Thread by @Noahpinion

Today's @bopinion post evaluates two new proposals - one from @MarkMuro1 and @BrookingsInst, one from @jonathangruber1 and @baselinescene - to create tech hubs in America's lagging regions.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/Many regions of the country are falling into decay, even as the superstar cities flourish:

thestile1972.tumblr.com/post/184270817…

3/Some people think we should just pay people to move out of declining regions, and pack them into the superstar cities. But this is not going to work. One reason is that America's superstar cities will not let them in.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

4/Meanwhile, people who say "just move" seem not to have thought about what happens to towns where half of the people move away and half stay.

A half-empty town doesn't have the tax base to sustain its infrastructure and built environment. It falls into decay.

5/But we can't just pump in federal money to keep half the country on life support. In order for a sustained revival, we need to find something productive for those regions to do.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

6/Several people are putting forward big plans for creating economic activity in declining regions. One example is the "Jump-Starting America" plan, by @jonathangruber1 and @baselinescene.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

7/And here's a new plan along broadly similar lines, from @MarkMuro1 and other researchers at @BrookingsInst.

brookings.edu/wp-content/upl…

8/Let's talk about the strengths and weaknesses of these plans.

First, the "Jump-Starting America" plan.

The best thing about this plan is its size. $100 billion a year. That would be enough to make a difference.

amazon.com/Jump-Starting-…

9/But this plan has a big weakness, which is its focus on research parks rather than on universities.

Evidence on the effectiveness of research parks is not encouraging.

1. link.springer.com/article/10.102…

2. pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0d8f/6171bab03…

3. rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

10/Research parks, unlike universities, don't have many opportunities for casual, informal contact. This makes it harder for ideas to spread.

Research parks may be a second-best solution for developing countries that don't have good universities.

11/Another problem with research parks is that they are new and hideously expensive. So much money will go into the construction of the parks, before research even gets started.

If even one of the parks is a massive failure, it could discredit the entire nationwide project.

12/We already HAVE institutions that are well-equipped to do great research, scattered throughout America's declining regions.

UNIVERSITIES.

They work really well!

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

13/What we need to do is to spend a bunch of money on second-tier universities in declining regions, to upgrade their research activities to the top tier.

Instead of building Biopolis, just turn Youngstown University into UCLA.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

14/The Brookings plan does this. It proposes spending money through the NSF, and giving it to universities in declining regions.

That is good.

The problem is, it's undersized -- only $10 billion a year, 1/10 the size of the Jump-Starting America plan. Dream bigger!!

15/And both the Jump-Starting America plan AND the Brookings plan have one additional weakness -- they both focus on creating a small number of new superstar technology hubs.

16/Having the government pick which city will be the hub of which technology is the kind of "picking winners" strategy that has given industrial policy a bad name.

What if we decide Buffalo is going to be Synthetic Biology City, but it gets outcompeted by San Diego??

17/Years of failed efforts to create the "next Silicon Valley", both within and outside of the U.S., should serve as a cautionary tale about the ability of government planners to choose which technology will go in which place.

amazon.com/Boulevard-Brok…

18/Also, even if we do succeed in creating, say, 5 new superstar technology hubs, that won't help most regions of the country. We'll only have slightly ameliorated the regional inequalities.

We need more like 50 new thriving places, not 5.

19/What we need to do is to spend a LOT of money - $100B a year sounds good - to upgrade the research capabilities of a LOT of universities. And let THEM pick which technologies to focus on.

20/Big regional technology development plans like these are good. Keep em coming.

But remember:

1. Don't skimp on the cash

2. Universities are the way to go

3. Spread the wealth around a lot

4. Let places pick their own technologies

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…