As jobs chase city lifestyles, company towns left in dust
PEORIA, ILL. — For decades in Peoria and in other company towns across the United States, a major employer provided generations of locals with jobs and gave the cities a central identity, while executives helped keep cultural institutions, Rotary clubs and higher-end housing markets healthy.
Now many of those midsize communities are looking for a new identit y as more companies trade their longtime hometowns for major cities with easier access to global markets and to the lifest yle talented young workers want, with public transit, nightlife and trendy restaurants.
Caterpillar’s recent decision to move 300 top headquarters jobs to the Chicago area made Peoria the latest city with a vacuum to fill. In 2014, Decatur, Ill., lost Archer Daniels Midland to Chicago after 40 years in the town. ConAgra Foods moved 1,000 jobs last year from Omaha to Chicago.
Some companies also are leaving suburban areas for downtowns, though the suburbs are still a popular choice. General Electric is moving its executives from a suburban campus in Fairfield, Conn., to downtown Boston, and McDonald’s said last year it will relocate to downtown Chicago from a sprawling headquarters in suburban Oak Brook.
A study by the virtual think tank CityObservatory.org found the number of jobs located within three miles of the city center grew by nearly 2 percent between 2011 and 2014, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Center city jobs grew slightly faster than those in the periphery in one recent seven-year period, a reversal from much of the past several decades.
“I don’t know that I’d call it a trend yet but it certainly is becoming one,” said Tom Murphy, a former Pittsburgh mayor and senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “Maybe for the first time in history, rather than having people follow where jobs are ... we’re beginning to see jobs following people instead.”
The change is adding to the divide between urban and smaller communities in the U.S., especially in the Midwest, which is beset with sagging manufacturing industries.
The Caterpillar move has been a blow to Peoria’s collective morale.
“There is emotion around” the decision, said Jeff Griffin, president of the Peoria Area Chamber. “Peoria is not unique in that tragedy across the country.”
In Greenville, S.C., where the decline of the textile industry left a huge gap in the economy, leadership arranged to remove a four-lane bridge that obstructed the view of a scenic waterfall, and added trees and cafés and sidewalks. A downtown that was once “dead” is now “beautiful and hugely successful,” Murphy said. In addition to drawing tourists, the city has a booming advanced manufacturing industry, anchored by companies such as BMW.
But other places, such as Decatur, are struggling to find a new identit y. The cit y has the second-highest unemployment rate in Illinois, and Moody’s Analytics warns the lack of jobs could push the city back into recession.
“What do we do with the Peorias?” said Joe Cortright, director of CityObservatory.org. “I don’t think we know what the answer to that is.”