Parallels

In the course of researching a rebuttal to this Telegraph story, I was absolutely gobsmacked by the parallels between the Steel Industry of the 1970's and the auto industry of today.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. steel industry came under increasing pressure from foreign competition. Manufacture in Germany and Japan was booming. Foreign mills and factories, built with the latest technology, benefited from lower labor costs and powerful government-corporate partnerships, allowing them to capture increasing market shares of steel and steel products. Separately, demand for steel softened due to recessions, the 1973 oil crisis, and increasing use of other materials.^[9][42] At this critical juncture, free market, anti-union policies, and deregulation, especially under President Ronald Reagan, came into play. Free market pressures exposed the U.S. steel industry's own internal problems, which included a now-outdated manufacturing base that had been over-expanded in the 1950s and 1960s, hostile management and labor relationships, the inflexibility of United Steelworkers regarding wage cuts and work-rule reforms, oligarchic management styles, and poor strategic planning by both union and management. In particular, Pittsburgh faced its own challenges. Local coke and iron ore deposits were depleted, raising material costs. The large mills in the Pittsburgh region also faced competition from newer, more profitable "mini-mills" and non-union mills with lower labor costs.^[42]

Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the steel industry in Pittsburgh began to implode. Following the 1981–1982 recession, for example, the mills laid off 153,000 workers.^[42] The steel mills began to shut down. These closures caused a ripple effect, as railroads, mines, and other factories across the region lost business and closed. The local economy suffered a depression, marked by high unemployment and underemployment, as laid-off workers took lower-paying, non-union jobs. Pittsburgh suffered as elsewhere in the Rust Belt with a declining population, and like many other U.S. cities, it also saw white flight to the suburbs.^[43]

Emphasis mine. It was a potent cocktail of union, corporate and governmental errors along with free market pressures that the American steel and auto industries were unable to overcome that led, in the end, to the demise of those industries.

Where the parallels diverge comes in how the cities of Flint and Pittsburgh handled the paradigm change. Where the city of Pittsburgh reinvented itself from Steel City to High Tech Haven...

Present-day Pittsburgh, with a diversified economy, a low cost of living, and a rich infrastructure for education and culture, has been ranked as one of the World's Most Livable Cities.^[48]

... the city of Flint is tearing whole neighborhoods down...

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

...and the Obama Administration wants to bring this plan to a neighborhood near you! The reason for this is an obvious one - the cities in question are in decline....

"Places like Flint have hit rock bottom. They're at the point where it's better to start knocking a lot of buildings down," she (Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective programme at the University of California, Berkeley) said.

Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has shrunk to around 8,000.

Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the total population has almost halved to 110,000.

The exodus – particularly of young people – coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.

The Telegraph tap dances around many of the reasons for the flight - lack of jobs, high unemployment etc - but they never get to WHY these jobs are leaving.... usually a government climate that makes it next to impossible to attract and maintain businesses (hello Minnesota). I mean a publicly traded company is ultimately responsible to it's shareholders. If the shareholders are not making money then the company has two choices - move to a climate where it is cheaper to do business (off-shoring) or go out of business! It's that simple.

But Mr Kildee, who has lived there nearly all his life, said he had first to overcome a deeply ingrained American cultural mindset that "big is good" and that cities should sprawl – Flint covers 34 square miles.

Look I'm not saying that Flint should be forced into doing something that won't work for them. If shrinking the size of the town works for THEM then by all means, they should do it. Where I do depart with the idea is that this is something that should be forced on other cities due to FEDERAL MANDATE! Pittsburgh re-invented itself without federal involvement - that's fantastic - but how do you Pittsburghers will react to the Federal government coming in and telling them that their jobs and neighborhoods are being torn down because the Federal government thinks their city is "too big"? We should not be using Flint's cookie cutter on everyone else. Let the cities of Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Detroit and the 46 other "targeted" cities decide what's best for their citizens. If it is reinvention ala Pittsburgh, reduction ala Flint, a combination of the two or some other outside of the box solution - it has to be up to the city and the county...not the Federal Nanny State.