Why White Collar Job Outsourcing Will Transform America's Suburbs
While there's no consensus on the precise number of white-collar jobs American companies will outsource to India in the coming years, it seems increasingly clear that millions of middle class jobs -- from programmers and back-office technicians to Wall Street analysts and architects -- will soon find their way from U.S. office parks to the cubicles of Bangalore and Mumbai.
And while we swap stories about out-of-work programmers, one thing is clear: no one is preparing for the most important challenge -- ensuring that America's suburbs are ready for the inevitable and painful transition.
Why America's suburbs? In short, because America's high tech suburbs -- where millions of "information economy" jobs have been created in the past few decades -- are most at risk. In Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County, unemployment is still above the national average. In suburban Denver, Colorado, telecom companies have shed thousands of jobs. Cutting edge places like suburban northern Virginia, Route 128, outside of Boston, and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina should all be worried.
So will these leafy suburbs and corporate campuses turn into 21 st century versions of decaying Flint, Michigan? It's too soon to tell, but as America's older cities know well, it's hard to dodge the bullet of inexorable economic change.
In the 1960s and 1970s, as the first wave of manufacturing jobs left the U.S. for China and other low-cost locations, hundreds of thousands of American factory workers received pink slips. While factory workers were hard hit by these wrenching changes in the economy, it was America's manufacturing cities -- like New York, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia -- that really hit the skids. Workers could leave for greener pastures and other jobs, but cities could only do their best to staunch the bleeding. The loss of these jobs sent many cities into tailspins from which they are only now -- 30 years later -- beginning to recover.
If America's suburbs take a lesson from the recent experiences of its cities, however, they just might have a chance. First, start planning now for slower growth. While they might eventually be replaced, those jobs won't be coming back. Second, compete for new high-value industries like nanotechnology and biotech. Third, encourage the development of arts and cultural amenities that might persuade existing residents to stay put.
With some luck, America's suburbs will weather this global economic storm. And if not, well--suburban Bangalore is supposed to be very nice.
Seth Brown is publisher of The Next American City, a quarterly magazine about the ongoing transformation of America's communities. Excerpts of The Next American City's current issue -- looking at competition between cities -- are available on the web at www.americancity.org.
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Oooo, I like that !
The potential that Regionalism development patterns have for structural steel and masonry may be double that of current standards.
Mid-rise, 5-8 story buildings in the low-hundred housing capacity are resource efficient, more than taller, high rise apartments.
Regionalism prescribes numerous 'Centers' and 'Towns', that will not exceed mid-rise construction needs, mostly.
Thus, Small Town urban development, restoration-type preservations and Rebuilds, Refits, etc, is a pattern that should be experimented with.
City Name here:____________ may build an excellent downtown over the coming years, hopefully. Ugly parking lot now, mostly. Promiscious, farty traffic. Light rail or Trolley from 'Center' to 'Town South', anyone?
What's the point?
Mr. Brown's op-ed is completely pointless. First of all, he's talking about a problem that we don't exists. Second, and perhaps most important, he doesn't present any real solutions for: verifying the existence of the problem or dealing with the problem.
Sprawl
A rationale for suburbs to work with cities on regionalism.
MAR's
This potential plight of the suburbs will not find solution without a diversification of their economies. New fields of bio- and nano-technologies are not much different from the old fields.
Our basic economic models must change, become more adaptable, more flexible to change.
Economic diversification at the local/regional levels must supplant the globalization model.
Economies that are overly-dependent upon long-distance travel are too vulnerable, too expensive, have high impacts and are socially alienating.
The Next American City will embrace Regionalism, or as some call this philosophy, "Metropolitan Area Regionalism". This philosophy is the most dynamic and practical, and has already left the starting gate.
Slower Growth
Hi Seth. It's nice to see your work on PLANetizen. Nice commentary, I would just make a related point about the reference to slower growth. It seems cities/suburbs have a difficult time doing this. Local governments typically compete for jobs, industry, and tax base and are rarely happy to plan for stagnation or decline. This is because these conditions are usually associated with lower tax base, hence, cuts in their programs. This is not something local politicians (or any other) do well.
Take care,
Chris Fiscelli
Outsourcing
Greetings: I witnessed the changes wrought by the de-industrialization of the late 1970's in northeast Ohio. I had finished up graduate school and left soon after for Washington, DC. Much of the northeast Ohio region has not really recovered and the material well-being of communities has been badly impacted. Essentially, there is not the level of income that had been available to the industrial workers in the steel mills and associated industries. The green-leafy suburbs and their housing stock, presumably owned by professionals or business owners, still maintain their sense of material well-being, but the working class neighborhoods and communities have an appearance of struggling. Your comments about the "nerdistans" around some cities and the risks they face would suggest that these communities should spend some time visiting other parts of the nation that have been bypassed by economic forces so that they can learn some survival strategies. I travel all over the country for work so I do have the opportunity to observe communities and I am sensitive to the impression of well-being.
Globalization without "fair-trading" rules is not necessarily a positive trendline. The owners of capital and certain favored intellectual and real property will advance in income and wealth, but my sense is that much of the American working population will have to get ready for cheap imports, low wages, and poorly maintained communities and their physical and social infrastructure. Economists and the business analysists are only looking at aggregate numbers and they do not understand the realities of working people and how they live.