For Cities, Industrial Land Matters

In a recent blog post, Tarry Hum, a professor of urban studies at Queens College, profiled the failure of the De Blasio Administration to preserve prime industrial spaces in the outer boroughs of New York City. In particular, she noted the failure of the city's industrial zoning regulations to limit industrial conversion to non-industrial uses. While we often assume the combination of mass deindustrialization and high land costs preclude industrial employment, many major cities and metro areas remain centers of industrial production. Further, as Dr. Hum points out in her blog post, manufacturing remains one of the key pathways for poorer immigrant communities to claim a spot in many urban economies. 

But until recently the question of industrial land provision and preservation has been largely ignored by economic development researchers and professionals. Generally, both land-use and economic development planners have generally treated industrial land as drags on a city's tax rolls and near obsolete given an assumption of total domestic de-industrialization. But more critical economic development planners have started to question these assumptions.