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Rust belt americana6/19/2023 ![]() Lifting up and sharing the successful paths that many formerly industrial communities have already taken to find new economic success across the Atlantic can be done right now, and is the text of our work. Perhaps the most important solutions to economic decline and its populist offspring are right in front of us at the local and regional level. ![]() They should also provide decent employment security and a social welfare safety net. Leaders should fund basic and applied research and innovation that drive new technology creation, jobs, and business growth in emerging sectors, from IT to health care to clean energy. The same goes for infrastructure, including essential high-speed internet access for every person and community. But does anyone know what it is?” Five years on and we still confront the same question.Įconomists and analysts generally converge on some of the more important policy levers to pull, particularly at the federal level: investing in people, education and skill-building. presidential election, Jared Bernstein, who served as an adviser to then-Vice President Biden, wrote, “Yes, the Rust Belt demands an answer. But how to best go about it? After the 2016 U.S. ![]() President Joe Biden and his counterparts in Europe need to focus on creating the conditions for economic success in their still-transitioning Rust Belt regions. In the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum, recovering manufacturing centers such as Leeds, Manchester, and Newcastle upon Tyne voted to remain in the European Union, while struggling communities such as Rotherham, Wolverhampton, and Blackpool overwhelmingly voted to leave. In France’s 2017 presidential election, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen carried nine of the 10 French departments with the highest unemployment rates however, former industrial cities such as Lyon and Strasbourg that have navigated economic change supported the more moderate and ultimately successful party led by Emmanuel Macron. For example, in Duisburg, Germany-which is at the heart of the once-mighty Ruhr coal and steel region and home to a successful effort to rebuild the local economy around microelectronics-the far-right AfD party underperformed in the 2017 national elections relative to the regional average. We also observe this phenomenon in Europe. midterm elections and in the November 2020 presidential election. In regions anchored by resurgent industrial communities such as Pittsburgh and Grand Rapids, Mich.-as well as a number of smaller Midwest former industrial communities that have turned an economic corner-we observe powerful trends away from nationalism and nostalgia and toward moderate centrism. This has been the case recently in the American Midwest swing states, where residents of former Rust Belt regions that have made the transition to a new economy exhibit different attitudes and voting patterns than communities that still struggle. Conversely, we are beginning to see examples that show when former Rust Belt communities do secure new economic footing, the lure of populism wanes. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that when older industrial communities continue in decline, residents are receptive to the polarizing messages of populists and nativists. ![]() These forces won’t be overcome until their root conditions are treated. These are the geopolitically significant places where many residents feel alienated and left behind-conditions that create fertile ground for the nativism, nationalism, isolationism, and economic nostalgia that empower populist leaders and nurture the fierce political polarization that is undermining Western democracies. This work involves helping our leaders identify and animate policies, practices, and strategies that accelerate economic success for the Midwest’s older industrial regions. leadership of the international community, one place to begin that work is, surprisingly, right here in the American Rust Belt. As the Biden administration attempts to reforge global alliances and reanimate U.S. ![]()
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