OPINION: Rustbelt was losing people long before it lost factory jobs

Among the most pernicious myths affecting Rustbelt cities is that their troubles are due primarily to external economic forces such as manufacturing job losses. That myth is both counterfactual and counterproductive. Here’s why.

The 1950s marked the start of decline in most Rustbelt cities as elementary school enrollment stalled. With the highly reported results of the 1960 Census, population decline was clearly evident in Detroit, Muncie, Toledo, Cleveland and 50 other large Midwestern cities. Factory job losses were still more than a decade away. For the record, auto factory jobs peaked in the Midwest in 1978. However, there were more auto factory jobs in 2000 than there were in 1970.

The problems in Rustbelt cities started long before the loss of factory jobs. By the time the manufacturing jobs losses started to clobber population in Rustbelt cities, most had already endured several decades of shortsighted public policies.

The dominant industry — automobile manufacturing — was a global monopoly. That meant it paid wages that were unsustainable, crowding out other industries that competed for workers. At the same time, the auto monopoly quietly allowed local governments to levy punitive local taxes that crushed other industries. The Big Three monopoly could simply pass the cost on to car buyers. 

The high taxes would have been bearable if they translated into high quality public services. They did not. By the 1960s, Rustbelt cities were already succumbing to weakening infrastructure. Long before manufacturing jobs started to ebb, urban public schools were already troubled.

These factors, not the loss of factory jobs, reversed the population growth that was the hallmark of Midwestern success from 1800 to 1950. Worse still, the steady loss of people that began in the ’50s did not impact households randomly. Nearly everyone who dropped out of high school stayed, while most who left had been to college. This trend is more than six decades old, and has left a decidedly unhappy imprint on schools, social institutions and the workforce. 

Here I pause to paraphrase Harry Truman. I’m not giving anyone hell; I’m sharing the truth, and it sounds like hell.

Some places have restored economic health and vitality. By the turn of the 20th century, many cities were on the rebound. Indianapolis, the somnolent little sister of Detroit in 1950, was by 2000 in the midst of an economic boom facilitated by three decades of focused investment and forward thinking public policies. This attracted residents into vibrant suburbs and lifted the city from mid-century doldrums. Detroit went bankrupt. Across the Midwest there are a dozen other success stories like Kokomo, Kalamazoo, Columbus (Ohio and Indiana) and Fort Wayne.

In 50 other cities, the story remains sadly different. Most Rustbelt cities continue to suffer from widespread underinvestment in public goods, poor public services, a workforce unprepared for the modern economy, and the loss of the most educated and entrepreneurial residents. All these challenges are the result of decades of bad decisions. While it is comforting to suppose external factors doomed Rustbelt cities, that fairytale is simply ‘flat-earth’ wrong.

Honestly acknowledging the cause of the Rustbelts problems isn't merely an exercise in academic truthiness. Misunderstanding the root cause of this problem has led to a half century of bad policies.

Most Rustbelt cities have been chasing smokestacks (and still do), expecting in vain that prosperity was only one more factory or shell building away. This hasn't worked; it won't work; and in most cases it has been terribly counterproductive, robbing communities of the resources needed to tackle the most fundamental problems. As long as seemingly well-informed people cling to the myth that the problems of the Midwest began with factory job losses, good solutions will remain elusive.

It's is time to admit that the many challenges facing Rustbelt cities didn't emerge from external forces in China or Japan or Mexico or with automation or technology or changing consumer preferences. They are all home grown.

In the end, this mature and factual realization should be liberating and optimistic. For, if the problems of the Rustbelt are homegrown, so too are the solutions.