Legacy Cities in a Post-COVID World: View From Professionals in the Field – Economic Development Group

By Jason Segedy

To explore what today moment indicates for the future of legacy cities, I conducted over 15 hours of interviews with specialists working on-the-ground in local federal government and community advancement in 10 cities situated in the Great Lakes area. Each of these cities– ranging in size from Chicago to Sandusky, Ohio– is at a various place in its post-industrial development trajectory, and each is dealing with a slightly different set of challenges.

The tradition cities that lie in the Great Lakes region are no complete strangers to world-altering modification. Long prior to 2020 and its extraordinary series of economic and social disruptions, these cities weathered several decades of repeated storms as a result of deindustrialization, mass suburbanization, and local outmigration.

In spite of significant difficulties, none of these tradition cities lack chances. As the adjective “tradition” suggests, to varying degrees all of them have civic and cultural assets that are a tradition of time when they were relatively more economically thriving places.

There has been a great deal of speculation about what the occasions of the past 6 months will mean for American cities in the future. Many of the legacy cities of the Great Lakes area have actually been spared some of the most significant social and financial disturbances that have actually roiled their bigger coastal counterparts, their future, too, is unclear, especially in the longer-term.

So, the concern stays: how will today’s cascading series of disastrous and interrelated social and economic issues impact our cities?

There is no one-size-fits-all response to that concern. Those of us who live in tradition cities understand that there is no such thing as a city that is too huge or too crucial to stop working. There is no place that is immune from potentially considerable, long-lasting decline.

It is possible that tradition cities, in the medium-to-longer term, might benefit from social and economic interruption in a lot of the country’s superstar cities, as homeowners, businesses, and investors reconsider the wisdom of concentrating so much wealth and chance in so couple of locations. The price and quality-of-life that tradition cities offer have been touted as mainly unrealized advantages for a very long time now. If paired with modest improvements in financial outlook and much better task opportunities, these advantages might lastly provide these locations a competitive edge.

On the other hand, many tradition cities have been harming for years now, and in spite of the pain that is being felt in a number of the nation’s most thriving places, it is difficult to imagine that this current time of economic hardship, social unrest, and institutional dysfunction will do anything aside from make legacy cities’ currently fragile position more precarious in the short-term. Some of the largest of these cities, including Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, have actually been held back and continue to be hampered by racial economic variations and levels of domestic segregation that are amongst the worst in the country.

Not all tradition cities are the exact same. They differ considerably in terms of size, scale, and competitive position. It is possible that a few of those that are financially healthier, or that were starting to pattern in the right instructions prior to the pandemic, might benefit in the medium to long-lasting by the forces released by 2020. Some of the mid-sized cities, in particular– those which are large enough to consist of a vital mass of financial activity, at a small-enough scale to be more workable in a time of national crisis– might be able to use their size to their benefit.

It is still too early to understand how these locations will fare in a post-COVID world, it is not too early to believe about how they might best position themselves to conquer their existing challenges and build on existing, and perhaps new, opportunities.

For the rest of this two-part series, I will be sharing what I learned from these interviews about what the future may hold for tradition cities in a post-COVID world.

Theme # 1: MOVING BEYOND THE “EDS AND MEDS” ECONOMY

The “Eds and Medications” economy has sustained legacy cities across the nation, to differing degrees, considering that the collapse of manufacturing that started in the 1970s. The healthcare and education economy has actually affected each of these cities differently, ranging from Pittsburgh, where it has been transformative; to Baltimore and Cleveland, where the outcomes are a bit more mixed; to cities like Youngstown and Flint, where it has actually possibly assisted at the margins however has actually failed to come anywhere near to changing the robust industrial economy that came prior to it.

For the past couple of years, there have actually been genuine concerns about how the “Eds and Medications” economic base will fare as the 21st Century wears on, particularly due to demographic modifications and spiraling, progressively out-of-control education and health care expenses. Is an economy that relies greatly on these sectors actually sustainable in the long-run? Even in the short-run, has it been enough to produce broad-based success and fair financial growth? In his brilliant book, The Divided City, Alan Mallach commits a whole chapter to asking these types of questions. And it is clear that they are more essential than ever.

The start of the pandemic has caused this currently somewhat unsteady “Eds and Meds” economic base to teeter, and it is in serious danger of falling in lots of locations. Many universities have been definitely ravaged, as the pandemic has actually totally interrupted conventional in-person classroom instruction, college sports, and a lot of the other social activities that make college satisfying and rewarding. More households than ever are now reluctant or unable to pay the increasingly-exorbitant expenses to send their children to college. As a result, numerous universities have had to lay off or let go of faculty and personnel, as spending plans have dipped deep into the red. For many years, lots of experts have actually been forecasting that the college bubble would break. It is looking like the future may have finally arrived.

Health care is not faring much better than college, despite the rather counterproductive result that health centers would be having a hard time in the middle of the greatest healthcare crisis of any of our lifetimes. Numerous health center systems, which are normally the largest employers in many legacy cities, have actually lost countless dollars as typical profits streams have been severely interfered with throughout the pandemic.

As lockdown constraints have eased considerably in a lot of locations, things are gradually “returning to regular” at lots of healthcare facilities. As with universities, the pandemic has actually exposed and intensified lots of underlying structural problems with the business model behind our health care systems; including, but definitely not limited to, long-term financial obligation incurred by huge capital growths at lots of centers, as well as opaque, challenging, and often financially-devastating expenses to the patients themselves.

It is unclear, as of yet, what reform of our higher-education and healthcare systems might appear like and how, in turn, those reforms might impact the economic base in legacy cities. What is clear, however, is that both sectors are practically particular to undergo considerable disruption over the next years or two.

In many locations, “Eds and Meds” have actually been a considerable (if imperfect) backstop that took the edge off of some of the financial discomfort experienced after the collapse of heavy market. But it is clear that tradition cities will not have the ability to count on health care and education alone to sustain them over the next years. It will be more vital than ever for legacy cities to develop diverse and durable economic bases that can bring in more capital expense, more people, and more innovation. Transitioning beyond “Eds and Meds” will be a heavier lift in some locations than in others. As Pete Saunders, the community and financial advancement director of Richton Park, a suburban area simply beyond Chicago, said, “A city like Chicago can take in disruption to these sectors far much easier than a city like Saginaw.”

Style # 2: THE LONG-LASTING IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION

Regardless of significant social, financial, and technological modifications, location, in lots of methods, is still destiny. Although numerous tradition cities have actually lost much over the previous 4 decades in terms of people, tasks, and nationwide prominence, all of them still have considerable place-based assets to build upon.

At the macro level, they still stay helpful geographic places for transport and logistics, lie in a part of the country that is mainly complimentary from natural disasters and blessed with fertile and productive farmland, and, possibly most notably, in an age of climate modification and ecological degradation, are clustered around the Great Lakes, which contain over 20% of the planet’s freshwater.

At the micro level, each of these cities contains a wealth of cultural institutions, historical architecture, a variety of housing, and walkable downtowns and area service districts that despite years of decline, in many cases, still far top those that can be discovered in lots of Sunbelt cities of a similar size.

All of these geographical and place-based assets give these cities a lot to construct on. In order to take advantage of and utilize these possessions, it is vital that they establish their capacity for placemaking, in order to enhance how their areas look, feel, and function.

Ian Beniston, Executive Director of the Youngstown Community Advancement Corporation (YNDC) mentions that doing this well indicates “incremental and unrelenting” enhancement. In Youngstown, this has actually meant things like destroying some vacant and abandoned structures, while recognizing, acquiring, and fixing up others. It has actually meant improving and stabilizing areas, particularly those situated near crucial civic possessions, such as parks, universities, or key organization districts.

In South Bend, Indiana, the city has played an active function in capitalizing on tradition possessions, creating new public spaces and leisure activities along the St. Joseph River, upgrading the city’s zoning regulation, and making streetscape improvements and providing façade grants to organizations in a few of the city’s crucial neighborhood downtown. Joseph Molnar, Zoning Specialist with the City of South Bend, talked about how these types of enhancements were purposefully leveraged in the city’s Western Avenue corridor, which goes through a previously-Polish immigrant neighborhood which is now occupied by Mexican immigrants, who have actually opened small services in the corridor, such as the popular and successful La Rosita ice cream parlor, which got a façade grant from the city.

In Akron, Ohio, the city awarded $651,000 in façade grants to 35 home owners for exterior restorations. All of them were situated in designated Terrific Streets locations, which are older community downtown that the city has actually prioritized as crucial reinvestment areas. The Great Streets program also assigned over $300,000 in capital improvements in these places for improved lighting, street trees, and street and sidewalk enhancements.

As in South Bend, a lot of the older enterprise zone in other legacy cities have benefitted from the stabilizing presence of recent immigrant groups, consisting of the Ahiska Turks in Dayton, the Nepali-Bhutanese in Akron, and a wide range of immigrants from throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East in Erie. The advantageous linkage between older locations and brand-new arrivals shows the prospective worth of new public law concepts such as , which could assist to further stabilize and rejuvenate these locations.

Style # 3: THE BENEFITS AND DOWNSIDES OF SMALLER-SCALE

The majority of tradition cities are little to mid-sized locations. The smaller-scale of these cities brings with it a distinct set of advantages and downsides.

2 of the most obvious advantages are lower cost of living– lower real estate prices, in particular; and lifestyle assets, such as less traffic congestion, enhanced access to parks and nature, and, for natives, closer connections to loved ones. If anything, the social and financial disturbance catalyzed by the pandemic has actually brought these benefits into even sharper relief.

There is also a specific level of love for a mid-sized city like Dayton that is frequently not as present in larger places, where lots of individuals may be there for less psychological and more practical economic factors. This can lead to higher levels of civic engagement and neighborhood assistance. Innovators, business owners, and the civically-engaged and community-minded can potentially have more of a positive effect, being larger fish in a smaller pond. “When you truly enjoy something, you desire to make it much better,” states Torey Hollingsworth, senior policy advisor to Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley.

At the exact same time, the manner in which the economy has changed over the previous 4 years has made it even more challenging for these cities to succeed. Consolidation of significant industrial corporations has actually hurt cities like Akron and Dayton, as these cities initially lost thousands of blue-collar production jobs and after that eventually lost many of the white-collar professional jobs that stayed.

In 1980, even after losing most of its tire production jobs, Akron was still home to the home office of four Fortune 500 rubber and tire manufacturers. Today it is house to only one. In 2009, Dayton lost NCR, the last Fortune 500 company headquartered in the city, to Atlanta. It was established in your area in 1884.

Global forces have seriously interfered with the financial base of these cities, ruining much of the best-paying jobs, and contributing to a perception that these when prominent-places and centers of innovation are now financial has-beens, as remote owners of what were once regional home-grown business turned their backs on them.

Debt consolidation of other key markets has actually shown to be simply as devastating, as once-local banks and newspapers have actually been purchased up by increasingly-distant corporations, obstructing lending, capital formation, and top quality journalism. “We do not even have a bank headquartered here in Dayton any longer,” states Hollingsworth. Airlines, too, have consolidated and moved service to bigger hubs, enhancing preventing financial activity and opportunity in mid-sized places.

Formerly strong regional organizations have been picked-off one by one, and had their carcasses selected apart by birds of victim that have actually brought wealth and decision-making authority off to far-away locations. Mid-sized markets in the top 75 nationally, like Dayton and Akron, and even bigger markets like Cleveland and Cincinnati, have come to be seen as backwaters by investors and globally-focused conglomerates who progressively can’t be troubled with the goings-on in such locations.

The nation’s belly was hollowed-out first by deindustrialization, and then by the continued combination of nearly every kind of financial activity, as wealth, prestige, and power has moved from numerous locations to simply a couple of. It is an exceptionally unhealthy dynamic that makes sure to hold these locations back, no matter just how much they do right at the local level. It requires a serious and substantive nationwide public law reaction, which I will talk about in the next installment of this series.

Jason Segedy is the Economic Innovation Group’s inaugural Legacy Cities Fellow. You can find out more about EIG’s Tradition Cities Fellowship and Jason’s background here.