Erie

About a year ago, I wrote about the difference between Cleveland's and Pittsburgh's responses to brain drain, a rough economy, and their impotent positions within the economy. The "Brain Drain" is one of the large elements of this discussion, given its ability to steal away a community's future.

In a recent essay in 2007, Harvard economics professor Edward Glaeser argued that funneling resources into "place-based strategies" to reinvigorate worn-down cities is wasteful and ineffective. Instead, Glaeser argues that any redevelopment effort should incorporate "people-based strategies," investing in the people living in a community -- acknowledging that these new skills could be put to use in places like Buffalo (the focus of his essay) or Las Vegas. Yes, Glaeser accepts the notion that people might leave.

Glaeser's point is that communities need to begin looking long-term as opposed to short term. Jim Russell's blog at Burgh Disapora takes a shot at what this might look like in a place like Erie, PA, a community definitely suffering from Brain Drain:

I propose starting a boomerang migrant incubator in downtown Erie. Boomerang migrants are natives who left and then returned. As you probably know, moving back home is almost an impossible task. Employment is scarce and relocation logistics can be a nightmare, particularly during a deep recession. Yet people find a way to pull it off. More might do the same if they knew how and had some help. The key is motivation and the willingness to overcome any obstacle. These are the traits of entrepreneurs and Erie could use more of them.

The idea is that whether or not youth leave (they actually probably would if given the education necessary in a people-based approach), we should be investing in everything possible to prepare to welcome them back in ten or fifteen years. That is what Pittsburgh did when it went through its own hard times in the 1980s, and it has paid off beautifully now.

It is unconventional, and it might hollow out a community before making it better, but eventually it could work. The question is do we have the patience?

Peter Panepento, a blogger at Outside Erie, has a post up about Erie's biggest enemy being its past. Simply put, Erie can't move forward because it's always looking backward.

When I think about my experiences in Erie and also the smaller cities of Meadville, Pennsylvania and Salem, Ohio, I think the same thing could be said of them. It's a cliche anymore to discount local politics as too bitter and nasty to accomplish anything, and I think in each place I've been over my 24 years, this has held true. People can't separate the common good from the personal, and so they go to the mud, taking the public with them (there are too many who go willingly).

Yes, I said the word "bitter." And maybe this is what Barack Obama was trying to say when he famously slipped up last spring in San Francisco. People are too scared to change; they're paralyzed by fear, because, as Panepento notes, the last memory these people have of success is too far gone.

I’ve heard many people over the years talk about how we can get Erie back to where it used to be — back in the days when the factories were booming and people were flocking to the region in search of family-sustaining blue-collar jobs. The days when men with calloused hands could put in a honest 8 hours at the plant, head to the corner bar for an after-work beer, then get home for dinner.

Older citizens of these northern cities and small towns are in this thirty-year depression, and they just can't snap out of it.

Now that change is on the way, it's our responsibility to grab these people by the shoulders and shake them. Change relies on these people. Panepento concludes his post with a rallying cry to pressure government like they haven't been pressured before. I'd certainly agree with this. Contrary to what these "Yes We Did" people think, our job isn't over. Elections aren't the be-all, end-all of our political system. As citizens of these communities, we young people have a duty to push those representing us to lead in the right direction -- forward. And until a significant number of citizens living in the Great Lakes region realize this, these communities will continue to sulk and become pathetic shells of their former selves -- at the expense of the common good.

Cross-posted at Politics of the Common Good.

Peter Panepento, writing at the Outside Erie blog, writes about a problem that’s overlooked in the effort to reenergize downtown Erie.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the efforts to spruce up and revitalize downtown (and that is a crucial effort). But we haven’t paid much attention to the next ring of development surrounding downtown before we reach the wealthier suburbs. Many of the vacancies alluded to in Ian’s piece are the direct result of the retail development boom on upper Peach Street and the shift in wealth from the edges of the city into Millcreek, Summit, Fairview and the like. For decades, places like Liberty Plaza were central to folks who were doing their weekly grocery shopping, their trips to the drug store and to specialty shops like jewelry stores and sporting goods operations. But many of those folks with disposable income have moved out of that part of town and into bigger homes in the burbs. And the retail explosion on upper Peach Street has attracted all of those dollars. The stores that remained in the inner ring have slowly struggled and died — leaving behind the carcasses of buildings that have no demand. I fear that situation will only worsen for awhile. As more anchors like Value City leave town, shoppers have fewer reasons to trek to the remaining stores in those areas. Soon, the vacancies will creep further out from the inner ring and the sprawl into the suburbs will continue.

First, I think it’s great that we do have people like Peter writing about these issues. We have seen many downtowns of northern cities, especially those in the Rust Belt, decline over the late ‘70’s, ‘80’s, and ‘90’s.

Too many times there are factions in these local communities that turn a blind eye to the common good and, instead, focus on their own interests in efforts toward redeveloping and modernizing these small towns and cities. A case in point would be my hometown of Salem, Ohio — it has a lot going for it, probably more than most of the officeholders there realize, but no one can agree on anything, and so it usually misses the boat on many opportunities.

One thing that’s encouraging to me is that Millennials are tending to want to live/work back in the city. Those post World War II suburbs, built when the car was rapidly becoming a staple of American culture and society, are suddenly a bit too far for comfort now that gas prices are $4.00/gallon and higher. Moving young people back into urban communities (I say urban to include not only big cities but small towns as well) will hopefully inject some new life into these communities, given our civic-minded characteristics.

I’m glad that Peter pointed out that the outside core of big cities like Erie are also waning and get little attention, but I do share Peter’s view that, in Erie’s case, we need to focus on reinventing the downtown. The success of that effort would then form the tailwind for the secondary effort of revitalizing the outskirts.