Need workers? First, lighten up

Our organizations are more effective and less fragile when all the people involved don't look alike, don't think alike, aren't coming from the same place. Diversity has a real, positive effect across the board for how well organizations are able to execute and how well they're able to find their way forward.

--BEN DILLON, co-owner and chief strategy officer for Geonetric

(Source: Cedar Rapids Gazette)

It is not a sign of success that most places in Iowa are losing population, particularly among young people of working age. 92 of Iowa's 99 counties have either lost population in the 2010s, or gained more slowly than the nation as a whole; that's 93 percent of our counties, higher than the national average of 86 percent (Ozimek, Fikri and Lettieri 2019: 7). Exactly three counties--Johnson (Iowa City), Polk and Dallas (Des Moines and vicinity)--saw increases of 10+ percent in population aged 25-54, defined as prime working age, between 2007 and 2017. Five more saw marginal increases (0-10 percent): Linn (Cedar Rapids), Scott (Davenport), Story (Ames), Warren (south of Des Moines), and Jefferson (Fairfield). Though that short list of counties includes the state's largest, 59 percent of Iowans live in a county that lost prime-working-age population (pp. 9-10).

I have used population growth as a surrogate measure of a place's success, mostly because data are easy to obtain and work with; turns out it's significantly meaningful in its own right. A recent Economic Innovation Group report cites many deleterious effects of population loss (in most but not all cases, pp. 14-27):

• faster loss of prime working age population
• lower employment rate of those in prime working age population
• lower proportion of high-skill workers (because they're the ones able to move)
• loss of housing value, affecting family wealth, consumer spending and construction employment
• more vacant/abandoned properties
• loss of local government revenue
• loss of "dynamism" (fewer startups, lower worker productivity, less attractive workforce)

These situations are not unique to Iowa, of course. Only one county in Illinois, exurban Kendall County, has experienced strong prime-working-age growth in the last decade. Cook County (Chicago) has lost population among this age group, as have all of its "collar counties," especially Lake and McHenry. While Forsyth County, North Carolina (Winston-Salem) has gained prime-working-age population, but they've tended to be in lower-wage jobs (Porter 2019).

Time Warner Center, New York City (Getty Images, used without permission)

The story of the 21st century American economy has been spectacular, almost unbearable, growth in a few "superstar cities," with rest trying to catch up while still cleaning up from the 20th century industrial phase. As Eduardo Porter explains in The New York Times:

[A] limited set of successful cities... draw both highly-educated workers seeking well-paid jobs and high-tech companies that want to employ them... The new pattern of economic development amounts to a fundamental break from the decades after World War II, when poorer and generally smaller cities were catching up with richer, bigger places. In recent years, this convergence stopped. Many midsize cities and small towns that found manufacturing-based prosperity in the 20th century have lost their footing in the tech-heavy economy of the 21st (pp. B1, B6).

As a result, writes Richard Florida, We now have two distinct sets of metro areas based on skills: those with high concentrations of cognitive and people skills (which are closely correlated at 0.86), and others with high levels of motor skills. The unemployment rate for motor skills workers fluctuates over time but is trending higher, while the rate for the other two groups is flat and remains low even in recessions. Their geographic separation means that places, too, experience consistently positive or varying-but-trending-negative economies. Less-educated workers, in fact, do best in places that are dominated by cognitive and people skills (Florida 2019).

So, what is to be done? You could try resentment; President Trump and Governor Reynolds would be grateful for your support, thought once in office they've done more to feed resentment than actually doing anything about it. You could try luring a big employer with a tax-break, though there are plenty of sad experiences to advise you otherwise: Winston-Salem's incentives lured Dell in 2005 (it left town in 2009) and Caterpillar, which has created about a third of the jobs it said it would (Porter 2019). You could swing for the fences with a big project like a stadium or a casino; the track record for those is even worse than for economic incentives.

State Rte 175 through Grundy Center seems ripe for a road diet.
Remarkably, I-DOT is willing, but the residents are not.
(Google Maps screen capture)

So what is to be done is the un-flashy and un-quick process of improving local capacity. Vey and Love find support for enhancing the capacity of places through transformative and inclusive design that facilitate business development and individual creativity; enhancing the capacity of individuals with skill development and mentoring (see also Florida 2019); and inclusive community engagement.

The report from Economic Innovation Group concludes with an intriguing proposal for "heartland visas," where skilled immigrants would be admitted to "places confronting chronic population stagnation or loss as a means of boosting economic dynamism and fiscal stability" (p. 37). Unlike existing H-1B visas, immigrants would not be tied to a specific job or employer, though they would need to find a job or start a business "within a reasonable period of time." The program would be optional for local communities, so each place would decide for itself whether it wanted to play. Something like the heartland visas, combined with already-low cost of living compared with superstar cities, could facilitate an influx of skilled immigrants into struggling regions of the country, including most of Iowa.

The word "facilitate," however, does not mean "make it happen." I see three barriers, from the immigrants' perspectives, to making this happen. Are there employers with well-paying jobs and markets for entrepreneurship? Is the place otherwise attractive, with the urbanism that allows for density and vibe?

White supremacistwear at a Trump rally in Orlando (swiped from Twitter)

The third barrier is less tangible than the economic and physical ones, but it may be just as important: how welcoming is the community? Few people are willing to go where they're not welcome and, with the President of the United States leading by example, immigrants (and people of color, and so forth) are hearing loud and clear in many ways that they are not welcome. MAGA hats may make the wearer feel badass, but they send a clear message of hostility to people not like them. Des Moines, one of Iowa's most successful places, might get away for awhile with their anti-upzoning ordinance, but most places can't afford that luxury. [8/7/19: The intent and impact of this ordinance may be more complicated than it first seemed; see Sisson 2019 with hat tips to Phillip Platz and Seth Gunnerson.] The shooter this past weekend at the Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, was clearly deranged, but nonetheless reflects a zeitgeist that is all too widespread. "How do you stop these people?" Trump asked a rally in May. "Shoot them!" came a response. Well, of course you do. "That's only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement," Trump chuckled amidst the cheers.

What does it mean to welcome immigrants? It surely means more than not shooting them, and even more than just allowing them to come. Welcome requires affirmation and outreach. In St. Louis, the Mosaic Project connects immigrants with peers in their industries, offer resources to entrepreneurs, and provides mentoring and support for spouses. Global Louisville is a public-private partnership that offers mentorship and business development assistance as well as coaching local businesses in cultural fluency. The Charleston (SC) Regional Development Alliance offers similar services to newcomers and long-time residents. Columbus (OH) offers global fluency training to local businesses. "You have to create a welcoming tonality of your local community at the same time you have to be attracting international people," says Mosaic Project executive director Betsy Cohen. "If you bring the seed, and the soil isn't receptive, it won't thrive" (Barker, Gootman and Bouchet 2019).

Struggling places could learn a lot from successful cities. That would start by ignoring the dystopian rhetoric conservatives are selling, and seeing cities as they really are. "Instead of bleeding residents, much of urban America is growing," writes Washington Post reporter Griff Witte (2019).

Rather than scaring away young, educated workers, cities have become a magnet for them. Once a turnoff for corporate investment and development, many urban neighborhoods have become the most coveted places to be.

Residents of the depopulating places of America need to recognize that our towns are not going to look like they used to. They may be more diverse, or they may be more desolate. They can either be different-and-thriving, or continue to die. Folks need to get over whatever fears and dislikes prejudice them against "the other." And then they need actively to reach out to welcome the people their places sorely need.

MAIN SOURCE: Adam Ozimek, Kenan Fikri, and John Lettieri, From Managing Decline to Building the Future: Could a Heartland Visa Help Struggling Regions? (Economic Innovation Group, April 2019)

OTHER SOURCES
Rachel Barker, Marek Gootman, and Max Bouchet, "Welcoming Communities Make for Globally-Competitive City-Regions," The Avenue, 5 August 2019
Richard Florida, "How 3 Skill Sets Explain U.S. Economic Geography," City Lab, 16 July 2019
Eduardo Porter, "A Bigger Gap for Not-So-Big Cities," New York Times, 17 July 2019, B1 & B6
Jennifer S. Vey and Hanna Love, "Demands for Place are Reshaping Our Communities, But How Can the Benefits Be More Widely Shared?" The Avenue, 24 June 2019
Graf Witte, "Trump Says Cities Are 'A Mess.' They're Actually Enjoying a Golden Age," Washington Post, 3 August 2019

EARLIER POSTS
"Small Towns, Rural Areas, and State Legislatures," 11 June 2019
"Iowa Losing Millennials, Needs Workers," 14 February 2019
"What is the Future of Iowa's Small Towns?" 3 July 2018