Why government agencies should move from DC to the Midwest
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- Midwestern cities need jobs. DC is too crowded. A simple solution.
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Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other former industrial powerhouses in the Midwest are struggling. The industries that have supported those cities have gone away, leaving them overbuilt and underpopulated. Meanwhile, coastal cities like New York and Washington, DC are overcrowded and absurdly expensive. So, why not relocate some well-paying federal jobs from the capitol area to the Midwest? Vox's Matt Yglesias explains how such a plan might work.
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"The CDC...is not really part of national politics."
That aged well.
I mean, to be fair, had this been any other presidency, the CDC wouldn't have been politicized (or at least not to the degree that it is). The CDC being political during this crisis is 100% Trump's fault.
It's not.
45 made it political because he's a fraud and doesn't know what he's doing.
Mr. Political took a pandemic virus out of the hands of the Center of Disease Control therefore politicizing a virus. Go figure.
@@mbbno CDC members recently announced they want racism to be declared a public health crisis.
So...no. that's not all on the president. Clearly they have an agenda
Sabih Shahid is rasism now a political issue? Says alot
‘The center for disease control really dosent have a lot to do with politics’........ahahahaha AHAHAHAHAH
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... so funny
I was about to post that myself. lol Jul 2017...
It shouldn't and it's scary that it does.
Yeah thats terrifying💀💀
Generally speaking it isn't.
France has done something like this, they decentralised their government services from Paris around to more peripheral regions with smaller cities. As a result population in those regions has increased. This works :)
Niall Cheetham I guess cause France is much smaller than America. In France you don't have problems with driving or taking a train to a near-by town/city. In America the cities mentioned are much further apart.
Good! I saw another comment down here saying Canada did the same thing too.
Canada decentralized, and it is big.
I live in France, it makes the people a lot happier too. It also literally forces the government to be apart of the community so better schools, parks, and roads.
Niall Cheetham But has the economy been helped, population has nothing to do with this argument he just went off topic.
It's a wonderful, reasonable, and thought out idea. So of course it will never happen in this country.
кคקק๏гtєг
It could happen, unless apathetic people like you start actually doing something.
кคקק๏гtєг "Be the change you want to see in the world" I suggest you take that quote to heart
Ike Okereke it’s a terrible idea. I live in northern virginia the whole middle class here survives on those jobs if they move out of the city dc and any surrounding area would be crippled
It does seem to be a very non partisan idea. Both parties want to bring jobs to swing states like Ohio and Michigan.
кคקק๏гtєг at the end republican will say the left will drstroy america and make it communist
is there not a reason they choose to centralize these institutions in the first place?
This is like the last place I thought you would be
Blackholes Productions I must agree
Maybe back in the day where communication and postal wasn't as fast as it is now with emails and fax.
@Blackholes Productions agreed
I’d assume it was for ease of communication, but with contemporary technology that shouldn’t be an issue.
Not a bad idea. The Midwest is full of charming little mid century neighborhoods that should be taken advantage of before they crumble further.
@Zachary Williams the second that’s not a very kind thing to say, now, is it?
@@davidreed9849 But a very necessary problem to be solved nonetheless, for the better interests of everyone.
It is sorta a bad idea Northern Virginia and I assume as well Southern Maryland relies on these jobs and are so important to the area
@Zachary Williams the second Political Compass pfp, opinion discarded
@Zachary Williams the second Doesn't matter, anyone who expresses their views with a political compass hasn't got any worthwhile opinions
I live in a county near DC and we built a one million dollar bus stop that doesn't even keep the rain out xD
xD i looked it up and its an actual thing
why tf is this a thing
ahh rich DC suburbs the best
what could possibly make it 1 million dollars??!
its actually underwhelming
"the government is something that is under our control"
lol ok mr. fairytale
At least more than the private companies
We could try location-based subsidies instead, like some other countries have done. Nothing controls businesses better than money.
Watch George Carlin's comedy: "We have owners"
It should be under our control.
It would be y’all just don’t apply enough effort or pressure or pay attention enough. Most people only vote for the president ignoring all other elected officials that work for us
Vox: "The CDC is not political"
Trump: *hold my 12 diet cokes*
and my 73 KFC buckets
i somehow this this is gonna gt political
Says more about Trump than the CDC.
Whom are you kidding with the Diet Coke!?
"The CDC gets politicized during a pandemic"
It's always sunny in America.
i don't know why I'm watching this, i live in Australia ;l
Well Baranby Joyce caught alot of flak for moving a government agency to Armidale. So it's exactly foreign to us and given our housing prices, could be relevant to us.
Canada here loll
Well, good ideas have no border don't they? :p
I live in Australia as well! But we can still learn from this for our own benefit
One of many countries where this exact thing has been proven to be a costly failure. The end result, a massive increase in salaries, most of the employees quitting and a much less effective deparment as a result. It's almost as if any research at all into "hey, I wonder if this has been done before", would have immediately revealed that this doesn't work nearly as well in practice as it does in theory. But then there wouldn't be a video to make....
It be like that sometimes
It's like moving the National Parks Service from Chicago to Pawnee, Indiana...
Pietro Di Meglio yeah, Jerry (later Larry, Terry, and then Barry) Gergich is mayor there
Pietro Di Meglio yep, it's "First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity"
I support this
Matthew Jordan It'll also make Fallout 3 complete fantasy instead of partial fantasy.
No
what about the city of england
England, Arkansas? It's too small, the cost of developing the necessary infrastructure there would be enormous. The point of the video was to move agencies to large cities that already have the infrastructure in place, but aren't fully utilizing it anymore because of population decline.
YoloSwag420 boo
Simon MacLean "England is my city"
+Simon MacLean
Before you laugh too hard, consider that there probably IS a "city of England," somewhere. Or "town of England," at any rate.
YoloSwag420 pointed out the city of england, Arkansas
I love Chicago but it’s said to see hundreds of people leave, we went from 3,600,000 people to 2,800,000
to the suburbs mostly
Yeah no one wants to live in liberal cities
Well if you'd stop blindly voting for profoundly corrupt Democrats you might have a city that people actually want to live in!
John Scanlan if you think this comes down to voting you need a reality check. The system is corrupt it doesnt matter who you put in there. It doesnt work, history has only proved this.
@@TheOneThatFuchs While I have no fantasies that a Republican mayor in Chicago for the first time since 1931 would instantly correct the city's outrageous problems, it would stop making things worse on a daily basis!
To be fair, while the CITY of Cincinnati may have shrunk, the METRO AREA of Cincinnati has been growing alongside the National growth average.
This is a point a lot of people seem to forget. For example, in Detroit the population dropped by 1.1 million from 1950, but the metro area gained 1 million and the region gained 1.5 million.
Where are these public institutions likely to go: the suburbs of place like Detroit which are doing fine, or the downtown centers that need rejuvenation?
I live in Cincinnati - well, north of 275 to be exact, but I will say this video paints the situation worse than it actually is... We still have over 2 million people in our metro area, and the areas south of the city in KY and north of the city to Dayton are expanding at a rapid rate. In fact, one recent study showed that in about 20 years, they estimate mostly dense population between Dayton and Cincinnati, which could even redefine the metro area to include Dayton. The current combined statistical area, or CSA, does include Dayton - and actually accounts for almost 4 million people. I see 'city' population numbers being spread around, but these numbers are false and do not represent actual 'city' populations. A better factor is the Metro area, but the best is the CSA - since that includes all residents living in an area who still rely on the city in question.
Generally speaking, 'city proper' populations have been going down for a long time. Inner-city housing is either extremely expensive or in a really bad neighborhood. For most people, the suburbs are a better option for them - less expensive, less stressful, more room to build, etc.
That's the case with 95+% of cities. What constitutes as a city can vary depending on who you ask. IMO a metropolitan area is more accurate that a city when talking about the political and economic impacts that area has on itself and the rest of the country. For example, the city of Des Moines, IA has 217,000 people, but the metropolitan Combined Statistical Area has closer to 775,000 - 800,000 people and growing.
Right traffic is horrible going down there most of the day
2.4% Cincinnati Statistical Area growth 2010-2015.
2.4% would be the lowest projected 120/330 2020 census.
2.17 million is essentially declining if OH has 0.7% in the national 4.7%.
It's important to keep in mind that cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati have not lost as many people as it may seem. It looks extreme if you are only looking at the population within city limits, but much of the population has simply moved out to the suburbs. In 2020, Cleveland's MSA (metro statistical) population was 2,088,251 (34th in the nation) and their CSA (combined statistical) population was 3,633,962 (17th in the nation). Cincinnati had an MSA of 2,256,884 (24th in the nation).
That still doesn’t discount their argument. There’s a lot of open space and abandoned factories and infrastructure within the city limits of these rust belt cities
An idea for a video: something I've always wondered is how the "American accent" developed. If the original colonizers were British, how did we evolve from that? How did immigration play a role in how it developed? There may be a very simple answer and I may sound very dumb but if it's as complicated as I've made it out in my head I think that would be a vox-worthy video
Actually, more recent evidence suggests that it might have been the other way around, and "the" British accent (there are actually dozens of distinct accents and dialects all over that tiny island, somehow, but let's presume we're talking about received pronunciation, aka "the BBC accent") evolved from what we'd think of as an American one, more or less.
The British spent hundreds of years trying to sound like whoever's king or queen at the time, so the "proper English accent" used to sound much like American accents do today.
There are multiple British accents. Now imagine multiple immigrants from various countries coming here and learning to speak English. Now factor in which English accent they are initially exposed along with their own innate accent. Now imagine all these people trying to communicate with one another. Eventually children are born and they synthesize a version of it that allows them to speak with multiple groups and it becomes the regional lingua franca. Also keep in mind each immigrant brings in their own loan words, idioms, and grammatical structure. If you ever get a chance look at a map that shows where the majority of each immigrant group settled and it will give you an even clearer picture. Linguists after study learned that African American Vernacular English has a structure more akin to West African grammatical structures with the differences being pronunciations and vocabulary. The reason it persisted is due to social isolation. Children during this time period wouldn't have been allowed to go to school so they would not integrate the speaking habits of their non-Black peers. Basically you learn to sound like the people who interact with you. Most Owners just wanted Slaves for labor or certain other activities so their was no interest in teaching anything more than basic comprehension of the language. Groups that are isolated voluntarily or involuntarily retain their accents and speech patterns much longer because they are not interacting with others. The various accent groups around America were created by this immigration and gained a distinct flavor based off their level of isolation. I hope that helped.
Alex Lavin acualty they accent and dialect evolved from us they changed we didnt accept boston no rodic tone their but technically we still have that original british accent i mean we changed a bit not as drastically as the british but our is a lot closer to 18 century and before british dialect then what modern day england has
Australia is like the dirty South to the British accent
I lived in Detroit all my life and you learn a lot, I never knew our city was thought to be so "bad" until I got into high school and went out of town, its a great city with great people, homes are cheaper and it's easier to excel for those who try , so don't knock a city you haven't been to cause surprised you will be
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go to Detroit.
Detroit is not bad it's just divided. All the wealth is in the suburbs.
@@auntmelisa8689 It isn't all that bad
The lazy city employees still hand out gutter tickets to cars from the suburbs and if you have a heart attack the half hour response time of EMS means you're dead.
Aunt Melisa it’s a million dollars come on you could hire security with that money lol
I am an indian, but I actually love the Midwest area of the US. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, all beautiful cities. And hearing that their population is declining is sad. They were the main contributers to the American industry and they deserve something better.
They are poorly managed by the same people who have been in power there for decades
I'm from Michigan, and I was just having this same discussion with someone. Well said.
@@Jemz35 truth. That needs to change drastically!
"The government is something we control"
That's a very bold statement
“The CDC isn’t really part of national politics.” Well that didn’t age well...
And in about two months it won't be again
@@browhat05 it Probably probably still will it’s not like as if one second when it becomes 2021 all of our problems go away like some kind of dream
When the sea levels rise, we won't have a choice...
UndoRedo Nincompoop...
hes right though...
UndoRedo Just hire the Dutch, then it can be postponed by at least a century.
ok? what's your point
lets ignore the fact they won't
goddamn how the hell do you even edit your videos man?! simply amazing. best edited videos on UA-cam.
kushagra gupta not trying to be mean or anything but this is a substantial news-ish organization. I imagine it's not terribly difficult to find decent editors.
kushagra gupta Yeah Vox is a entire news organization. They have teams of editors who do nothing but edit videos and stuff.
He's still right, though. Vox has had excellent editing of each and every one of their videos for years.
Peter Ilisituk They do have excellently edited videos.
Best editing on UA-cam is by far Captain Dissalusion. Check it out :)
Unless they relocate these workers and their immediate families, it's only going to make them unemployed in a very expensive area.
It must not happen overnight. You can plan the change over 15-20 years, enough people retire, can change to other agencies.
good point...
wouldnt be that difficult. military does it all the time when soldiers pcs to a different base.
Boonies Bound but those people signed away their rights and have no choice.
I'm just saying it wouldn't be difficult as there is already a system like they would need to set it up. a lot of the agencies that are stuck in the dc area require their employees to move to that area anyways so why not just have them move to a more central location in the u.s rather than just one city. idk but I'm pretty sure a lot of gov employees are under some sort of contract though it doesn't require a relocation once the job it attained most will relocated to get said job. in which case one would think it would be financially smart to have these jobs in areas with lower than average economic situations where rent and other things are cheaper and having more people come could help grow the cities. I'm no expert though..
It's easier said than done. This would mean uprooting tens of thousands of civilian employees that would want to keep their job.
Also, you would have to devise a plan as to which specific agencies go to these areas that have regressed and how they fit in with those cities' economic plans
Everything is always easier said than done. Does that mean it is impossible, or that we shouldn't try? Those are problems that can be solved if they put the work in it. And it's not like corporate company HQs haven't relocated successfully. It's been done before, and can be done again
Phanez The Finesse we didn't go to the moon with this attitude
Shooting some people in outer space is a whole lot easier than moving bureaucrats.
Actually, from countries that tried it, they want to quit more than they want to keep their job and move. So you end up with departments paying huge incentives for people to move, and still 90% of them quit rather than move away from friends and their partners employer etc. Basically, it's cheaper to build infrastructure where people want to live. That's why those 'private companies' are moving to those expensive areas. Despite all the additional costs, it's still easier to attract talent. Now if you were to split departments so that new jobs could be in regions / remote, while retaining existing jobs, that might work, provided the jobs don't require in-person collaboration.
South Korea is moving a lot of its government to Sejong City. That's a modern democracy building a secondary capital from scratch. It makes moving a govt agency to Cleveland (already has streets, houses, offices, culture) look downright simple.
I live in DC and I love that all of the agencies are here. It makes DC feel like the center and crown of the country compared to NYC, LA, Chicago...
Lol
We should take the White House and push it somewhere else...
Like into the ocean.
Benaiah Uchiha-Senju for now I think it fits nicely in st Petersburg
Belligerent Theo next election, maybe
Any counter arguments? I want to know why it has not happened yet. (I'm not murican)
Jari Parial Great Comment. I feel like sometimes Vox just kinda slaps their viewpoint in viewer's faces, dumping their arguments out but not presenting a good counter-argument as to why it has not happened . They should think about adding that in.
they'll probably defend it with something "GOOD OL' PATRIOTISM!!!" (I'm murican)
(I am not murican either) Do you think all those people who allready live and work in DC would be happy to just move out to another city just like that?
I imagine many government employees don't want to move to Detroit, and so are against it.
One reason it has not happened yet(not a counter argument though:( ) is probably cost. The government doesn't see a real need for this unnecessary move that would cost a lot and pile up more trouble for them to handle when they have already quite a lot on their hands. (That's just what I think I'm not Murican too.)
Sounds interesting but would have been better if you said possible negatives to it, as well as the challenges.
Yeah, I feel like Vox videos are lacking different angles to a subject.
I dont think the intention on the video was to be a proposal, just an idea. Altho i am bias and would love if DC was less populated, maybe my rent would go down and i could actually park somewhere. ; ___ ;
You know, I haven't heard anyone in the Democratic Primaries suggest moving our agencies across the country. Except Yang.
America's government is already doing this, but on a limited scale. I am a veteran, but now work as a US Army contractor and reservist. Army Materiel Command moved from DC to Huntsville, Alabama a few years ago. US Army Cyber Command is going to be located at Fort Gordon (Augusta, Georgia).
Idea is great, but will take time and money to properly plan, relocate and resume operations (hopefully with some people who chose to move with agency).
doesn't seem like a bad ide but it needs a lot of investments and that's something I don't see happening in the near future .
ExMythos Don't think that would/should happen. The state of Maryland and Virginia have special interests in this. If jobs were to move from this area (Washington Metropolitan Area) that would devastate the economy of Virginia and Maryland. And they would put up a huge fight and would probably end up winning. Vox, go talk about taking someone else's job away...
ExMythos Now if it was something about the military. They wouldn't hesitate on the investment.
Bupkis But it's not taking away jobs, it's moving jobs. I'm sure Detroit would appreciate those jobs. And cheaper rent and less crowded public transportation in DC? It seems like common people in Maryland and Virginia would be on board with that. Win-win.
What a shame too, considering basically the only good thing Trump promised was infrastructure investments and now that's clearly off the table.
Daian Moi Many people would gain jobs from this but a lot will lose them too . It's a high risk that politicians don't like to take
This won't screw over DC you're right about that. Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware would see the hit of doing this though. You're forgetting most workers in DC live in the surrounding areas.
@Angel S Yeah, but if we had to keep everyone's job stable, then we could never do anything ever because the jobs that support it. And if you had a system to handle unemployment and healthcare for the unemployed, this move could be relatively painless. They could find a new job eventually or move to these areas on subsidised rates, perhaps.(Given that the government benefits from their employment, a subsidy for moving is really quite cheap)
Any and all change will change the balance of jobs. Heck doing nothing will change the balance of jobs. These midwestern cities are already declining. How about their jobs? Are their jobs less important than D.C jobs? How do we compare 400,000 jobs lost in Detroit to 400,000 jobs lost in D.C? If you manage it well (which it is not) there is less to fear for the local man. The DC has other attractions for Virginia, et al. Its all a balancing scale.
Almost all the FEDERAL WORKERS live Outside of the city. THE COLONY OF D.C. Does not get much of the federal mony and STILL has no congressman!!!
@Vinh Vo The vast majority of DC residents don't have government jobs. There are quite a few major companies that are based here and quite a few industries present here that have nothing to do with government.
Your argument about declining city populations misses the true picture. City populations decreased while metropolitan area populations have increased (only Cleveland saw a slight population decrease out of the cities you mentioned). It's why comparing cities by population is often misleading. That being said, I do support this idea with certain agencies.
Andy Ray true. But if you look at my city Milwaukee, our metro area like Cleveland and Detroit is not growing fast like coastal cities
ah, white flight to the suburbs. but yeah this comment looks correct
Yes, but it has still lost total population. You can't argue that.
cityuser Only Cleveland metro has lost population, and it was a modest decline over the past decade. Cities serve more than their city limits
I think it's more important to look at the relative growth of these metro areas compared to the rest of the country, though. Sure, they may be growing a bit, but they are losing prominence due to their inability to keep up.
"The mountains are high and the emperor is far away."
This is an amazing viewpoint. Thanks for sharing. - A guy from the Midwest who now lives on the East Coast
After traveling to Virginia and Maryland for the first time this summer, I found myself disheartened with the amount of money flowing into those places, especially when cities in the Midwest have been struggling so much. I think that it's wonderful that somebody from the coast is thinking that the Midwest is worth investing in.
Agreed, particularly considering how Ezra and Co seem to come off as caricatures of coastal elites (I still love their reporting and analysis but sometimes this aspect bothers me).
This is not investment. moving a bunch of government agencies does not grow your economy it is moving tax payers dollars to new takers.
@@MrChickennugget360 It's also increasing efficiency because there is a lower cost of living and lower supporting costs to being there
When doing the population of the Midwestern cities it would be better to use metropolitan area populations, to control for white flight to the suburbs.
OH! but that wouldn't work with their click-bait and propaganda stories! Little do people know, Detroit didn't lose population at all.
Cedric Pie, Detroit had a population of ~1 million in 1995. In 2014, that number was 680 250. Yeah, it lost a lot of population.
No it didn't, Metro Detroit has 6 million people, it lost no population.
Matthew Stidham How do you control white flight? Reinvigorate the city, how do you do that? Bring in more jobs/good city planning. Moving agencies into the cities is just a piece of the puzzle.
He means control in the statistical variable sense not actually controlling people and their behavior.
Plus if an attack or natural disaster were to hit DC the government wouldn't end up crippled since not all the agencies would be located in one place.
Martin the Paranoid Android Execpt the US Gov has a ton of contingency plans for that.
Martin the Paranoid Android as a guy who lives in maryland what natural disaster would occur we rarely rarely get earthquakes the hurricanes we get are always cat 1s we dont have drought like at all we get snow but blizzards are more rare we are in the perfect area for this
*+Martin the Paranoid Android*
That’s what I was thinking.
then Vox should move to Ohio as well
Middle of Arkansas would be funny. Vox could create their own town.
It's ironic how all the news companies cluster into LA yet those same news companies are telling governments to stop clustering things into DC.
You pay attention? To the video?
It’s a private company he’s talking about government
Z Li Vox is private though, agencies should spread to other American cities for employment.
This is a little bit misleading because it makes it sound like agencies have just one building each. Gov agencies have buildings across the US, but the HQs are usually in the DC area, which I think makes sense.
One of the things that the EU does actually really good - among others Luxembourg(Court of Justice, Court of Auditors), Frankfurt am Main(European Central Bank), Strasbourg(European Parliament), London(European Medicines Agency, European Bank Agency), Ljubljana(ACER), Warsaw(FrontEx), Heraklion(ENISA) and many more in every member state. Maybe you guys should really take a note.
Scrotie McBoogerball the court of Justice is actually in The Hague (The Netherlands) :)
NASA and the U.S. military already does this to some extent. It's smart politically too. If an agency has it's funding cut, and it's a major employer, the representative for that district is gonna fight that cut.
To be fair that probably has more to do with the fact that every country wanted a piece of the cake. You can't put all the EU institutions in one place without the other countries complaining. And the parliament moving back and forth between brussels and strasbourg is not excactly efficient.
But yeah it has some benefits.
frank Pieters actually the International Court of Justice is in Den Haag ;) That's a different institution, a part of the UN.
KEine Ahnung(It's weird to begin a sentence with keine Ahnung lol) It's not only that, I think many politicians want the EU to stay a bit decentralised. You know, to appease the sovereignty crybabies like the UK for instance(not that it helped lol) but it also gives imo a bit more prestige and political power to the cities and the governments of the respective members.
I can definitely see it becoming a bit looney if more members started joining. Like if Iceland, Serbia and Albania joined, we'd need to invent three new agencies to give them and even crazier we'd have to invent three new scopes of competence for three new commissioners lol.
The "technical" and "scientific" agencies often collaborate with other agencies on projects. For instance, a program that aims to train engineers for a power generation facility clearly falls under the Department of Energy, but if that facility is abroad they will need to coordinate with the State Department to assure diplomatic cooperation. If it's for a military installation, Department of Defense is involved. If it's on US soil, USEPA needs to do environmental impact studies. Using new technology? NSF is probably attending your meetings.
This is why the main offices are located where they are - within proximity of each other such that meetings can be attended. Moving them out has a number of issues, such as overreliance on internet infrastructure to deliver the meeting, as well as security issues with regards to video conferencing. It also creates a much larger defense issue with regards to contingency plans as the military would have to defend a number of locations rather than consolidate.
Moving agency functions out to other places is very common though and it's already been done decades ago. Even though the US Department of Agriculture is based in the DC mall area, there are offices across the country - you can easily be employed at USDA Rural Development which is significantly located in the St. Louis area (and Monsanto HQ is nearby as a result, spurring job creation).
This video means well, but it definitely underlines a lack of understanding of how the various government agencies actually function. Yes, the traffic on the capital beltway is horrendous. Yes, the land prices are exorbitant. But the problem isn't that there's too much demand due to clustering, the issue is that the politics of the region make it very hard to develop properly. To redevelop the beltway, you have to get the cooperation of Maryland, Virginia, and Congress (D.C.).
Let's not lose sight of why we put our governmental functions close together.
Ever heard of the Internet? Telephones? Mail? It's possible to make collaboration work over long distances.
"midwestern cities" *only lists cities in Ohio and Michigan*
Midwestern cities that have lost industry and people.
Those are close to Washington DC and it’s a low population in those cities
@@charlesbutler9127 because as much as Milwaukee might want or need those jobs, the cities listed desperately need them. I live in Michigan and we made a huge bet on automotive in the Midwest, which has mostly paid out (with reasons why it hasn’t in a lot of places, generally the unions or bad trade policy), for decades the Michigan-Ohio are was a center of innovation and technology, but one day things stopped growing and the factories closed their doors. If you need evidence just google earth your way through the neighborhoods of Detroit or Flint. The government owes us some jobs back, unless you want Clinton to pay us back those Trillions of blue collar paychecks sent to China, South Africa, and Mexico. (Trust me my parents both still work in the industry, although I don’t)
St. Louis should’ve been mentioned in my opinion. City specifically has huge decline in pop and jobs, although we do have some infrastructure in airport, transportation, housing, and culture .
@@gavingranberry9699 good point on St. Louis, a major origin of culture and innovation as late as the 1950s
I'm from Cleveland and I think this is a great idea. We have three professional sports teams, the largest theater district in the U.S. outside of NYC, and tons of high class shopping and amenities. Not to mention an award winning national park system which starts right downtown along with huge amounts of lakefront and mainland real estate to go around. Traffic is light and the cost of living compared to the quality you get (we have tons of amazing food and some of America's cleanest tap water) is outstanding. Many people seem to wonder why more people don't live here in the first place.
You've sold me on visiting Cleveland.
Detroit shares all of those benefits you've listed. Plus, they aren't too far from eachother
Ian Race Ew no thanks, i like DC. The high housing prices and expensive office spaces keep my job paying top dollar for my work. Plus cleveland probably smells funny.
Johnathan Rouse yea well you probably smell funny too like your mom
Matt Bakeniti Oooooooh. Got ‘em.
Interesting, relevant fact: 3 of the top 5 highest median household income counties in America are counties in the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia) Metropolitan area. Most people that live in these areas are government employees/contractors and are getting paid good, steady income. I know this because I live in the area and I'm a government contractor.
Spreading these jobs elsewhere would help spread the wealth. I think this is a great idea.
Living in Loudoun County there’s also tons of IT, Medical, and Engineers now that Amazons new headquarters is being built in Virginia will only increase the housing prices as well as the number of jobs which will probably increase the median household income but in Maryland and Virginia!
The same idea has been suggested in Australia with agencies moving out of Canberra to the regions however the areas they are moving to don't have the same infrastructure and this greatly impacts job mobility between departments, a feature of the Canberra public sector.
Interesting insight!!!
"but the government is something that's under our control.."
n Quinn as in under the US governent's in 'our' collective control , not private businesses where big moneymakers call the shots.
It's better than Europe where the you are under government control and have to go with every decision made
I mean, CIA can move into my expansive basement that definitely has running water
Wow, this is a well thought out and good idea; which is exactly why it will never happen.
This idea alone will not improve the conditions for these cities. They need new leaders with different ideas than the ones who have running these cities for decades.
@@Jemz35 while a change in leadership could be beneficial, the reason most of these cities have been declining is largely out of their control. Due to globalization and foreign development and stability, moving manufacturing from the US to foreign markets became dominant. The loss of their economic engine has caused these cities to fall from prosperity and people to move to other areas of the country. If the loss of high paying jobs cause their decline, a rise in high paying jobs will bring them back. But how to provide your community with high paying jobs it the question for every politician.
I live in a Midwest city known as St. Louis. It's the 3rd largest city in the US back in 1904 with over a million residents when they hosted the Olympics and World Fair, but now the same piece of area is only home to less than 300,000 people. Now, the only thing that we got on the national news was the Ferguson incident a few years back.
What you often don't hear is that these Midwest cities experienced a high levels of suburban sprawl, where 1.5 million live outside the city but still counted as the metropolitan area. This creates problems where houses in the Ferguson (north suburb) can cost as low as $20,000 but a rich neighborhood (west suburb) is $200,000 because the tax money stay in rich suburbs. Ask a St Louis or Detroit native, they'll tell you the city as a whole is not bad, but it's the poor neighborhoods that always makes into the news that makes the cities sound so bad.
My point is, downtown St Louis can be benefitted from more government agencies jobs, but that that doesn't mean the current problem is going to get fixed.
Bingo
This is insanely dumb. You're asking hundreds of thousands people who are employed by the government or government contractors to move.
If implemented as "You're all based in Cincinatti starting next week", then yes.
But if you go about it more gradually by only moving small departments at a time or only setting up new departments/agencies in these locations it may very well work out as intended, I think.
A viable plan as a Long term project though.
Colonel 100 That's their job
Dictionary not to mention it's really hurt the DC area
They're not suggesting that we move the entire government out of DC... just smaller agencies. The four agencies they suggested in this video only employ about 32,000 people. That's still quite a few people however, and I'm sure not all of them would be open to moving to Cleveland/Cincinnati/Detroit. But with those agencies moved out of DC, it opens up space for new private businesses to move in, and thus new jobs.
Leave NOVA alone, they prop up the Virginia economy.
Thank you an intelligent Comment
In Germany the agencies are spreaded all over the country. They are trying to build or move more agencies to the former East German states because when it comes to income our country is still divided in East and West.
Honestly if people dont wanna live in the mid-west, don’t force government employees to. There’s a reason folks are leaving
What are you trying to say? It doesn’t correlate with our government at all. We are already forcing the employees to move out to a stressful environment with high costs of living for simple hard data paperwork. People have moved because of manufacturing loss, but I’m sure the federal workers would enjoy a cheaper and a more forgiving area than what is the byproduct of D.C.
Plus areas like DC , new York and California are overpopulated because of immigration witch drives up housing costs and creates job shortages , only way well stop overpopulation is by stopping to much immigration because the United States can't support children to feed and take care of not enough resources therefore we can't support immigrants
@@geekedmaxx in my opinion we need to fix our rust belt cities like pittsburg,cleveland,detroit cinncinati, columbus, indianapolis, st louis,milwaulkee,kansas city. Chicago and minneapolis have plenty of jobs already with chicago needing more oppurtunity in certain parts of the city. Minneapolis/st paul have alot of manfacturing and medical jobs there.
@@ojll3917 there's jobs in every city , even in California where I'm at there's tons of manufacturing jobs in warehouses ,
As a Michigan resident I think this sounds like a fantastic idea! The Midwest has been gutted by outsourcing of industry. We need something to fill the gap that has been created.
agreed
I'm from Detroit and i highly agree. One nuke to DC and everything is gone. So on top of your points in the video, decentralization of the government is safer. It would be less likely for the entire federal government to shut down because of a super hurricane hitting the east coast. We need more jobs, and more people to live in these abandoned homes.
I'm a libertarian and I see no problem with this. Decentralization is a good thing
This is being done to expand Bureaucracy. don't fall for their tricks. Why do you think they want to move this to the Rust belt? Washington D.C is over alarmingly Left wing- more Left-wing then California
less than 6% are Republican
www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/city-desk/blog/13070504/how-many-registered-voters-does-d-c-have
Now they want to push their Leftwing machine to swing states to expand their voting machine.
This is not decentralization- decentralization would be giving states more power not moving government workers to other states. In a democratic election what do you think these Government employees are going to vote? for less government or more?
DC has a lot of Crime... It really couldn't be much worse in Ohio. Detroit would be a horrible idea though
@@MrChickennugget360 Please keep that stuff withon your own conservative circles so er don't have to hear it
Won't this just make the real estate market more expensive in other cities, hitting the poorest the hardest?
I live in the D.C area, so NO WAY
Same
Yeah I live in North VA and DC is so important
Maryland check yes they should stay in dc i live in the suborns
Most of the money flowing into DC comes from the Northeast and Pacific Coast.
The UK did this ages ago. They moved the DVLA (our DMV) to Swansea, a small city in wales. The HMIRC (our IRS) is in Cumbernauld, a large-ish small town near Glasgow. Recently the BBC (which is independent from government) moved all of it's production to Manchester. Things like departments for Health, Driving, Transport are things that Governments have to do anyway and don't need to be in the capital. It's only really the civil service which will object to moving to places like Sheffield or Newcastle.
As a resident of the DC metro area, with multiple family members employed by the federal government, I fully agree with this video. It would actually improve our lives a great deal to be based in a less expensive area.
if they did move to the Midwest, move to Detroit, Cleveland, or Cincinnati, not like Chicago, Milwaukee, or St. Paul/Minneapolis because those cities are actually doing something.
Milwaukee needs help still. A ton of manufacturers left the city in the 70s and our city has lost 150,000 people.
Me Me Big Boy but Milwaukee has money and is building infrastructure, and will also probably start signs of growth by 2020-2025
JCannon465 More people are moving to Madison and their metro area. Not into Milwaukee
Milwaukee is doing pretty well in comparison to places like St. Louis or Cleveland.
I vote Detroit. Cheap housing, well designed interstate system, and for leisure; short drives to some of the most beautiful lakes in the Country.
0:05 Um... Those dots are not on Cleveland, Cincinnati, or Detroit... Although Detroit is the closest. And Cleveland is certainly not in Pennsylvania. You have cincy in like, dayton. and Detroit near Toledo, but possibly just floating in Lake Erie some where... Kinda makes you look bad saying "get them out of DC to these places! Wait... where are these places even? Cleveland is east of Pittsburgh right?" ... smh
Also, I get your point, but it's a fairly weak argument. I expected it to go into a lot more detail about how it would be easy and which agencies should be the first to go outward. Furthermore, you posted Playhouse Sq. for Cleveland as an example of overbuilt. Playhouse Square was started in the 70s (when Cleveland was on the decline), and has continually been updated and upgraded since then. Most recently a couple years ago with a multimillion dollar rehabilitation, and it's beautiful. Playhouse Square is doing fine in Cleveland. Same with West Side Market, another photo you chose. Now, there are plenty of areas where Cleveland has more than it needs. You just chose poor examples with a hastily put together video.
I was also confused by this? Cincinnati looks like it's in southern Indiana & Cleveland is where Philly should be?!
Coasties.
Ian Zainea no one cares no one wants to live there
i'm not the only one that was confused why Cincinnati and Cleveland were so far apart
The problem with these cities is more then lack of industry. They have high crime, gangs, bad public schools. So moving jobs to these cities will not necessarily solve the issue. The people moving would move to safe suburban areas. Only making the suburbs more expensive. High paying government employees are not going to move to the hood unless they have too.
Yup. I live in the suburbs of Detroit and it’s VERY nice, excellent schools, high paying jobs, extremely wealthy areas, etc. It’s also just as expensive to buy a home in a nice neighborhood here as most other nice areas of the country. Adding more well paying jobs to the suburbs will make the suburbs grow, which they do NOT need. I could easily commute to my job in the suburbs from the city if I could find an affordable place to live in a safe neighborhood there. Don’t need to move a government agency to make that happen.
The entire affluence of the DC area is based on these agencies being here. Maryland, DC, and Virginia have relied on the incomes coming to our area. My family business caters to the people who work in these areas. The state governments here would fight tooth and nail to keep them and for good reason. Most of our infrastructure spending and planning in the last thirty years has been built to cater to the needs of these agencies and the ability of our residents to commute.
This is a good idea, I support it! This policy would have so many benefits, not to mention the defense and security improvements this would result in.
By decentralizing these agencies, which are vital to our national security and government functioning, and spreading them out around the mainland U.S., we could reduce the probability that more than one agency is destroyed or damaged by an enemy attack (cyber or physical).
Whether this hypothetical attack is from foreign or domestic terrorists, a foreign military, or a rogue nation, spreading our critical agencies and infrastructure out around the country seriously reduces the likelihood of multiple agencies being rendered inoperable by a single attack.
It is also strategically beneficial to spread our government agencies and infrastructure out and away from D.C. not only because it would help defend our government from enemy attacks, but it would help keep our government functioning during severe weather and currently-progressing climate change.
Washington D.C. is a coastal city lying approximately just above or at sea-level.
In the near future the oceans will most likely rise even more than they already have and threaten the Washington D.C. area on an even more routine basis.
That is of course, unless our citizens and politicians take more environmentally-minded and scientifically-informed actions than they currently are.
Realistically, sea-level rise and other negative climate-change events pose an even greater and more likely risk to cities like D.C. and its densely-packed clusters of government agencies and offices.
Overall, there are many potential benefits and few if any long-term negative consequences for our national well-being, economic health, stability, and strategic defense and security from relocating some of our non-political, essential government agencies and offices throughout the mainland U.S..
Great video, +Vox, Keep up the great work! :)
Ok ok good points now let me counter:
I live in D.C.
I don't want the stuff that makes this place cool to leave.
same
It will lower rent
Keith Hopkins eh, my standard of living is all over the place. I have friends who work at places like Panera bread who have apartments I’d be cool with living in. Also, I’m just saying casual anecdotes and initial feelings so don’t take any of this as how simple I think this is.
but us midwesterners want some interesting stuff
That would mean actually having public transit infrastructure in Detroit, which will never happen due to the lobbying of the car industry
Also Detroit's problem is not being the capital. Most of Michigan's legislature is republican and would never allow public funds to be spend on any infrastructure project on Detroit.
My hometown of Cleveland could definitely use a bump. So much culture, sports, health care, and infrastructure to offer, but everyone hates the weather and factories.
yeah Cleveland is a great argument for why gentrification isn't such a bad idea...(like believe me i know it is) but when you don't gentrify you get Cleveland...less and less money despite the rich talent, food and culture, beautiful architecture sold away for another parking lot for pennies...
The river isn't on fire anymore, give it a glow up already
I think this would be good for St. Louis, Missouri, they used to have the 7Up company and a Ford plant, but these have moved away and they have a lot of poverty in the region. Just like Detroit St. Louis also lost a lot of population, in 1950 the population was 856,796, now it's just 311,404. I think this would really help St. Louis. I mean St. Louis isn't very high in population as it once was but it has the 20th most populous metro area. I think this could bring people in from the suburbs if they did this and help the city build up again.
Something about having a government job, knowing a family member or neighbor with a government makes your view on "government" change. It's more personal and you begin to realize that governments are made of the individuals that work in it. Something people in other parts of America can could learn if an institution moved to their job-starved backyards.
they cant move out of dc as a Washingtonian i know that 75% of people i know are either working for the government or are working for a government contractor losing the government would take away jobs from good people
The video isn't talking about relocating the capital, only a handful of agencies that do not need to be there. If government agencies move out, office space will open up for private companies to move in and, with a little less government money floating around, the cost of living will decrease.
There are government contractors in Just about every state. The video only suggests moving certain agencies that really don't need to be there. Contractors can up and leave the D.C. Area if they wanted because they're private entities.
PatmanFTW It would be impossible to relocate something like the National Institute of Health which isn't even in DC. This video is, excuse me for saying this, fake news.
Except the National Institutes of Health has offices all over the country already. And it is in the Washington metro area, so it is basically in DC.
I live in the area and most people here would hate this. It'll lower the housing market, force people to relocate, and hurt the local economy, to name a few.
We tried this in the Netherlands but it didn't work
They tried it in Canada and France, and it did. So clearly, you're doing something wrong.
They tried this on Mars and the oxygen evaporated.
Good luck getting people to leave Maryland.
You don't, moving the job is so people there can get it
So half the people in the dc suburbs will lose there jobs it’s harder to move agencies than that
Yeah and here too art museums, sports teams and theatres as well.
Since we’re using Zoom so much because of the pandemic, we can get people to leave MD.
The DMV has the nation’s most educated work force. Government jobs will stay in DC for the same reason there are tech jobs in the Bay Area, that’s where the most qualified people live. Good luck convincing people to move to Detroit
Michigan also has a highly educated workforce (UMich). This proposal is less about getting workers in DC to move but more employing workers in areas like Detroit where brain drain is a big problem.
another solution is to make sure the poorer areas of the country like in our rust belt can get a proper education so they can qualify for these jobs. So if you did move these things to detroit the people there could be qualified already.
Ya know, DC might be the only place in America where they pay the most taxes, but it's also the place that is most expensive to live at.
I have always said that about the banks, the "fiscal responsible" set up housekeeping in the most expensive cities in the world and make you pay for it.
What about everyone who would loss their jobs? Do you really expert everyone to move to a different state so they can keep their jobs? I rather keep the people who have years of experience vs replacing key jobs with no experience people.
Mohammad I
Actually yes. People only work in D.C. because the jobs are there. There's nothing special about it. If their agency moved most workers would move with them.
Bat Man but the thing is, a lot of these people are very entrenched in where they live, and where their kids go to school. Especially the school part. Northern Virginia, where many people who work in government agencies or jobs associated with government agencies live, has some actually really great schools, for all I like to complain about them. Now, not every parent is gonna choose the school over their job, but, let me tell you, a shirt on will.
Bat Man That's not entirely true. Tons of people who work in DC for the government or other companies come from families who have lived in the DC area/suburbs for generations. I have several family members in the same position. It would not be easy for them to just up and leave their entire families and force their kids to switch schools.
They won't lose their jobs. More than likely they'll be relocated or they will have the opportunity to work in a different branch in the DC area.
This has been done in other countries, basically they have to offer massive cash incentives for people to move since often it means unemployment for their spouse etc as a result, so they have to pay 30-40% more to get 10% of the people to move, 90% quit, And you end up with a department run by people completely inexperienced and understaffed. People don't live in cities because the jobs are there, they live there because they have a life there. Slowly and organically a small number of people without heavy ties to other cities do move to where the jobs are, but they're rarely all experienced in that one thing you need to move a whole department. Basically, no the government isn't something we can just move. Over a generation you could slowly start, but they're still failing to move just one smallish department half a decade later in Australia.
Vox: The CDC doesn’t have to do with modern politics. Me: laughs in 2020
We tried this decentralisation plan in Ireland and it was a disaster, we moved government departments to struggling towns and cities but ended up backfiring massively as no one wanted to work there, even with the departments.
Dont think you can compare a town or city in Ireland with less than 100 000 ppl with a city such as Cleveland/ Detroit/ Cincinnati with populations in access of 300 000 and massive (and in fact growing suburbs).
The problem with this is whether the employees will move with the agency and whether the surrounding area has the talent to supplement the agency.
The presenter's position also ignores the benefits of agency adjacencies.
I live in DC. If these move we will lose a lot of money
Okay and so what deal with it you and your local area does not have a right to demand the rest of the country props up your areas economy
dstblj 52 you have no clue what you are talking about if the government would move it would put this country into a depression and millions of highly skilled works out of a job 2 entire states and even of parts of the us completely depend on the government being in dc its not greed its unethical
yes, but why does DC have the right to a disproportional number of good government jobs per capita, i don't frankly care what it does to the city, i would like those jobs move around the country to where they are needed. Besides if you need the job you can follow the job, that happens all the time in the private sector.
Not really, it is va. And md. Who will loose a lot
That sort of misses the point. these areas are already some of the most affluent in the country, so why should tax money go to increasing their affluence. The DC metro area can survive some jobs leaving for areas that desperately need them.
As someone who lives in the northern Virginia area, I can say that this is a horrible idea and would really hurt us
“Those cities are overbuilt.” I imagine they were built to cater to current growth trends until Globalization put a halt to that.
I agree. I’m a federal civil servant who can’t afford to live anywhere near where I work. And I make what most Americans would call a good salary.
Most of these agencies work together which is why they are close to each other.
Indianapolis is growing pretty fast
A more decentralized government would make bills harder to pass than now. We already have problems changing things in the US.
A counterargument: the Interior Dept. recently moved the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction CO, and the Dept. of Agriculture moved two agencies (the Agriculture Research Service and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture) to Kansas City MO. Many employees quit, and recruiting to backfill the vacancies has been a challenge. Ambitious government employees want to be where the action is, and where promotional opportunities are the highest: Washington DC.
Many households are duel income. So if one spouses job gets moved out of the DC area, either they need to quit or their spouse (who all things considered likely also works for the government) would have to quit their job.
You really should have discussed potential reasons why these industries left the midwest in the first place. This bit of context would be not only interesting but also essential in the discussion of whether these agencies should move there now
For the last time, Ohio and Michigan are not in the Midwest. Maybe they were when the country ended at Illinois. If we need a name for that region, call it the Great Lakes area. The Midwest cannot be in the eastern half of the country.
"The government is under our control" [citation needed]
[citation] The point of a democratic government is to give the citizens control. The definition of democracy is practically "peoples control".
We the people, for the people
cityuser
Nah, just leave him be. He is probably one of those "America is an oligarchy" types that didn't vote in the last election.
One place is the reason D.C. Meyers area is so expensive:
Loudon County (I live in Ashburn)
Where My Ohioans at!
bradwags Michigan is better!!
bradwags Michigan for life
CLE
I live in Cincinnati
bradwags Bad weather represent!
Gotta admit though the reason MD and VA do well...is because of the federal government. A lot of us that live here also work for the government and that is why we've survived the recession and now also the pandemic. We've been able to keep our jobs and telework.
Yeah
I had never even considered this before! Thanks Vox for raising the topic 🍻
Why does this guy stretch out every word it’s really annoying
I never thought Id live to see the day that Id finally agree with a Vox video, yet here we are...
The danish goverment has done the same thing last year, and right now its not that much of a succes because a lot of brilliant workes are lost because they dont won't to move away from their families. It is also quite expensive because you have train a new group of people.
Of course, you shouldn't do it with a big bang, but why would you not want to move to Aarhus? Or to Odense? Or Roskilde? I could see why Esbjerg might seem a little dull, but these other cities are still quite vibrant, and let's be honest, even from the northern tip of Jylland, you could get to Copenhagen in a correct time. To be honest, I liked Aarhus better then Copenhagen, even if I liked that one, too.
And those brilliant workers are now available to the private workforce, while brilliant people from these other places don't have to move to get a job at their level.
barvdw I live Aarhus myself and its a wonderful city, but if you have kids and family in Copenhagen then your husband/wife will have to find a new job and thats not always easy, plus your kids will have to find a new school and new friends. That were just the arguments i saw against it in the news, i dont know if it an good idea
Yes, you will loose good employees who don't want to move and can find other employment easily. Rooting up like that isn't easy, but Aarhus' economy isn't in such a dire shape their spouses can't find a job, especially if the government gives them a hand.
The thing is, this is a temporary thing, once transition is over, it will be mainly local people, or people at the start of their career who get the jobs in these centralised locations. In short term, there are downsides, but in the long run, I still believe it's a good thing. I mean, I have heard people from Jylland complaining about how Copenhagen is 'forgetting' them. If policies are drafted in Jylland, too, that becomes harder to keep saying.
Same in Australia, basically, a pattern of failure everywhere it's been tried. Maybe next time they could look into examples (you know, research) where this has been tried rather than just putting a thought bubble as an article.
Basically, here, when they tried moving a department from the rather boring capital to a rather nice region, 90% of people quit, the other 10% wanted way more money (and got it). So it cost an absolute fortune of taxpayer dollars, and the department is now almost entirely ineffective and will be for at least a decade. All this because a senior politician wanted to create jobs in their regional electorate. By all means, open a second regional office, and allow people to work there to see if they prefer a place where housing is cheaper etc, but trying to move people is expensive and ultimately, a proven failure, it hasn't acheived anything good.
Vox has agreed to cover 100% of the costs of moving and redeveloping these massive agencies. They also interviewed all federal government employees and confirmed they all want to move out of the D.C. area and into Midwest cities. Detroit was at the top of the list!
Those specialized, technical and scientific government agencies can move out to those rust belt cities, taking up spaces that used to be factories, and make use of the universities that used to support those industries as their research and development centers. What was For example what was the AAM-town can now become NIST-town. Oh and MIT is very close to those cities so if you need seriously top level research teams they are closer too.
I think that it would be possible for government agencies to self-finance those exodus from Washington projects: the existing Washington offices can be mortgaged to provide the funding for acquiring the mid-west ex-factory land, the existing factory buildings can be renovated into office space and labs saving a lot of cost, and the mortgaged offices can be leased out to pay off that debt.