Customer Reviews

Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism

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This books tells more about what's going on in America today than anything I've ever read. Longworth's descriptions of the economic upheaval in the Mid-West
apply just as well to other areas such as New England
where I live. Most valuable are his analysyes of the
the communities and the companies that reside in them that have learned to thrive in the new global economy -
Chicago, Ann Arbor, Peoria, Columbus (Indiana), and
Madison (Wisconsin). His comments on education are right on target - the community colleges are providing the training needed by the new workforce. This is must
reading for anyone who is concerned about the country's
prosperity.

William Saunders
Whately, MA

I found this book interesting, because I was Senior Economist and Deputy Director of Economic Analysis for the Indiana Department of Commerce in the 1980's for the Administration of Governor Robert Orr. During those years I was also co-chair for the Economic Development Task Force of the Great Lakes Commission, an interstate compact with a charter from the U.S. Congress like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

One of Longworth's theses is that the Midwest manufacturing region must be treated as a whole region, and that the individual States cannot address the economic adjustment to globalization in isolation from one another. I can agree that States stealing employers from one another cannot make the needed economic adjustments imposed by globalization; this is merely a zero-sum game for the region, and is not a remedy. While with the Great Lakes Commission I found that the Economic Development Task Force benefited its participants to the extent that we shared our research findings. But the Commission could take no action on economic development.

Contrary to Longworth I found that effective action is possible with the State governments, and that the best instrument for the State government action is the fiscal budget's public investment sectors. The Indiana's budget is about nine percent of its gross state product, and about half of the total budget is public investments: i.e. higher education, primary and secondary education, highways, airports, and water ports. These public investments facilitate development of the State economy's tax base and thus yield increases in tax collections independently of tax rates.

In 1986 I made an econometric model which exhibited an employment-maximizing allocation of public expenditures for Indiana's budget, and found that the optimal allocation implied very large increases to Indiana's primary and secondary education. These findings supported Governor Orr's "A+" legislative agenda for a $300 million increase in primary and secondary spending, which was enacted.

Longworth advocates improved primary and secondary education in Chapter Ten of his book. And former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan also advocates improved education in Chapter Twenty-One of his recent book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.

Global is to ghetto as education is to unemployment, because education is the means for supplying the needed enhancements of human capital that turns globalization into opportunity instead of unemployment due to a ghetto economy.

On balance I think that this book written by a journalist is well researched in many respects and is informative about Midwest economic history.

Caught in the Middle is how I felt in reading Richard Longworth's book on the economic future of the American Heartland, so in that sense I believe that Longworth has succeeded. But, it would have been more satisfying, and ultimately more helpful if the strengths and weaknessness of the book had been reversed. Longworth starts out with a great analysis of how the Midwest did not change when the world changed around it, resulting in the collaspe of the economic stability of the region. However, half way through the book, Longworth changes gears and starts preaching the gospel of immigration. This is his solution for cities large and small in the Midwest. If this has been one chapter, then perhaps I wouldn't have had such a negative reaction, but it is in nearly every chapter and endless. Further, it shows a disconnect with the first part of book. The problem is that he shows convincingly in the beginning that factories have left many a Midwestern town. The success stories, the reinvention of smaller towns that he points to are where factories still exist, but have had an influx of immigrant workers providing vital energy and resources to a community. Fair enough. But, you need the factories still standing for that paradigm to work.

While the book is depressing for someone like me (I live in the Mid-West), the author does connect with the vital realities of the area. He is right in assuming that the mid-west might change more than any other section of the country and that the point of it all is that we need to stop fighting the future (i.e. globalization, etc.) and begin accepting it along with everything that is frightening about it. I think that a lot of countries are far ahead of the U.S. in this aspect of living. The book os worth while for anyone who cares about tomorrow.

The Midwest - particularly the rural Midwest has provided a significant part of the historical underpinnings of the US and the US Economy. However, because local, regional and state governments can't get their acts together to cooperate, we sink into the morass of unemployment, unmet expectation and decline. Mr. Longworth makes a great case for working together, like other parts of the US. However, knowing the political leaders in this area, hope will only spring eternal and love will remain unrequited.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
By Richard C. Longworth
Reviewed by A. J. Goldsmith
What parts of our Middle West are ready for the challenges of globalization? What parts aren't?
Veteran reporter Richard C. Longworth drove more than 11,000 miles throughout the Midwestern states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri and Ohio.
The result of his journey is a must- read book for our elected and wannabe-public officials, for university and college leaders and for the rest of us, Midwesterners who are "Caught in the Middle."
The subtitle is "America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism."
In every one of its 14 chapters, Longworth, a retired, award-winning, global correspondent for The Chicago Tribune, slays the dragons that are close to every heart in Middle America and sets out the challenges now facing us.
"By nature, Midwesterners can be aloof and uncommunicative that nature is hurting them now," the author a native of Boone, Iowa, says.
He finds that much of the region is in denial when it comes to coping with the present.
Longworth spares no feelings as he lays out what is not being done in Middle America to meet global competition, what is being ignored in this 21st century battle for economic survival and what can be accomplished if state boundaries are ignored, if universities limit competition to athletics broadening cooperation in many other areas and if truly, comprehensive planning is begun.
Longworth says: "The Midwest does two things for a living--farming and heavy industry--and globalization has turned both upside down."
The author found dying farm towns and crumbling old factory towns. Forget them, he says. Don't throw money at them. Let them go. There is a new economy to prepare for.
He spares no sympathy for Detroit and Cleveland, just two of several cities that have withered. He totally writes off many other towns that have seen their manufacturing jobs move first to southern states, then to Mexico and now to China. White collar jobs have moved to India and even to Dominican Republic.
Ann Arbor with the University of Michigan's brainpower is the new center for the auto industry, leaving Detroit far behind. Longworth says that Gary, Indiana, is a "slum" where 10 workers produce as much steel as 100 workers did 25 years ago.
"Indiana people seem to be content to be mediocre people living in mediocre cities," Longworth charges.
Dying also are Indiana's auto-industry-dependent cities of Muncie, Anderson, Kokomo and Marion.
And then there is Warsaw, Indiana, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the production of orthopedics is centered. High school students in Warsaw learn skills that will aid them in the production of orthopedics.
Not always negative, Longworth points to Greenville, Michigan, where 2,781 jobs were lost when Electrolux joined other companies that left earlier. Greenville only had 8,000 people. Now the first of six solar-panel plants is under construction and all are expected to be on line by 2010.
"Hundreds of rural farms are doomed. Small farms sell out when the factory jobs leave. Mega farms take their place."
Education is one key to meeting the globalization menace. Factory workers made good money and didn't value education for their children. Some can be retrained; many are too old.
Longworth writes that rural whites and urban blacks are globilization's losers; they are a new underclass.
"The new golden era is open to anyone with education, skills, imagination and creativity."
A high school education is minimal, but too much of high school is wasted especially the senior year. Why not let high school students take college courses that prepare them for the global world?
Community colleges must play a more important role in educating young people for the global world, retraining laid off workers and, importantly, teaching immigrants without whom, Longworth believes, our economy cannot function. The author cites, as examples, the small meatpacking towns in Iowa.
"The Midwest needs all the immigrants it can get. This is true of the more educated Asians and Africans and even more true of the uneducated Latinos."
Major universities must emphasize research and forget about educating undergraduates leaving that task for the smaller colleges and community colleges.
"Thirty percent of new jobs require a college or community college degree."
To my chagrin, Longworth fails to mention the amazing research that is being conducted by my alma mater, Purdue University, in a number of a different areas.
Longworth writes that the top schools need to wean themselves from state support replacing it with corporate and foundation dollars. They need to stop competing in areas where they are not truly competent and stress those areas in which they have the most expertise. They should talk to one another and do what is best for the Midwest in a global environment.
State boundaries are artificial, many decreed by the 1787 Northwest Ordinance or set after the Louisiana Purchase. The boundaries make no sense today in a globalized world.
He cites the European Union that today has blended Europe's states with a single currency and now allows unencumbered border crossings by EU residents.
The historical tensions between rural and urban interests in a state - so well-known to the Chicago metropolitan area- need to go in a time of globalization if there is to be survival. Chicago has more in common with Milwaukee than it does with such Illinois cities as Vandalia, Danville or Rock Island. Legislators seeking to balance interests within a state are doomed to failure and will never be able to meet globalization's challenge. It is better that elected officials look beyond their borders to solve interstate solutions to such mutual problems as rapid mass transit and acquiring global businesses.
There is little reason for each state in the Midwest to have individual offices seeking business in China. It would be much better if they pooled their efforts on behalf of the entire area.
As America looks forward to a 2009 presidential election, Longworth comments on the political mindset.
"In all Midwestern states like Iowa and Wisconsin, post election maps showed vast seas of rural red surrounding a few blue islands Chicago, Milwaukee, Iowa City, Cleveland and other big cities and college towns."
"The farther away an American lives from a city, the more likely he or she is to vote republican."
"Caught in the Middle" may be redundant at times, but that is because Longworth met similar problems and attitudes in the areas he visited and mindsets that were distressingly similar.
I thought that Longworth could have spent a little more time in Wisconsin. Maybe it was too cold?
Caught in the Middle. Published by Bloomsbury, USA. 2008
1058 words

"Caught in the Middle" by Richard Longworth is a trenchant analysis of the Midwest in the age of globalisation. Throughout the book, Mr Longworth takes great pains to show how most of the midwest has not thrived and how the policies of the past are not the policies of the 21st century.

The line walked is very fine, and every corner, every sacred cow, gets its good and bad points exposed. From unions that brought us weekends and living wages to unions that resisted change and eventually cost jobs; to global commerce that builds up Chicago and Madison but crushes Detroit and Cleveland; to immigration saving towns that embrace it and killing towns that do not. Nothing escapes scrutiny.

At the end of the day, Mr Longworth keeps coming back to a similar theme; the boot strap, by yourself, anti education, anti immigration, it worked in the past it will work in the future attitude is killing large portions of the midwest. Again and again he shows how the policies of the past; depending on companies supporting towns, tax breaks for manufacturing, anti education and anti immigration and an inability to work together; are not the policies that will lead this region to the promised land.

He does offer a few ideas that could help the region. The biggest is simply getting the region to work as one area. This will not be easy, but if they can stop competing with each other and instead compete with the world, they would all benefit. Additionally he shows how immigration; both white collar and blue collar, does save the region. Finally he talks about how the region is wasting its huge university system and how the anti education/anti science policies are driving their best and brightest to the coasts. Addressing these problems may not completely turn the region around, but they would be a huge step in the right direction.

There is a lot of pride in the midwest present throughout this book. Mr Longworth is from there and he loves his home. This is his wakeup call; there is nothing new is this book however its one of the first times it has been presented so completely and so well. A highly enjoyable read.

Longworth's book is a good mid-term analysis of the present economic problems the Midwestern industrial/manufacturing base has suffered and continues to suffer. While the book is not timely enough to capture 2009's automotive meltdown, Longworth sufficiently discusses the cluster of problems the Midwest economy faces. He gives a good historic perspective on the resources, culture and locational advantages that gave rise to the Midwestern manufacturing prowess in the 20th century. By looking at several specific cities and talking to academic, political and economic development observers at the grassroots, Longworth gives his reader a good feel for the local assessment and the local capacity to react. His suggestions for more education and a higher level of regional cooperation seem spot on, but only time will tell if the regional leaders can wittingly or unwittingly adapt.

Good reading from a different few of the midwest economy. Having just completed a class in economics for college could see much of the truth in the points presented here.

"Caught in the Middle" is a fascinating look at what is happening to the Midwest's economy. It is both scary, and at the same time, hopeful. Richard Longworth offers a research based analysis of the attitudes and practices that are keeping the Midwest from becoming a leader in the global economy. The book is brutally honest in its assessment of what will happen to individuals and communities that do not become risktakers and acquire the education necessary for highly skilled professions. If midwestern states will cooperate and if the major research universities work together, there is hope.