  Pollybergen Member Username: Pollybergen Post Number: 42 Registered: 12-2006 |
http://www.metropolismag.com/c da/story.php?artid=3199 Over the past decade many city leaders have gravitated toward what might be called an arts-and-culture-led strategy. Even though most cities—including ballyhooed places such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Boston—have achieved mediocre (or even negative) job growth and continue to lose middle-class families, they’ve celebrated revivals of their urban cores based on the migration of largely affluent “hip” residents. I like this article, but I think most on this forum will be thinking "well duh" like I did. And what strikes me as odd is that there is no mention of the right-to-work status of the states and cities it is championing. I doubt there is a secret agenda, but more a lack of careful reporting. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2963 Registered: 04-2006 |
Seems like quite a leap of logic to me. | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 1556 Registered: 12-2005 |
Far from being "quite a leap of logic", a quick reading will show that the positive examples cited are all cities that are located in right-to-work states, while the negative examples are not. From the article: If cities like Detroit—which has tried to revive itself with the usual mishmash of casinos, sports stadiums, and convention complexes—represent the victims of a failed manufacturing economy, Dubuque proves that industry is not incompatible with urbanity. Indeed, some of the strongest downtown recoveries are taking place in cities experiencing strong blue-collar growth: Charleston, South Carolina; Houston; Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The article offers this two-pronged strategy as a model for success, saying that Dubuque, Iowa.... ....traces the recovery to municipal government’s emphasis on workforce education, particularly in technical skills, and its willingness to build needed infrastructure for local businesses. Rather than target 20-something “cultural creatives,” Dubuque’s recruitment efforts are aimed at skilled workers who left for opportunities elsewhere but could be persuaded to return home. Typically, the higher the education level of a workplace, the less inclined they are to want to have to belong to a union in order to work there. I think Pollybergen makes a very astute observation and I too have to wonder why the article makes no reference to the possibility of a correlation. | ||
Pollybergen Member Username: Pollybergen Post Number: 44 Registered: 12-2006 |
I've posted a comment to the article online, waiting for the "editorial approval" which basically states as much. My guess is that if a second part of this article was pursued, and tradesmen and women from these states were interviewed regarding the quantity vs. quality of their jobs, a more complex picture of this situation would arise. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2965 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote: No, still quite a leap of logic. If the article's author were to say that the decline of American manufacturing has led to the erosion of some metropolitan economies then I'd be inclined to agree. That would be a pretty obvious point to anyone familiar with Detroit. Except, that isn't the point that the author is attempting to make. Instead, the author is pointing to manufacturing as the missing component for the reversal of urban decay. If this were true then Detroit's revival should have been on par with that of most other major cities during the 1990s. | ||
Pollybergen Member Username: Pollybergen Post Number: 45 Registered: 12-2006 |
Well, to be fair, the article opens stating that instead of keeping the focus on manufacturing, cities opted to champion an "arts-and-culture lead strategy". That, coupled with the federal govt's push away from manufacturing to a service-sector based economy helped to lead us to where we are today. This article is kind of stating the obvious (to me, anyway. My grandfather took care of a family of 7 working for GM through the early 80s), but what it is missing are the intricacies behind quality jobs. vs. quantity. | ||
Pollybergen Member Username: Pollybergen Post Number: 46 Registered: 12-2006 |
And what is also odd to me is that this article is in an arts-and-culture magazine. It makes sense to be to attract all manners of economy to a city in order to rebuild and repopulate. I've read so much of the same sentiment on this board! The article is wholly criticizing that strategy instead of proposing an amendment. | ||
Melocoton Member Username: Melocoton Post Number: 20 Registered: 01-2008 |
There are at least a couple of logical fallacies in Mikeg's argument, such as the inference of causation (so-called "right to work" legislation creates permanent, well-paying jobs) from correlation (according to this article's chosen examples, job growth has occurred in small cities and towns in rural states that have right-to-work laws). Even if you think right to work is a good idea, which I don't, you still have to show that there's a link here. The other one is the unproveable claim that "typically, the higher the education level of a workplace, the less inclined they are to want to have to belong to a union in order to work there." This sounds like nothing more than the stereotype that gearhead blue-collar workers are less intelligent than white-collar workers. | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 1558 Registered: 12-2005 |
Before accusing me of making fallacious arguments, note that I did not make any such claim about cause-effect, I stated that it was surprising that the article makes no reference to the possibility of a correlation (which can be either positive or negative). Note also that I made no such statement regarding the intelligence of workers. Your sloppy thinking is evident by your equating of education level with intelligence. | ||
Melocoton Member Username: Melocoton Post Number: 21 Registered: 01-2008 |
I wasn't trying to make a personal accusation, Mikeg, just a criticism of what I thought you were saying. I did think you were implying a cause-effect relationship between right-to-work and job growth. If you were not, then never mind. Also, you make a good point re: my (unintentional) equation of education level with intelligence. However, in my experience higher education doesn't _necessarily_ make you anti-union, either, and I don't think you can prove otherwise. Unions have a lot of membership in places like service industries, clerical workers, university employees, teachers, and the like. |
