Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 8/5/2007
Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing America's Older Industrial Cities
2007 May
Abstract
The evidence is clear. On the whole, America’s central cities are coming back. Employment is up, populations are growing, and many urban real estate markets are hotter than ever, with increasing numbers of young people, empty-nesters, and others choosing city life over the suburbs.
Unfortunately, not all cities are fully participating in this renaissance. An examination of the performance of 302 U.S. cities on eight indicators of economic health and residential well-being reveals that 65 are lagging behind their peers. Most of these cities—and their larger regions—are older industrial communities that are still struggling to make a successful transition from an economy based on routine manufacturing to one based on more knowledgeoriented activities. Some others are simply dominated by the low-wage employment sectors that today characterize much of the American economy. But the outcomes are largely the same: While many of these cities have strong pockets of real estate appreciation and revitalization, on the whole they remain beset by slow (or no) employment and business growth, low incomes, high unemployment, diminishing tax bases, and concentrated poverty—remnants of five decades of globalization and technological change, and the dramatic shift of the country’s population away from the urban core.
