The EconomistJuly 25th 2020 Special reportThe Midwest 51E
xplore theMidwest and you spend lots of time between
places. Flat expanses are “littered with has-been towns” as
Richard Longworth wrote a decade ago. His comment is not much
appreciated in places like Assumption, Illinois (population 1,066
and falling). Then again, some Assumption residents express their
own prejudice. “People down here want to push Chicago out of Illi-
nois,” says Chris, who sells high-tech farm equipment. The city is
too liberal and its voters too dominant. Dan Caulkins, a Republi-
can state representative, sees a “cultural, political, economic di-
vide” pitting Chicago “versus the rest”. Those white-collar Chica-
goans “run by one party for generations” might be from a different
country. Yet the Midwest’s metro areas are outgrowing states
around them. Rural folk may not admit it, but it is urban ones who
pay their subsidies.
A report last September by a group of mayors noted that 86% of
Americans live in metro areas, producing 91% of national income.
The mayors talk of gross metropolitan product (gmp): 38 metro ar-
eas, including ten Midwestern ones, have gmps of $100bn or more.
Chicagoland is the Midwest’s biggest. Its $716bn-strong economy
is 83% of Illinois’s. The Minneapolis metro area produces $273bn,
or 74% of Minnesota’s output. Even troubled Detroit’s metro area,
valued at $273bn, makes up over 50% of Michigan’s economy, as St.
Louis does of Missouri’s.
Metro areas in the Midwest have had a tough year. Covid-19
struck hard in Cook county, containing Chicago, which saw over
4,500 deaths by July. Wayne county, Detroit, had over 2,700. These
were two of the highest death tolls outside New York. But some
small-town dwellers railed against lockdowns. In southern Michi-
gan, Illinois and Wisconsin, residents grumbled about fear-mon-
gering city folk. Gun-toting protesters in Michigan entered the
state capitol, angry at the lockdown imposed by Gretchen
Whitmer, the governor. Conservatives in Wisconsin even got the
state’s Supreme Court to overrule its governor, Tony Evers.
The pandemic also spread economic pain. Tourist spots, such
as Michigan’s upper peninsula or northern Wisconsin and Minne-
sota, will see summer revenues slump. But it is cities that will suf-
fer the most. Chicago had expected some 60m visitors this year; it
will be lucky to get half. The city predicts a $700m hole in its
$11.6bn budget. A University of Illinois study reckons the state will
lose the equivalent of 550,000 year-long jobs in 2020, and $76bn in
economic activity.
On top of this came the early summer disruption, when hun-
dreds of cities were convulsed by protests against racist policing.
Mayors ordered curfews in many cities and the National Guard ap-
peared on the streets. Shops that were tentatively reopening as
public-health restrictions eased were boarded up. Some owners of
looted places said they would not open again.
The lesson from other big shocks is that they are more likely to
accentuate existing trends than to change prospects entirely. The
influenza pandemic of 1918 did not stop the rise of America’s cities,
including in the Midwest. Big protests in Detroit in 1967 and again
after the murder of Martin Luther King in 1968 coincided with (and
maybe sped up) the decline of some cities. But those declines were
caused by underlying economic trends.
Detroit is a test case. In the past 70 years it has suffered a dra-matic slump. Its population peaked at 1.8m in the 1950s, and has
since fallen to 670,000. City officials, businesses, community ac-
tivists and philanthropists claimed it was starting to shine again
pre-pandemic. Its town centre appeals to artists and draws tourists
for Motown music and trendy restaurants. Suburbanites, craving
cultural activity, also flock in. Some companies are even moving
headquarters there. Michael Duggan, the mayor, lauds high-rises
being built as new sorts of jobs grow, beyond the car industry. Too
long dominated by a few huge firms, Detroit is encouraging start-
ups. “Five years ago, you’d step out of your office on a weekday af-
ternoon and the streets were deserted,” says Ray Waters, a busi-
nessman. “Today, there are people everywhere, going for dinner, to
a show. The city is back.”
Detroit is following a well-trodden path of cities that have
scrambled to diversify economies, renovate town centres, stop
population loss, draw in youngsters, tackle crime and lure inves-
tors. Spend a day with Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend
in Indiana, and he ticks off the usual achievements: a riverfront re-
habilitation; the demolition of abandoned houses; improving
public finances; luring tech and retail firms to fill old buildings
previously given over to manufacturing.
Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak, with the Brookings Institution,
have scoured the Midwest for examples of such “vanguard cities”,
arguing in a recent book that they are gaining clout. Many have
added population in the past decade. More people living alone or
in households of two drive this, but it also reflects the arrival of
young folk to do knowledge-based jobs. Baby boomers who prefer
central-city life to sleepy suburbs also count.
Almost nowhere is housing cheap. Renting a home can absorb
30% of incomes. But Midwestern cities are more affordable than
coastal ones. Anika Goss-Foster of Detroit Future City, a charity,
points out that the housing stock is mostly old—built before
1970—but there is abundant space. Whereas Manhattan has 69,500
residents per square mile, Detroit has just 5,100.
In North End, a scrappy, sparsely occupied district once home
to jazz clubs, Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson, redevelopment isTheurban prairie
For the region to prosper, its bigger cities must flourishCitiesBut plenty has in the past