agriculture until they could earn enough money to set out on their own.

There's much more cultural geography in the article, but I thought the braceros reference most interesting. Braceros were guest workers and they weren't supposed to settle in the United States. They are the equivalent of the German Gasterbeiters, mainly Turks who came to Germany in droves during the post-WWII economic boom. During lean times, tensions arise between natives and migrant labor.

Cinco de Mayo is a big deal where I live (Front Range of Colorado). The main festival was on Saturday. There was a large immigrant protest parade. It's a touchy subject in a community with a long history of foreign born labor working the fields (e.g. Japanese in the sugar beet industry). I've seen quite a bit of American flag waving today. I haven't noticed any word about a similar backlash in Michigan. With unemployment so high and all the recent news coming out of Arizona, I would imagine that there is some latent anger seething beneath the surface. Iowa might be a Midwestern state to track given the recent immigration there.

Youngstown As Talent Management Archetype

Update: Tyler Clark posted a brief anecdote on Facebook about the impact of the publicity:

So, I'm getting the kids set up with dinner before we go downtown for the dinosaur thing, and the doorbell rings. A lady from Chicago is there with a copy of Inc. magazine in her hand, and she wants to talk to me about starting a software company in Youngstown. Seriously. We're meeting in the morning for coffee.

-----------------------------------------End Update------------------------

As a blogger, I often range from hubris to humility in one post. My experience in the world of social media only concerns those two extremes. I don't spend much time in the middle. I'm content to leave that territory to professional journalists and credentialed academics. Blogging is a polemic act, the perfect medium for public intellectuals.

If you peruse the Top 25 Online Influencers in Talent Management, you'll find me at #11. Concerning humility, I don't belong on that list. Concerning hubris, I really stand out from the group. Hubris won out and I decided to write about the recognition. No one talks about talent management like I do. I'm an interloper with an audience.

Underwriting my case is Youngstown. I'm not referring to the ingenious shrinking city paradigm. That's all Mayor Jay Williams and the 2010 plan. I'm not referencing the TechBelt (a.k.a. "Cleveburgh"). That's all Congressman Tim Ryan and economist Chris Briem. Consider me a big admirer of both ideas. I'm along for the ride. And I wouldn't dare put myself in the same economic redevelopment novel as the Youngstown Business Incubator. Before learning about the YBI, I had no clue what an incubator did.

I'm nothing more than another blogger.

The latest narrative coming out of Youngstown is all about talent management and my fingerprints are all over it:

The ruined steel mills hold a certain rust belt chic, and when I was there, I met artists and writers who had come back to the city, enchanted by the pathos and romance of the place. There is a splendid new café on West Federal Street -- the Lemon Grove, where the walls are hung with paintings from local artists and the floors are made of planks salvaged from an old barn. There is an old-school museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, that boasts Edward Hoppers and Georgia O'Keeffes in its permanent collection, and there is also a gay advocacy group, Pride Youngstown. Youngstown State University, which sits on a hill above the downtown area, is a big and important presence. But Youngstown is -- let's face it -- not the sort of place where U2 is going to kick off its next tour. It is a small town, more homey than cosmopolitan, and it is trying to fight its way back from a haunted past.

With apologies to Anthony Bourdain, I'm the Rust Belt Chic guy. However, I consider Mr. Bacon to be the earlier practitioner of the meme:

Ethnicity still matters in Youngstown, a city that lured legions of immigrants, mostly Italians and Eastern Europeans, in its steel heyday. Myriad Polish, Slovakian, and Ukrainian churches sell pierogis on Fridays, and on Saturdays at one Croatian eatery, the Dubic Palm Cafe, servers carve up whole smoked lambs on a backroom table, in full view of the diners. There is an old-world charm to Youngstown, a substance and intricacy that you would never find amid the McMansions of Phoenix. The place can pull on a person, and a few years ago, one Youngstown native, John Slanina, missed Youngstown while living in the Netherlands. Slanina, a policy analyst focused on tech-based development, launched a blog titled I Will Shout Youngstown.

I merely observe Rust Belt Chic. John is an archivist. He's the Pied Piper of the cultural movement. Don't ask me to define Rust Belt Chic. Visit Youngstown and take the Slanina tour.

My ultimate act of hubris comes to the fore during the brain drain discussion:

Keep driving. Turn left onto the city's main drag, West Federal Street,―and then, eventually, you see something weird: a newish green awning, printed with shiny metal lettering. Youngstown Business Incubator, it says. Inside is a guy, Jim Cossler, who calls himself the incubator's "chief evangelist." Cossler is a scrappy fellow, 55 years old and sparely built, balding, with a habit of ducking out onto the street to furtively light cigarettes, his hands fluttering a bit as he cups the match in the wind. ...

... It's Cossler's hope that everyone on the Turning/Business Incubator campus can share ideas by, say, advising one another on how to display wares at a trade show, or participating in what he calls "your baby is ugly" meetings -- that is, candid product-review sessions. He wants Turning's triumph to rub off, and he wants to reverse a grim brain drain: For decades now, Youngstown's brightest youths have fled town. He wants to call home what he calls "the Youngstown diaspora," to sprout a cerebral local culture and a computer industry that can support 5,000 jobs on the YBI campus. ...

... Cossler is happy to have Slanina in his corner. He dreams of a day when students at Harvard yearn to be sitting on West Federal Street, quaffing Rust Belt beer, which is proudly brewed with Youngstown tap water. But he doesn't want to pinion bright twentysomethings. "We want our best and brightest to leave Youngstown," he says. "We want them to go to Seattle or New York or wherever, and then come back and share everything they learned."

That's all me. No one in workforce development or economic development talks about letting talent leave as a strategy. No one. Nowhere.

Youngstown is the only place that would listen to my ideas. Jim Cossler embraces bold thinking. During my first conversation with him, he seemed to easily understand the crusade. Cossler isn't prone to the nativist thinking that dominates urban revitalization policy. He spoke of geographic arbitrage and the Youngstown advantage. Smart approaches to difficult problems always come first.

US Senator Sherrod Brown is a huge proponent of the YBI and someone who cares a great deal about brain drain from Ohio. To give you an idea about the Cossler ethos, Brown's position on brain drain is fundamentally at odds with the Inc Magazine story. As a politician, Brown cannot say what Cossler said about leaving Youngstown. I'm not sure anyone should repeat the bit about going to Seattle or New York.

Cossler says and does what no one else will. That's Youngstown, the archetype of the American urban frontier:

But then, on the day I was to leave town, there came hope for a bridge between the two worlds. John Slanina, the blogger, moved back to Youngstown. Revere Data, a San Francisco company specializing in investing software, was opening a 10-person office in the Youngstown Business Incubator. Slanina had taken a job as a senior analyst with Revere, and he came home brimming with schemes. "Maybe we ought to put a couch on the sidewalk outside the Business Incubator and offer passersby free milk shakes," he said. "Maybe we could open the windows and blast polka music. I'm going to start a Boomerang Initiative. I'm going to get together all the people who moved back here, so we can talk about our hometown -- and what we learned while we were away. I'll ask, Can we combine local trust with global knowledge to do good projects?"

Later, I talked to Tyler Clark, and he insisted that the answer is yes. "Youngstown is a laboratory," he said. "There's not a lot of restrictions and bureaucracy. You can make a difference without a lot of effort."

That is what happens when bloggers talk to each other. Semper Youngstown. Defend Youngstown. Shout Youngstown.

Google Fiber Chooses Pittsburgh

Update: Beaver County Times digs into the Forbes claim about Google Fiber landing in Pittsburgh.

Never mind the well-reasoned skepticism of Null Space; Forbes spills the beans:

Indeed, Pittsburgh's art scene, job prospects, safety and affordability make it the most livable city in the country, according to measures studied. The city has rebounded from its manufacturing past. Disused steel mills have been repurposed into multimedia art centers, and amid a struggling national economy, Google Pittsburgh, a test site for the company's new high-speed broadband network, has expanded its offices to accommodate more hires.

Don't shoot the messenger. Forbes prints; I report.

High-Speed Rail Economic Geography: Cleveburgh

Digging Pitt is doing a great job of promoting Cleveburgh. Today's post has video of an interview of Youngstown's Hunter Morrison talking about the geography of the TechBelt. Towards the end, Hunter talks a little bit about high-speed rail and the gap in the national plan which effectively divides Cleveburgh. Ultimately, I think Hunter makes the wrong pitch. The entire HSR conversation is missing the boat.

Today must be Cleveburgh Monday. Null Space looks at another pressing TechBelt issue:

That and it looks like Ohio may be looking to ante up to keep the combined airline from cutting flights up there. I really have a big Cleveburgh post building up inside of me.. two major airports two hours from each other; just can't be good if governments start throwing in fiscal incentives that will only work against each other in the end.

This passage has everything to do with my first paragraph. What, exactly, do you want high-speed rail to do? In Europe, true HSR helps to connect major cities. I don't think that makes much sense at all in the United States. Hunter's invocation of the national scale doesn't speak to the economic geography of Cleveburgh. But Chris Briem's post does.

To bring another voice into the discussion, please recall Aaron Renn's "Mega-Skepticism":

Geographic proximity alone can offer some benefits. Philadelphia is certainly benefitting from proximity to New York as NYC prices turn it into the sixth borough. Pittsburgh can’t tap into that. But I view this as less of a mega-region, than just the colossus that is New York City expanding its sphere of influence as it becomes an ever more important world city. There is a similar effect going on with Chicago and Milwaukee, but is that replicable elsewhere?

Even with high-speed rail, Pittsburgh isn't going to benefit from New York City like Philadelphia does. Maybe Pittsburgh-to-DC makes sense. Cleveland-to-Chicago? No.

Cleveburgh is not a megaregion. From the perspective of Youngstown, the TechBelt is a singular talent pool and job market. Put a software firm in the Mahoning Valley and you can tap workers in both Cleveland and Pittsburgh. In this regard, better rail in the corridor makes sense. It would functionally expand the density dividend.

Connecting the region's three biggest airports would build the necessary infrastructure to breathe life into the TechBelt. Right now, it's a zero sum game. Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Akron/Canton are all competing for the same shrinking market share. More efficient rail service would make one trans-Atlantic flight economically viable. Instead, Cleveland and Pittsburgh each subsidizes its own flight. Civic pride results in a tragedy of the commons.

The next generation of rail could catalyze more urban economic spillovers. This approach makes the most sense in the Rust Belt given how so many cities (large and small) are packed so closely together yet remain worlds apart. The parochial silos are too small. Megaregions are too big. Urban pairs are just right. Welcome to the Cookie Table Express.

Slovak Diaspora And Cleveburgh

I haven't written much about Cleveburgh in quite some time. The economic corridor is still swimming around in my head. A speech from the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs rekindled the geography:

I would like to thank the Centre for Transatlantic Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and, in particular, its Managing Director, Ambassador Kurt Volker, Director Daniel Hamilton, as well as Michael Haltzel and many others who contribute their efforts to the strengthening of transatlantic relations, and for having given me this opportunity to stand before you here today.

I am especially glad that I can do so right here, in the capital of the country of which thousands of Slovaks called and still call their second home. As you may or may not know, Cleveland and Pittsburgh had once been the biggest “Slovak” cities measured by the size of their Slovak communities. The US was a beacon that guided several generations of Slovaks on their quest for freedom, prosperity, or both. Whether they emigrated in pursuit of a better life during the Great Depression in the 1930s, or escaped the consequences of Fascism in the 1940s, or from the Communist seizure of power in the early 1950s, or from the Warsaw Pact tanks that suppressed the Prague Spring of 1968, virtually every generation of our fathers and grandfathers experienced one massive wave of emigration to the US.

I emphasized the relevant part of the passage. When considering regions, there needs to be a cultural foundation that ties together all the communities. The cradle of the Slovak Diaspora fits the bill.

Youngstown is part of the Slovak band stretched between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. You can read more about the ethnic experience at Steel Valley Voices. The Slovak ties are important because Cleveland and Pittsburgh represent two different historical geographies. Pittsburgh and Youngstown are Northern Appalachian cities. Cleveland is Midwestern. It is not uncommon for Browns fans to refer to Steelers fans as hilljacks:

From the southern region of the Midwest (see Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania and the better part of West Virginia). Hilljacks have a penchant for sleeveless t-shirts, Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet and low-end regional beer. Family gatherings come in the form of cookouts and all of them culminate in drunken brawls and multiple arrests. Young hilljack chicks are usually very attractive but undergo a metamorphosis sometime after they have their third kid before the age of twenty.

Most of the Rust Belt attempts to distinguish itself from Appalachia. One can find the same attitude in Pittsburgh. Residents haven't embraced their city as "The Paris of Appalachia". That's too bad.

I imagine that ethnic Slovaks in Youngstown don't appreciate the differences between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. I'm sure they are aware of the rivalry, but I doubt the tension is all that important in the Mahoning Valley. To them, Cleveburgh is one long cookie table.

Toronto Wants To Be More Like Pittsburgh

Who knew that Richard Florida's journey from Pittsburgh to Toronto would prove to be a step down? Saul Kaplan thinks that Toronto needs to do a better job of leveraging its civic assets. In today's Toronto Star:

“Toronto has a very good opportunity to become an urban-innovation hot spot,” says Kaplan. “It has an active creative class. And there’s a vibrant conversation about social change that you hear everywhere in the city.

“Groups quickly come together in Toronto to discuss challenges,” Kaplan adds. “And those groups, in turn, form networks to tackle every kind of social challenge. That is a double blessing. Citizens make a success of the project they’ve rallied around. And that success attracts talent, money and other resources to take on still more challenges.”

It’s not as if we have to abandon the top-down government model of civic improvement. We already have.

So have Pittsburgh, Turin, Bilbao, Sheffield and other cities that have lost their 20th-century industrial mainstay, yet thrive after transforming themselves into knowledge-based economies.

Actually, I think the article really highlights the similarities between Pittsburgh, Toronto, and the listed European cities:

I’ve long complained that our city has been run on auto-pilot. But the outsider perspective of a Kaplan or Florida is of a Toronto too blessed with civic assets not to be suited to becoming, in Kaplan’s description, “a laboratory of urban innovation.”

Self-absorbed Toronto sees dysfunction, corruption and ineffectiveness. Outsiders see a potential "urban-innovation hot spot." That's why Cincinnati is seeking the advice of an infamous Pittsburgher concerning a casino project:

Cullen said the images he’ll show next week are subject to change, but the connectivity concept is not. In fact, the concept might extend to business relationships between downtown hotels and restaurants and the casino itself. Its loyalty marketing programs, for example, might reward frequent casino guests with freebies at downtown establishments.

“This is not intended to be altruism,” said Cullen. “We do think this is the right thing for Cincinnati. But we also think it can be the most successful model for a casino operation.”

That kind of talk is common at the front end of big-ticket development projects, but following that talk with action is not, said Tom Murphy, senior resident fellow for the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., a research and education group devoted to urban planning issues.

Murphy said casinos “want to capture every dollar and they do that by not having any clocks or windows.” So, when a developer says he wants to generate economic activity outside of his building, Murphy, the former mayor of Pittsburgh, is skeptical.

“That sounds wonderful,” he said. “I’d get it in writing.”

Pittsburgh is seen as an urban-innovation hot spot. Remember Paul Farmer? I'd bet Minneapolis does:

When you came to Minneapolis, it was clear why the city wanted you working here. Projects you steered in Pittsburgh--light-rail transit, the riverfront, downtown improvement--have had city councils across the country drooling.

Farmer left Minneapolis for Pittsburgh in 1994. Ultimately, Minneapolis would fire him. I've wondered why Pittsburgh didn't celebrate his legacy. I suspect the answer is that the civic assets of Pittsburgh are bigger than either Farmer or Murphy.

Moving the post back to Toronto, residents there don't seem to appreciate what they have. They lack perspective. Might they believe Saul Kaplan? I doubt it. I doubt Pittsburghers believe their city is in the same league as Turin, Bilbao, and Sheffield. Not to foster complacency, Toronto is a great city and it does a lot of things right. Strange how Pittsburgh and Toronto share an inferiority complex.

Urban Branding And Talent Migration

The moral of yesterday's story about Most Livable Pittsburgh is that placemaking takes a backseat to intimate knowledge of place. Your city can be cool and affordable, but talent will still go somewhere else. As for local graduates, they don't really care about your investment in downtown. Every year, young adults flee from regions sporting a wealth of urban amenities. Pittsburgh is a city struggling to justify its lavish expenditures on placemaking:

"They try to stage something high profile every year because (Pittsburgh) has to sell itself, I mean to sell against people's preconceived perceptions of what it was like," said Mathews, who has been a frequent participant in such fact-finding trips with the local chamber of commerce and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau. ...

... Patterson and Schulz said financial problems have delayed that city's plans for a convention center hotel, causing the loss of thousands of visitor room nights and reduced hospitality tax revenue.

Preconceived conceptions are difficult to overcome. Also, they matter more than livability or any other kind of rankings. But any branding campaign isn't likely to shift the regional stereotype.

Pittsburgh already has a successful global brand and it's not all bad. People choose to highlight the negative. Thus shrinking cities spend a lot of time, effort and money trying to convince the world that their place is not the Rust Belt. I love Pittsburgh because it is the Rust Belt. That's the brand I would promote.

Hinterland Cities Of Appalachia: Asheville

I follow a few Twitter feeds via Google Reader. Brian Kelsey's (Civic Analytics) is one of them:

Austin-Raleigh used to be the comparison made in #econdev circles. Increasingly I'm hearing Austin-Asheville.

Asheville falls well within my Appalachian Chic model. The cities ringing the fringes of Appalachia are doing remarkably well and represent significant frontier geographic opportunities. Asheville reminds me more of Bend or Boulder than Austin. A big draw is the beautiful mountain environment and the abundant recreational opportunities. Western Carolina has long attracted retirees seeking an alternative to Florida. Missing was a true economic spark.

What has changed?