Help the Rust Belt
Trump needs a development czar
President Donald Trump’s vow to “make America great again” was a message of hope to small and midsize towns across America that have never recovered from the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs. As the Post-Gazette’s Brian O’Neill said in a Nov. 27 column, Mr. Trump “won where the jobs aren’t.” Now, Mr. Trump should underscore his commitment to these struggling towns by appointing a development czar to oversee efforts to reinvent them.
Among Rust Belt cities, Pittsburgh is fortunate because it has recovered so significantly from the collapse of the steel industry, which by January 1983 yielded regional unemployment rates in the 17 percent range. Steelworkers planning to demonstrate during President Ronald Reagan’s visit Downtown that April dropped fliers at unemployment offices because that’s where so many of their number could be found.
Pittsburgh’s health care infrastructure and universities, along with reclaimed waterfronts and other advantages, have powered an economic transformation. But many other towns have not been so fortunate, even though some have worked diligently at recovery. In Pittsburgh’s shadow, for example, are Braddock, Clairton, Duquesne and McKeesport. In Fayette County is Brownsville, its business district a dilapidated shell of its former self. In Beaver County are Ambridge and Aliquippa, the latter’s travails poignantly told in S.L. Price’s recent book, “Playing Through the Whistle: Steel, Football and an American Town.”
Other states have similar stories of hardship. Flint, Mich., is so poor that it cut costs with its drinking water supply and ended up with a public health crisis over lead exposure. The Economist reported in 2015 that 5,000 houses in Gary, Ind., about 25 percent of the city’s buildings, were boarded up. In November, The Columbus Dispatch reported that in Warren, Ohio, “the main category of business seems to be ‘closed.’ ” With the jobs went other infrastructure, including newspapers, libraries and hospitals. This is how once-thriving towns “rusted.”
After the election, Mr. Trump struck a deal with Carrier, a maker of air-conditioners and refrigeration equipment, to keep hundreds of jobs from being transferred from Indiana to Mexico. With Mr. Trump clamoring for more cars to be built in the United States rather than in other countries, General Motors announced Tuesday that it would invest $1 billion in U.S. factories, saving or creating 7,000 jobs, in coming years. The company had been considering the plans for some time but made the announcement now because of Mr. Trump’s hectoring.
While the Carrier and GM developments are a good start, Mr. Trump now needs to develop initiatives for the renewal of small and midsize towns — say, those of up to 150,000 population — across the country. He should appoint a development czar to ride herd on these efforts, measure the results, report on their effectiveness and keep these issues at the heart of the administration’s agenda. A president is pulled in many directions; a development czar would help to keep the focus on what Mr. Trump has called “real change.”