President Trump is gung-ho about the U.S. producing more goods. But what, exactly, should cities be making in the 21st century?
Make beer, not widgets: Sabrina Calhoun loads a pallet with cases of beer at Rhinegeist Brewery in Cincinnati’s Brewery District in 2015.
When President Donald Trump announced his Manufacturing Jobs Initiative last month, he was moving forward on a promise he made over and over during his campaign: to make America great at making stuff again.
“America became the world’s dominant economy by becoming the world’s dominant producer,” the then-candidate said during a campaign stop in Monessen, Pennsylvania, in June 2016. Lambasting globalization and trade pacts as “economic surrender,” he pledged to restore the country to the glory days of thrumming assembly lines: “We will make America the best place in the world to start a business, hire workers, and open a factory.”
Whether lost manufacturing jobs can return in an era of increasing automation is a subject of skepticism among many analysts. After all, America is building more than ever; the manufacturing sector just doesn’t employ as many people. But it’s clear that this administration will continue to at least create the impression that it is bringing back goods-producing factory jobs.
So, where do cities fit in with this? With their limited space, dense population, and high costs, modern urban areas are no longer the industrial powerhouses they were a century ago. But they do have still have some key advantages over small towns, rural areas, and spread-out exurbs. CityLab asked experts how American cities can play to their strengths to ramp up production, and learned a few rules of thumb.
Forget commodities
The first is no surprise: Don’t bother wooing widget-makers. With higher land values and thus less room for production facilities than the exurb up the highway, the 21st-century city isn’t the best place to make commodity goods on a vast scale.
“What cities are good at are things that turn out, often, to be shorter-run, more customized, [meet] a particular need, and drive off the innovation-high nature of cities,” says Peter Hirshberg, a co-author of the book Maker City. “That’s very different than, ‘We have a big assembly plant where a bunch of humans are doing the same operation over and over again.’”
Adam Friedman, executive director of the Pratt Center for Community Development in New York, agrees. “The dividing line [between appropriate and less appropriate industry for cities] … is less around size and more around value added. It’s the difference between commodity products, like Sweet‘n Low—which just closed in New York—versus high-value-added products, which could be anything from architectural metalworking to all the artisan foods, but also including … furniture and fashion.” So, yes to the artisanal sauerkraut-maker, no to the industrial food factory.
These days, people assume that technology must be the differentiator, Friedman continues, but that’s often not the case. “It can also come from design, or proximity to market, or how well you serve your market.” Friedman’s example of a manufacturer well suited to its urban location is very old school: Steinway & Sons, which employs about 300 people in Queens. Concert-quality pianos are the ultimate “high-touch” product, and proximity to the music schools and arts organizations of a cultural center like New York is a big advantage.
A high-tech example Hirshberg cites is Crye Precision, which designs and produces body armor for the armed forces in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The manufacturer employs designers, engineers, seamstresses, and more—a cross-section of talent that would be tough to find outside of an urban area.
“Modern manufacturing is increasingly a clean, high-tech, desirable activity that can fit into a [city] neighborhood.”
High-value products have higher margins, which translates to better pay for workers, Hirshberg notes. Urban production facilities are often accessible by public transportation, a plus for both workers and employers. And they tend to be places people don’t mind living next door to, as opposed to the clanking tool-and-die shops of yesteryear. “Modern manufacturing is increasingly a clean, high-tech, desirable activity that can fit into a [city] neighborhood,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Focus on what you’re good at
There probably isn’t a city out there that wouldn’t like to be the next Silicon Valley. But cities will do better focusing on their distinctive assets and helping a manufacturing scene grow organically.
Take Cincinnati. In the mid-19th century, German immigrants settled in the city’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and started brewing lager and opening beer gardens. By the end of the century, Cincinnati was one of the country’s top beer producers, and 17 breweries dotted Over-the-Rhine and the adjacent West End. Many of them had deep basements or tunnels to ensure the cool temperatures desired for brewing lager. Nearly 50 brewing-related structures have survived from this period.
Locals established the OTR Brewing District in the early 2000s as the neighborhood struggled with crime and vacancy. At first, they concerned themselves only with clean-up and safety efforts. But “very quickly, we seized on the fact that this brewing heritage was an amazing asset,” says Steve Hampton, the nonprofit’s executive director. They started leading brewing-history tours in 2006.
Since then, Over-the-Rhine has undergone a remarkable revival—prompting concerns about gentrification—and has attracted various kinds of maker businesses. Not surprisingly, they include four operating breweries, but also an incubator kitchen where food entrepreneurs can lease space by the hour, and First Batch, a manufacturing accelerator that works out of the Moerlein Ice House, once part of the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co.
Hampton says some of the old brewery structures are “funky” and hard to turn into condos, but they lend themselves to light industrial uses. And the area’s architecture and brewing history are rich enough to draw locals and tourists eager for a look, who then patronize local retailers. “We continue to do a lot of projects around promoting [the brewing] heritage and using that as an economic development tool to bring visitors and their dollars to their neighborhood,” Hampton says.
Look beyond incubators
Everyone is setting up small-business incubators and maker spaces these days. They’re important, Muro says. Maker spaces with shared equipment allow budding entrepreneurs “to do a limited manufacturing run, without buying hugely expensive modern manufacturing tools.” He sees networks of such spaces emerging now—“an
Your Editor Asks: Why can’t cities like New York return to manufacturing?
