Writing Our 2020’s Song About Growth

Songs from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s are part of my youth in more ways than one.

 

Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows

And vacant stores

Seems like there ain’t nobody

Wants to come down here no more

Bruce Springsteen’s My Hometown might as while have been about my hometown.  I grew up in a steel town that doesn’t make steel anymore.  Much of my classmates did what Springsteen sang about—packed up our bags, maybe heading south.

Springsteen sung a ballad about my father’s hometown too—Youngstown.  It’s a melancholy song of a declining place in a country that didn’t appreciate manufacturing and the nation’s cravings for steel.

 

Well my daddy came on the Ohio Works

When he came home from World War Two

Now the yards just scrap and rubble

 

Even Billy Joel got in the act too singing about decline in the ‘80’s.  Allentown was about Pennsylvania towns, but it spoke to many of us Ohioans back then.

 

Well we’re living here in Allentown

And they’re closing all the factories down

Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time

Filling out forms

Standing in line

 

My kids and grandkids (I’m grateful for one of those on the way.) won’t have the same tunes stuck in their heads that I did.  The lyrics about growth and progress are writing themselves in places like Newark and Licking County in the 2020’s. 

A whole new generation of song writers have new fodder of so-called “problems” in Ohio in the 2020’s—more jobs than people to fill them, more buyers than sellers of homes, and more interested industrial businesses than available industrial sites.

My generation has an obligation to remind later generations that these problems are not really problematic in comparison to the alternatives.  Trust me.  I watched decline, not just listened to it in songs.

It’s harder to figure out how to fund a shrinking school system than a growing one nearing capacity.  It’s a real task to rebuild old streets on a dime than pave new ones on a dollar.  Waiting for your job’s new electronic paycheck in your account beats waiting for the old paper unemployment check delivered to your porch.

I’ll suggest that Bruce could write about Intel.  It’s first new factory in decades is happening in Ohio.  Ground was broken in Licking County earlier this month to signal the realness of a whole new semiconductor industry coming to the Heartland.  Suppliers are already here in Ohio and the promise is more are on their way. These facts bring with it a new song of positive progress instead of an old song of stagnation.

Billy could write lyrics about blossoming manufacturing of all sorts like soy crisps at GB Food in Heath or polycarbonate at Covestro in Hebron.  I’d suggest song writers paint a picture about Behr paint soon to be made in Licking County or get fired up about gas compressor components assembled at the recently tripled-in-size Ariel plant.  The Tamarack Dairy milk plant is expanding.  So is the thin film plant owned by Transcendia.  Expansion story lines of the 2020’s sure beat the opposite story of U.S. manufacturing in the ‘80s.

Given decline or growth, who doesn’t choose growth for their kids and grandkids?

I think there really are some lyrics in there somewhere. Together, let’s sing about growth in the 2020’s in our hometown.

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This development column is a regular column in The Advocate.

We Are Number 11

The latest from Joel Kotkin for Forbes ranks U.S. cities on manufacturing growth.  The "Where Manufacturing is Thriving in the U.S." piece has news close to home. We're Number 11.

By we, I mean Columbus, a region of which our Port Authority is a part.

With the Port Authority at the heart of the largest manufacturing corridor in this region, it's easy to take hand and pat on back for this improving ranking.

In fact, we recently won an international project against the #1 city on the list that could help our region's rankings in the future.

The piece points out that the northern part of the New American Heartland pulled more than its weight in the latest rankings too, saying, "Nine of this year's top 10 regions for manufacturing job growth are in red states."  They could have said 10 of the top 11 for that matter.

Back From Derided

From Warm Center to Ragged Edge is a book I'm curious to read.  The Washington Post reports on the book that looks at the erosion of the Midwest U.S.'s standing from 1920 to 1965.

According to the Post review, Jon Lauck's book explains how a mass media-fueled urban viewpoint and a stronger Washington are behind the derision of the Midwest.

The Post author of the review had to seize upon the stereotypes to make his point.  He references "Rust Belt" pejorative twice.  His editors found a way to slip it in two more times.

Not enough stereotypes?  Then, he writes, "This [book] may sound dull as ditch water to those who believe that the 'flyover' states are inhabited largely by clodhoppers, fundamentalist zealots and loudmouthed Babbitts."

Nonetheless, gaining an understanding what's behind causing a whole region to be derided so much as the Industrial Midwest has been and continues to be is worth a read.

It's also the key to coming back again.

If The New American Heartland Were a Country. . .

If the New American Heartland were a country, it's GDP in 2015 would have totaled $7.99 trillion.

That's the combined GDP of the states that make up the so-called New American Heartland that gained its name from a Center for Opportunity Urbanism report by that same name.

Now ponder that.

At that level, the New American Heartland would be larger than the GDP of Japan and Germany combined.

Can you think of a country where a part of it was disparaged with the term "Rust Belt" like much of the New American Heartland is disparaged?

Ponder that.

So, yes, it is a big deal that this region needs to change the narrative that sees an impactful part of the U.S. labeled by a pejorative.

The current narrative, honed by a negative term, has to change in order to change the future to a more positive one.



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Do the math yourself with a comparison of nominal GDP of states and countries at Wikipedia.

New American Heartland Signals End of "R" Word

"The New American Heartland" report made it's debut at the City Club of Cleveland yesterday.  It's now officially out in print.

I'd like to hope that the gong at the City Club was the signal going forward that the "Rust Belt" term has come to an end.  Indeed, that was my personal contribution to the discussion at the panel.

More than that, though, I hope that the narrative that the report supports goes forward in development circles.

The New American Heartland's combination of manufacturing prowess, logistics, energy, and human capital are the formula for revival of Middle America and renewing of the middle class.

Joel Kotkin said it best.  "The future of the Heartland rests with the Heartland."


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News Clips on "The New American Heartland" report:

America's Heartland is Critical to Our Future

LeBron James and Revenge of Fly Over Country

Trend Talk: Five Minutes on Economic Growth Opportunity

I'll be speaking to an audience of Licking County Chamber of Commerce members this morning.

I have five minutes.

It's hard to be that concise, but this column gives me a chance to practice.

1. If we are being pragmatic, President Trump may be riding a trend more than setting one with a focus on the Midwest and growing our manufacturing base.

2. The U.S. is poised to grow the manufacturing sector against GDP competitors that are facing declining working age populations.

GDP in 2016 vs. population projects for 2017

3. The Midwest is poised to outpace the rest of the U.S. in GDP growth due to a host of factors, including energy, logistics, cost of living, and human capital.  

Joel Kotkin's slide from Trustbelt presentation in 2015

 4. Ohio is poised to grow manufacturing in the suburbs and places like Licking County.

An excerpt from RickPlatt.com column on Site Selection magazine report.

5. Licking County has been, can be, and, I predict, will be a microcosm of these trends with a continued focus on manufacturing and other "economic-base" jobs.

CELab explains value of jobs where goods and services are exported out of an economy.

There.  Five minutes is short.

Hopefully a few folks tune in for future trend messages.

A Place Debate Around The Term Rust Belt

I don't like that when one Googles "Rust Belt Ohio" and looks at the images the search term pulls up that my hometown shows up first.  That's St. Joseph's church and the South Side of Massillon, Ohio right there.

I want to change that.  I detest the term Rust Belt.

Though I can agree to wanting a change, change to what is the question. I'm not in the camp with those who are advocating for singular focus on classes of people and attempting to make Ohio "hip and cool" as a magical recipe for economic development.

The concept implies steering us away from the manufacturing sector that fueled, and still fuels, our economy.  Opportunity for a cross-generational, working age population is how to grow our economy. Upper mobility is our aim and from where my thinking comes.

Ohio Governor Kasich is quoted as taking on the cause of burying the term Rust Belt.  A few national stories over the weekend ran the story.

It was the contrarian to the change in name and who is also quoted in the articles, Richey Piiparinen of Cleveland State University, who caught my attention though.  He has embraced the "R" word, but I nonetheless often find myself agreeing with him because he often takes the view that what we need to change to is a better version of ourselves, not something we aren't or something we used to be.

Piiparinen points out that later generations don't share the same dim view of how things are based on a rosier view of how things used to be.  The distance between where they are and where they want to be isn't as great as those who are cursed by remembering some better time.

He's quoted in the article as saying of the emerging working age generation, "They don't have the psychic baggage, they were not born in the heyday. And so this idea of resiliency, of struggle, of fighting for your land, of being proud of your land, but at the same time not having any illusions about what we were, that's been a whole new generation owning that term."

This is a place debate really.  What sort of place does Ohio want to be?  What sort of place does the entire American Heartland of the country want to be?  What opportunity is there to be what we can  be?