America’s Red State Growth Corridors. By Joel Kotkin. Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2013. Also find it here.
Red States Leap Ahead. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, February 27, 2013.
America’s Growth Corridors: The Key to National Revival. By Joel Kotkin. Civic Report No. 75, February 2013. The Manhattan Institute. PDF.
Executive Summary:
Much of
the discussion about American economic recovery and growth in 2012 focused on
the usual suspects: regions on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and on the
shores of the Great Lakes. But the best recent economic record, as well as the
best prospects for future prosperity, are to be found elsewhere in the United
States.
We have
identified four regions of the country that we call “growth corridors.” What
they lack in media attention they make up for in past performance and likely
future success. Over the past decade-and, in some cases, far longer-these
regions have created more jobs and gained more population than their
counterparts along the ocean coasts or along the Great Lakes.
The
four growth corridors are:
1. The
Great Plains region, made up of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.
2. The “Third
Coast” stretch of counties whose shores abut the Gulf of Mexico and which range
through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida.
3. The “Intermountain
West,” consisting of counties in the north of New Mexico and Arizona, parts of
eastern California and western regions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, as
well as the non-coastal eastern regions of Oregon and Washington and all of
Idaho, Utah, and Nevada.
4. The “Southeast
Manufacturing Belt” of counties in eastern Arkansas, all of Tennessee, and
large swaths of Kentucky, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and
southwestern Virginia.
These
regions have different histories and different trajectories into the future,
but they share certain key drivers of economic growth: lower costs
(particularly for housing); better business climates; and population growth.
Some have benefited from the strong global market for commodities, particularly
food, natural gas, and oil. Others are expanding because of a resurgence in
manufacturing in the United States.
In this
report, we describe the growth corridors in some detail and explore what their
success means for the country as a whole. Part 1 describes what the corridors
are, in terms of geography, population, and history. Part 2 explains why they
are succeeding while America's traditional economic powerhouses are growing at
relatively anemic rates. Part 3 explains how the growth corridors are
advancing, noting the key industries in each. Part 4 considers the contrast
between the growth corridors and the rest of the nation and explains why the
growth-corridor mix of culture and policies is crucial to the future success of
the United States.
To be
sure, New York, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago will
remain the country’s leading metropolitan agglomerations for the foreseeable
future. But an important urban story of the coming decades will be the emergence
of interior metropolitan areas such as Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Tampa,
Oklahoma City, and Omaha. On a smaller scale, fast-growing Lafayette
(Louisiana), Baton Rouge, Midland (Texas), Sioux Falls (South Dakota), Fargo,
and a host of other smaller cities will continue to expand. We may also witness
the resurgence of New Orleans as a leading cultural and business center for the
south and the Gulf Coast.
This
ascendancy of the growth corridors follows one of the great principles of
American history. The “most important effect of the frontier,” as Frederick Jackson Turner noted, was how it promoted democracy by spreading opportunity.
The expanding frontier-then rural, now metropolitan-reinforces the
fundamental individualism at the core of American culture.
Equally
important, the corridors reveal the most immediate way to propel a broad growth
trajectory for the entire United States. By restoring a strong growth path, as
well as the optimism that accompanies it, the corridors could help bring about
a resurgence whose benefits will extend far beyond their boundaries to touch
the entire nation.
