For all of their many advantages: Clean water, sound transportation infrastructure, potentially abundant energy sources, reasonably hard-working [though lacking in skills] populations, midwestern cities in general will not begin to prosper until the local ruling parties start to view business and entrepreneurs as assets, not prey. High taxes, poor schools, high crime, inefficiently run and corrupt local govt prevent new business from benefiting from those assets. Reindustrializing the Midwest requires a long-term investment. Defund the police, no cash bail, failing schools focused on the wrong things, ceaseless regulations, all make that investment too high risk. I was in grad school in the South when the New South movement began. Cheap land, low wages, few regulations, friendly officials of both parties [key to long-term improvement], and improving schools oriented toward the trades were the big inducements that are paying off big time now 40 years later. No Great Lake City is staple and forward-looking enough to plan much past the next election.
One thing I would love to see is a push away from the current Union labor model more towards employee ownership and cooperatives. While unions are certainly necessary for public and privately owned companies, they also come with a lot of drawbacks in terms of mixed incentives, as well as resultant corruption. Because they're centered around struggle, there will always be animosity and coercion from each party (labor and capital).
ESOPs and Co-ops, meanwhile, do a better job of threading the needle while actually creating more efficient companies. You have better aligned labor rights since the employees actually own the company and often can vote on how it is run. But because they also own the company, they also actually care about how well it does, meaning they're more willing to accept necessary tradeoffs to keep things going. Plus, since they have a stake in the outcome, they tend to want to naturally work harder. It's kinda the best of both worlds.
The other thing the Great Lakes region has going for it is good bones for walkable urbanism. Having lived in both the South and the Midwest, I know a lot of my friends still in the South are pretty jealous of how cities are laid out up here. Young folks are kinda sick to death of endless commutes and standstill traffic in even midsize 500k population cities in the sprawling South. Here in the Midwest, we just need to get the zoning and financial reforms fixed to make development functional again.
For all of their many advantages: Clean water, sound transportation infrastructure, potentially abundant energy sources, reasonably hard-working [though lacking in skills] populations, midwestern cities in general will not begin to prosper until the local ruling parties start to view business and entrepreneurs as assets, not prey. High taxes, poor schools, high crime, inefficiently run and corrupt local govt prevent new business from benefiting from those assets. Reindustrializing the Midwest requires a long-term investment. Defund the police, no cash bail, failing schools focused on the wrong things, ceaseless regulations, all make that investment too high risk. I was in grad school in the South when the New South movement began. Cheap land, low wages, few regulations, friendly officials of both parties [key to long-term improvement], and improving schools oriented toward the trades were the big inducements that are paying off big time now 40 years later. No Great Lake City is staple and forward-looking enough to plan much past the next election.
One thing I would love to see is a push away from the current Union labor model more towards employee ownership and cooperatives. While unions are certainly necessary for public and privately owned companies, they also come with a lot of drawbacks in terms of mixed incentives, as well as resultant corruption. Because they're centered around struggle, there will always be animosity and coercion from each party (labor and capital).
ESOPs and Co-ops, meanwhile, do a better job of threading the needle while actually creating more efficient companies. You have better aligned labor rights since the employees actually own the company and often can vote on how it is run. But because they also own the company, they also actually care about how well it does, meaning they're more willing to accept necessary tradeoffs to keep things going. Plus, since they have a stake in the outcome, they tend to want to naturally work harder. It's kinda the best of both worlds.
The other thing the Great Lakes region has going for it is good bones for walkable urbanism. Having lived in both the South and the Midwest, I know a lot of my friends still in the South are pretty jealous of how cities are laid out up here. Young folks are kinda sick to death of endless commutes and standstill traffic in even midsize 500k population cities in the sprawling South. Here in the Midwest, we just need to get the zoning and financial reforms fixed to make development functional again.