A Company Town's Bid To Reinvent Itself

"For much of the past century, residents considered Rochester an oasis from economic hardship, if not from the wintry winds of Lake Ontario. Two big employers -- Eastman Kodak and Xerox -- provided a steady stream of manufacturing, research, and management jobs... 'What's happening here is happening nationwide,' says Kent Gardner, an economic analyst at the Center for Governmental Research, a nonprofit public-policy think tank in Rochester. He's referring not just to the problem of lost manufacturing jobs -- 2.7 million nationally in the past three years - but also to the transition to a more diversified and service-oriented economy."

Thanks to Chris Steins