Residents of economically left-behind regions are angry and alienated. Many leaders are looking for avenues to ameliorate the economic, social and political divides this creates within our democracies.
Where communities recover, it returns community pride and optimism about the future, diminishing the appeal of polarising politics and building more cohesive and functional democracies.
Our proposal is simple: put community leaders and citizens in charge of defining their own brighter future, tapping local knowledge and building on local assets – whatever they may be.
Local assets as catalysts for recovery
The experiences of regions and communities that have successfully rebounded from economic decline show that there is no single recipe for success – but many. They are all built on a community’s particular identity and whatever local assets the community has to work with.
It could be on the making of things, or natural location – such as waterfronts, beautiful coasts, forests, or mountains – or reputation as committed to education, skills training, or innovation; or a center for unique arts, history and culture, or leveraging the formidable economic power of research and learning institutions.
Comebacks across the continents
Some former industrial giants have thrived anew building on leading universities. Think of steel-town Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or the once-textile capital Manchester, England. Former coal and steel cities, Essen and Bottrop in Germany’s Ruhr are finding new life by going “green”.
Machine tool, beer and motorcycle capital, Milwaukee, Wisconsin is carving a new path via leadership in the emerging water-based blue economy.
Rural agricultural centres like Decorah, Iowa, in the US, and communities in France’s Loire Valley are finding new shoots of economic life as leaders in the local food, organic food, and “know your food” movements.
Other communities keep winning economically when traditional industries and company town employers stay on the cutting edge: like Cummings Engine in Columbus, Indiana – a global leader in clean engine technology, or in Sheffield, UK birthplace of stainless steel – now making precision advanced metals for Rolls-Royce, Boeing and defense applications.
Similar chemical and heavy manufacturing communities can find new economic success through different paths. Midland, Michigan-birthplace of Dow Chemical – leans into arts, culture, education and a robust Great Lakes region quality of life; while Sarnia, Ontario converts its chemical competencies to new eco-friendly applications, and Saxony in Germany grows its digital technology base as “Silicon Saxony”.
Meanwhile, some communities find a new future by building on their proud industrial heritage and unique arts, culture and history. These include those featured in our recent transatlantic convening: Wroclaw, Poland; Detroit, Michigan; Germany’s Ruhr and Chemnitz; and Newcastle, UK.
Other newly winning communities execute a combination of strategies. Former furniture capital and auto parts maker Grand Rapids, Michigan transformed traditional furniture businesses into global leadership of high-tech office systems. They built new medical research institutions, teaching hospitals and a thriving medical-industrial industry from scratch; developing new arts, culture and entertainment venues and relocating Universities that were outside the city to the downtown. In the process, they redeveloped the river flowing through the city for public access and enjoyment and set goals to reduce greenhouse gas, water use and private vehicles, making Grand Rapids America’s greenest mid-sized city. These strategies worked together to attract new residents, businesses and jobs.
Ownership, commitment and capacity
Despite their different approaches, there are some clear lessons for policy makers looking to turn around left-behind places.
First, strategies must be based on local assets and identity; and be locally developed, conceived, “owned” and operated. You can’t dictate to a community what their strategy needs to be. If national or other priorities like greening, digitalisation and inclusion are imposed, they should be supported with broader strategies, separate funding streams, or with additional or “bonus” resources to those dedicated to implement the plans made locally.
Second, they must include a long-term commitment of flexible resources to enable communities and regions to plan their own strategies with confidence that they will be implemented. These should combine elements of both soft infrastructure (leadership, community engagement, local capacity-building) and hard infrastructure (transport & communication, innovation, skills and education) in whatever combination fits the community vision and strategy.
Lifting left-behind places
Today’s left-behind places feel overlooked in an economy shaped by constant change. But the message from comeback cities across the globe is clear: local leadership works. When communities are trusted to shape their own future – drawing on their unique identity and strengths – they can reconnect to opportunity and rebuild pride.
Policy makers must take note. Supporting locally led strategies with long-term, flexible funding is not just good for the economy – it’s good for democracy too. A more inclusive, productive and resilient society must begin by re-empowering the places that have been left behind.
John Austin is a Senior Fellow with the Eisenhower Institute and Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution. He currently is a Visiting Fellow at the Academy of International Affairs-NRW in Bonn, Germany.
For further information see:
- The OECD Transforming Places Project, which aims to build inclusive pathways for economic and social transformation in left behind communities.
- Leading local change – A new OECD paper which explores what we know and don’t know about who leads, how they lead, and the structures that enable or constrain effective leadership. It is part of the broader Transforming Places project.
- A new “Policy Pitch”– Regenerating Heartland Communities in Transition, presented at the recent OECD Conference in Trento, Italy: From Analysis to Action–Harnessing Local Policies to Boost Productivity. The paper provides a new blueprint for how national and regional leaders can fashion more effective community and regional economic regeneration efforts that respect and build on the history, pride, identity, and aspirations of heartland community residents themselves.
- The Heartlands Transformation Network, a collaborative of over 700 leaders and economic change makers from OECD member countries, our proposal turns conventional national place-based economic development and cohesion policy on its head
John Austin is a Senior Fellow with the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College, leading work on international economy-building and democracy strengthening. He also serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he has directed efforts to support economic transformation in the American Midwest and industrial heartlands of Western democracies for over 20 years. Prior to joining EI, Austin created and led the Michigan Economic Center, a network-building organization that advanced the state's economic transformation. He coined the term "Blue Economy" and catalyzed initiatives in the Great Lakes region and globally. Austin previously served 16 years on the Michigan State Board of Education, including 6 years as Board President. He holds a Master's in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School and a BA from Swarthmore in Economics & Political Science, with High Honors and Phi Beta Kappa.