How the Crash Will Reshape America

This Atlantic piece is well worth reading as this recession and the events leading up to it will likely change the America we have known in a dramatic way.

(more discussion later)

"...But different eras favor different places, along with the industries and lifestyles those places embody. Band-Aids and bailouts cannot change that. Neither auto-company rescue packages nor policies designed to artificially prop up housing prices will position the country for renewed growth, at least not of the sustainable variety. We need to let demand for the key products and lifestyles of the old order fall, and begin building a new economy, based on a new geography.

What will this geography look like? It will likely be sparser in the Midwest and also, ultimately, in those parts of the Southeast that are dependent on manufacturing. Its suburbs will be thinner and its houses, perhaps, smaller. Some of its southwestern cities will grow less quickly. Its great mega-regions will rise farther upward and extend farther outward. It will feature a lower rate of homeownership, and a more mobile population of renters. In short, it will be a more concentrated geography, one that allows more people to mix more freely and interact more efficiently in a discrete number of dense, innovative mega-regions and creative cities. Serendipitously, it will be a landscape suited to a world in which petroleum is no longer cheap by any measure. But most of all, it will be a landscape that can accommodate and accelerate invention, innovation, and creation—the activities in which the U.S. still holds a big competitive advantage..."

If the analysis and predictions are accurate, my burning question is how can Vermont position itself to benefit from the shift in all the factors suggested in Richard Florida's writing. Can we? what must we do?

A couple of years ago we had a push by some for stimulating and expanding Vermont's 'creative economy. Should that continue? Are we part of the mega-city region of New York? Should we consider ourselves a 'haven,' a place of respite and relaxation for those inside Montreal-Boston-New York?

We succeeded in becoming a haven for captive insurance companies. If we are a haven for recreation and 'quality of life,' why not become a have for capital and other resources? Or are we just too small to be able to leverage anything meaningful on our own?

Are we better off joining forces regionally with upstate NY, eastern NH, or southern Quebec on certain matters? I think this makes more sense. The trick is finding areas of mutual interest? Recreation? Energy? Education? Health care?

How can we best position ourselves to emerge economically healthy from this recession. We are unlikely to go as deeply into it as other areas of the country, but we may well lag coming out of it as we have in the past.