Notes From the Rest of the Country: ‘Now That I’ve Got a Look at This Place, It’s Not So Bad!’
'Now That I've Got a Look at This Place, It's Not So Bad!'
Economic Development
221 posts
Erie and America
The challenges of Rust Belt America are real, and well-known. What's less familiar is the response some mid-sized cities are making.
Dodge City Postcard
Notes from the ground, from the sky, and from the people of Dodge City, Kansas
The Story of Ernestor
Dodge City, Kansas relies on undocumented immigrants—from meatpacking workers to the city's assistant finance director.
What Rural Economies Look Like From Above
In Kansas, the advent of an energy industry is inscribing itself on the physical landscape, adding wind farms to wheat farms.
The Multi-Dimensional Reality of the Nation, vs. the Flattened Reality of National Politics
My wife Deb and I have started out on the road again—northern Texas recently, now western Kansas, with a diversion to Colorado and then far southern Texas once again. Reports…
More on the Public Role in Fostering Private Innovation
A few days ago I argued that the Maker Movement finally depends on the ingenuity and effort of private entrepreneurs and of companies large and small — but that these efforts go much faster,…
The Maker Movement: If Hamilton Were Around, He Would Be a Fan
If Hamilton Were Around, He Would Be a Fan
The Surprising Problem With U.S. Manufacturing: It’s Creating Too Many Jobs
An ongoing theme of our reports from “career technical” schools—like this high school in Georgia and this community college in Mississippi and these high schools and tech-training centers in California and South Carolina, and these colleges in Vermont and Maine—is that for…
The Maker Revolution: What It Has Changed, and What It Hasn’t — Yet
What It Has Changed, and What It Hasn't — Yet
Why the Maker Movement Matters: Part 2, Agility
Business are finding that "makerspaces" enable them to reduce what's known as the mind-to-market gap: how long it takes for an idea to become a thing on a shelf.
‘Mr. China’ on Making Things in America
Following this earlier post about the significance of the Maker Movement, and before an upcoming report on an unusual and significant maker/startup space in Louisville, I want to mention a very interesting WSJ interview by…
Why the Maker Movement Matters: Part 1, the Tools Revolution
Just like the internet before it, the Maker Movement is revolutionizing manufacturing, with implications for startups and jobs.
Paradise Duluth
As part of the unfolding saga of start-up businesses as the crucial creators of new jobs, and of particular start-ups like craft breweries (along with tech incubators, arts companies, manufacturing “maker…
Wichita, Salisbury, Knoxville, Seattle: Revival Updates
Here are some recent developments that are related to the “America Is Putting Itself Back Together” argument in our March issue. They’re also connected to the subject of my post earlier…
On National Beer Day, Craft Brewers Improving Water, and Life, in More Ways Than One
Thanks to my Atlantic colleague Kathy Gilsinan for the reminder of why today is different from all other days: It’s National Beer Day! Congratulations to beer. Last week I did an item about the reasons…