The Next Economy: Economic Recovery and Transformation in the Great Lakes Region.

A s the American economy works its way slowly out of the Great Recession, a consensus is developing among public and private-sector stakeholders that simply re-constructing our old economy, one based on highly-leveraged domestic consumption, would be a serious mistake. The nation must instead focus on building the next economy, one that is oriented towards greater exporting, powered by a low-carbon energy strategy, driven by innovation, and that creates opportunities for all. The Great Lakes region, too long tagged with the misleading nickname, The Rust Belt, could show the rest of the country the way forward to the next economy. Although battered by decades of declining economic health, and particularly by the recession, the nation’s heartland still has many of the fundamental resources—top-ranked universities, companies with deep experience in global trade, and emerging centers of clean energy research to name just a few—necessary to create a better, more sustainable, economic model. This is not to disregard the region’s challenges. Its major metros have neither the economic development strategies nor the transportation infrastructure in place to fully take advantage of their export generating capacity. Many have inefficient physical development patterns, hollowed out urban neighborhoods, and concentrations of energy-intensive industries, and thus remain the epicenters of the nation’s fossil fuel-reliant economy. They lack the early-stage capital and other supports needed to strengthen existing firms and encourage start-up enterprises. And many suffer from deep, entrenched poverty, and have low educational attainment levels compared with their peers nationwide. With both the strengths and challenges clearly in mind, this report provides a roadmap to economic recovery and transformation in the Great Lakes region, powered by its metropolitan areas. It describes how federal, state, and local stakeholders can leverage the region’s substantial assets to create a more productive, sustainable, and inclusive economic future.