BLOGS

DC Velocity columnists, Art van Bodegraven and Kenneth B. Ackerman, call Flint, Michigan "the poster child for communities in economic death throes." Flint has been dying for 25 years, they say, and the eventual cause of death will be Flint's irrelevance to the global and domestic automotive supply chains, and General Motors' supply chain, for that matter. Of course, Flint is not the only community suffering the devastating effects of manufacturing plant and distribution center closings. Which communities survive, they argue, depends largely on geographic proximity to a "natural distribution-centric location," like Atlanta or Memphis, because "lost jobs aren't going to magically reappear when things get better, and they won't come back based on pronouncements from politicians." Bodegraven and Ackerman believe it is time to "cowboy up," and stop throwing taxpayer dollars at communities and businesses that are "irrelevant to new economic realities." DC Velocity (2/8)

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