Return Manufacturing to Midwest

An article about small scale manufacturing in Brooklyn is optimistic:

.... The Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center started rescuing and rehabilitating factories in 1992. The center is a cluster of five old industrial buildings, housing more than 100 businesses and about 500 workers, including furniture makers, fish processors, and a guy who fabricates dinosaur armatures for the American Museum of Natural History...

..... “The cost of doing business is going up in China,” he says. “Shipping costs are rising. There is nothing remotely green about buying anything made overseas. Prices will not stay low indefinitely. This country has an opportunity to regain some of its manufacturing base, using cutting-edge technology and a new generation of interested youth.”

...Maybe Richard Florida has promoted the wrong creative class. In his model, artists beget coffee bars that make formerly dreary neighborhoods attractive to real estate developers, who lure lawyers and accountants into luxury loft buildings with names like “the Shoe Factory.” Maybe there’s another model, one that sucks a little of the class bias out of the formula and privileges artisans over artists, blue-collar jobs over white-collar ones. Give enough people who are passionate about making things the stability to invest in equipment and hire workers, and you might slow, or even reverse, the death spiral.

As a contrast, some people think that we should not worry about manufacturing so much.

Murdock casting, once a vibrant Cincinnati manufacturer, now vacant. What could be made here?:

A Family Chooses Pittsburgh

Article about a young family, that surveyed all their relocation options and ended up choosing downtown Pittsburgh because of its vibrancy & child friendliness. Some of the benefits they found are also available here. I wonder why they never considered Cincinnati? If I could hazard a guess, it would be the conservative reputation that precedes us.

...we considered all the usual progressive suspects, such as Portland, Seattle, Burlington, Austin and Asheville.... we also looked at Madison, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philly, Baltimore, and DC. Burlington and Asheville were too small. Madison was too cold. Chicago and DC were too expensive. Crime stats knocked out Philly and Baltimore. ... one city seemed just right: Pittsburgh.

If it sounds surprising to you, you’re not alone. Despite our own initial shock, it seemed to make sense on paper. Could Pittsburgh be the city we were looking for? Crime was lower than other comparable cities. The downtown neighborhood seemed compact and walkable, and there were plenty of public transportation options to keep us connected....