arenn

Looks like Value City is liquidating.

The problem is not that we don't make things anymore. It just doesn't take armies of high paid factory workers to make them. The real issue with the industrial and agricultural economies of the Midwest is in their inability to sustain a middle class standard of living for large numbers of unskilled workers and their families. Indiana produces more steel than ever. It's agricultural output remains high. I believe 2007 was actually the top output year ever for the state in manufacturing value added. But the jobs and the pay are going away. The future of Ohio involves: - Completing the restructuring of the manufacturing sector, particularly the auto industry. This is going to be extremely painful since it will mean many more job losses. - Shrinking the size of most of its cities other than the three C's. Realistically, a lot of people are going to need to leave Ohio in search of greener pastures. This will also be a painful process. - Adopting metro economic area based economic development strategies. This can't involve a cookie cutter, one size fits all approach from the state. I wrote something on this here: http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-approach-to-regional-economic.html Ohio has to come to terms with the fact that cities are the economic unit of the global economy, and that there's a minimum scale needed to compete. I think Ohio has very optimistic geography here, with at least three cities that are clearly big enough to compete, and several others knocking on the door. - Each region should identify a mix of participating in broad based mega-trends like bioscience, but also have regional industries it targets in whitespace areas. What Indy has done with auto racing is a great example. Here are three Indy posts that describe what makes a good economic development strategy. You can't just pin your hopes on a generic "bio Ohio" strategy when everybody and their brother is going after the same industry. http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/05/economic-development-strategies-done.html http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-smart-economic-development.html http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/07/smart-economic-development-strategies.html - In line with urban-centricity, there should be major infrastructure investment in the top cities. This particularly involves highway upgrades to keep congestion low. When markets recover, the state should look into leasing the Turnpike as a financing mechanism and should aggressively leverage tolling and public-private partnership to finance new builds. - Pass a right to work law. Repeal anti-business statutes like the pay day loan legislation, strip club regulation, etc. - Strengthen the home rule powers of municipalities These are some thoughts. Clearly, each city needs to come up with its own strategy. There can't be an "Ohio" approach since economically there's no common Ohio to cover.

I'm troubled by this as well. The government should not be funding M&A. This only provides an incentives to do deals that might not otherwise make good business sense. The previous poster was right about the hostile nature of the gov't cash injections. JPM didn't need equity. In fact, they had just raised another $10 billion through a secondary offering. But the gov't basically told all the top dogs they had to buy in. When the dust settles, you should expect some WTO action on this front too.

I'd consider what you really want to do before choosing a school. "Planning" is a term of art that applies to a specific domain of work. The actual work Planners (with a capital-P) do may not appeal to you. If your true interest is different, you might be better off looking into a different type of program.

Thank Jeff, I'll check that out.

Something to keep in mind. Minneapolis is great, don't get me wrong. OTOH, it's one of America's whitest cities. It's easy to have a Scandinavian viewpoint when your population is almost entirely Scandinavian. Hennepin County is 10.8% black. Hamilton County is 25.0% black. It should come as no surprise that as Minneapolis as become more diverse via international in-migration, it's politics have shifted to the right, as the Republican governor there attests. By the way, Multnomah County, Oregon (Portland) is 6% black Denver County, Colorado is 10.6% black Travis County, Texas (Austin) is 9.0% black King County, Washington (Seattle) is 6.1% black My hypothesis, which I call "the White City" and to be a forthcoming blog post if I ever get done doing the full research, is that urban progressivism is mostly a policy for cities without large historic minority populations and whose politics and culture where not shaped by slavery, jim crow, the great migration, etc. What's more, one can argue those that those polices are implicitly racist, in that they impose a high cost base on a city that is in effect racially exclusionary. Note, for example, how "diversity" in the modern age is almost entirely defined in terms of immigrants. The incredible lack of domestic racial diversity and the lack of programs in these cities (to the best of my knowledge) aimed at boosting the local below par black population indicate places that don't exactly live by the progressive credo they profess. And as near as I can tell not one of them have been called on the carpet for it. There is a big difference between these smaller hipster havens and America's large global cities (say, the 5 million+ metros). Those places have long had robust minority populations that are part of the essential cultural and historic fabric of those cities. Those of you who read my blog (and all of you should be :) know that I have long believed that Midwestern cities like Indianapolis have squandered the key asset that is their black population and black heritage. The city that steps up and goes beyond the rhetoric of diversity and inclusion, daring to see its black population as a pillar of its growth strategy, will reap a huge advantage IMO. I don't think it is any accident that the 'city too busy to hate' Atlanta became the great growth success story of the deep south. Being one of America's black meccas has been absolutely core that city's success. Unfortunately, most Midwestern places can't seem to get beyond their polarized race relations to seize the possibilities

People love their cars in the South. That probably has something to do with it. Atlanta has also had a very entrepreneurial culture. They aren't living purely off the legacy of companies like Coke and UPS founded long ago. They actually have newer companies too. Home Depot was founded in the 1970's. The upstart ICE commodities exchange is based there. I do think that the focus on its black community was a strategic masterstroke, and I've long advocated that there is a huge opportunity in the Midwest for a city to differentiate itself by really turning its black community into one of the pillars of growth for that town.

Ohio has real problems, not just marketing problems. Marketing is all well and good, but you have to start with a realistic appraisal of where you are. It is true that Ohio does not have anyplace like Chicago or New York or the other top 5-6 cities in the country. However, as noted, places like Austin and Charlotte are doing alright. What is different about those places? It can't be just "climate". Minneapolis has a terrible climate, but it seems to be hanging in there. I think the number one thing Ohio needs to undertake is a realistic assessment of what it is and what it needs to do to succeed. As I've said many times before, in an era that rewards cities, Ohio is fortunate to have balanced geography, with three cities of over one million MSA population. No other Midwest state can put up that result. Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, and Iowa all have one dominant city. Wisconsin has two cities of sorts, but Madison is far less than a million population. How can Ohio carve out a niche that exploits this geography? How can it tackle the unique challenges that come from it (such as three medical school/health care clusters crying out for state investment instead of just one)? For sectors like advanced manufacturing, distribution, and life sciences, where every other Midwestern state is likewise similarly situated and likewise eager to stake its future, what differentiates Ohio? Why will it be one of the success stories apart from "a rising tide lifts all boats"? What is the unique role it can play in the Midwest economic ecology?

Indianapolis already has a regional no-compete agreement. I'm not sure it is formal or not, but no regional city will offer incentives to an existing in-region company to relocate unless it gets a release letter from the current home town government first. Actually, this happens more often than you might think. Companies look to expand and often can't find the facility they want where they are currently located. The Indianapolis Business Journal just took a negative view of the incentives that are often doled out in the name of "keeping businesses in the area" when they relocate. However, there is very little bitterness between cities in terms of luring companies. Everyone is on the same team. There was a situation recently where Medco announced plans for a mail-order pharmacy operation to employ 1,300 and said they were picking Indianapolis, but held an in-region bake-off for the exact location. (They eventually picked Whitestown in Boone County). But these situations are very rare.

Cincinnati is in a tri-state area. Some might consider that a structural disadvantage. However, why not figure a way to turn it into an advantage? I think that good things for NKY and Cincinnati don't have to come at the expense of each other. Rather, they can complement each other. Frankly, I think Cincy has more to fear from Warren and Clermont Counties than it does from NKY. One reason Cincy has an international air hub is that it allowed its airport to be built in Northern Kentucky. I'm not sure of the history there, but let me promise you Louisville, for example, would never in a zillion years allow its airport to be located in Southern Indiana.

The problem is not exporting people, per se. It is running a "trade deficit" whereby leavers outweight joiners. Most of the Midwest doesn't have an outflow problem, it has an inflow problem.

I ran the migration figures between the Indianapolis MSA and Chicago. To Indianapolis: 16,228 To Chicago: 9,274 Net flow from Chicago to Indianapolis: 6,954 I have a hypothesis that much of this is second order Hispanic migration. Hispanics come first to a traditional port of entry such as LA, Chicago, or Houston, then migrate to interior cities like Indianapolis. I'd love to test this against data, but haven't had the leisure to track down the best source or do the analysis.

Whatever you may think of payday lenders, strip clubs, etc., these regulations are making Ohio look like anti-business kryptonite out there in the rest of America.

Evergrey, it is easy enough to calculate this for yourself using the web site data that Jefferey linked to. I can even make it easier on you by sending the spreadsheet template for this complete with Cincy migration data and pivot tables. All you need to do is add Cleveland. PM me your email address and I'm happy to shoot it your way - if you agree to post the results here so the rest of us can share. One of these days I'm going to get around to databasing the raw data files so I can crank this out at will.

I turned my migration table into a graph.

The vast bulk of migrations are internal for every MSA I've looked at. For Cincy, total county level in-migration was 394,549, and 286,401 of them came from elsewhere in the metro area.

dmerkow, I agree that Indy and Columbus are the closest thing to real twin cities in the Midwest. Very similar in a number of respects. The migration flows are pretty small. One possible source of it: people going to and from Ohio State. That's just a speculation. As for these other items, how would you propose modeling the connections? Locally you can do things like look at overlapping directorships, but how would you look across cities? I'm curious because I do believe this would be an interesting exercise.

By the way, those are all MSA to MSA figures. It looks like the cutoff to have data included is 10 people. Typically only the handful of largest counties (2 or 3) have any data for inter-MSA moves - the core county does pick up the bulk of it.

Jeff, I ran the numbers for the Cincy, Indy, and Louisville trio. For fun, I also added Columbus. It isn't perfect since I used the data from that web site rather than dork with the raw Census Bureau files (which I've been meaning to import into a database for, oh, about six months now). Only the top 150 counties are listed, but it is close enough. Here's what I got: Cincy-Indy To Indianapolis: 3407 To Cincinnati: 2902 Net Flow from Cincy to Indy: 505 Cincy-Louisville To Louisville: 2929 To Cincinnati: 2997 Net Flow from Louisville to Cincy: 68 Cincy-Columbus: To Columbus: 8693 To Cincinnati: 7501 Net Flow from Cincinnati to Columbus: 1192 Indy-Louisville To Louisville: 2022 To Indianapolis: 2530 Net Flow from Louisville to Indianapolis: 508 Indy-Columbus To Columbus: 1835 To Indianapolis: 2097 Net Flow from Columbus to Indianapolis: 262 Louisville-Columbus To Columbus: 783 To Louisville: 799 Net Flow from Columbus to Louisville: 16 It looks like pretty small circulation overall. The notable outlier is the Cincy-Columbus flow, which is significantly higher and perhaps shows the importance of in state relationships. The Louisville-Columbus flow is at the small end, but given the distance this is no surprise. Indianapolis appears to have a slight advantage from a migration standpoint. Louisville is in almost perfect balance with the Ohio MSA's. Cincy appears to be slightly losing people. I can email my spreadsheet I used for this to anyone who wants it.

Jeff, fantastic data as always. Very interesting. It is ammo for a couple of my pet theories. 1. Cincinnati as an "isolate". The migration to/from the rest of the Midwest seems very low to me, though I suppose Cincy is a border region. What do other Midwest metros look like, I wonder? 2. My skepticism of mega-regional thinking. Thinking of how, say, Louisville, Cincy and Indianapolis could co-operate, it doesn't look like those regions have much "brain circulation" or whatever going on. They are proximate to each other, but don't seem to interact much demographically. Obviously, more research is needed to fully back that up, but I'm too lazy to click around the Star-Telegram's site and do it.

From a marketing program perspective, I like it.

musky, very sorry to hear about your job situation. I hope you find something soon. China or no, globalization and productivity increases are causing a major structural collapse of the economy in many if not most Midwest places. It can be easy to dismiss this as a transition period, but if you are one of those who are being displaced and your community is suffering as a whole, that is not a good thing for America. I think we all realize that there will be tough times here and there and that there will always be pockets of the country that are struggling. But this seems to be something else entirely. There is so much displacement going on it is difficult to understand how to absorb it. And the transition period, which can involve things like packing up and moving away from the only town you've ever known, can be extremely painful and take a long time. Unfortunately, I don't see any end to this in the near term. Certainly not until the auto industry finishes its restructuring.

It goes back to Strickland's speech at the Cleveland economic club up, where it is pretty clear he thinks more regulation is the answer to Ohio's economy. Some people disagreed when I said that, so I figured I'd cite another example.

The Midwest is suffering from job losses due to productivity increases in manufacturing as well as sector-specific problems in the auto industry, neither of which are probably directly attributable to China. That is an interesting chart, however.

More regulation. http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/30/SICK.ART_ART_07-30-08_B5_86ASQDI.html?sid=101