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11 March, 2009

If you're from Michigan, read it twice.

That's not to say that every factory town is locked into decline. You need only look at the geographic pattern of December’s Senate vote on the auto bailout to realize that some places, mostly in the South, would benefit directly from the bankruptcy of GM or Chrysler and the closure of auto plants in the Rust Belt. Georgetown, Kentucky; Smyrna, Tennessee; Canton, Mississippi: these are a few of the many small cities, stretching from South Carolina and Georgia all the way to Texas, that have benefited from the establishment, over the years, of plants that manufacture foreign cars. Those benefits could grow if the Big Three were to become, say, the Big Two.

-Richard Florida

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