CAMBRIDGE, MA—The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has released its newest book, City Tech: 20 Apps, Ideas, and Innovators Changing the Urban Landscape, by Rob Walker.

In this thoughtful, inquisitive volume, Walker investigates technologies that have emerged over the past few years and their implications for planners, policymakers, residents, and the virtual and literal landscapes of the cities we call home. Featuring a foreword by tech journalist Kara Swisher and an afterword by urbanist and futurist Greg Lindsay, the book explores the role of technology in our rapidly urbanizing world.

Experts predict that up to 80 percent of the population will live in cities by 2050. To accommodate that growth while ensuring quality of life for all residents, cities are increasingly turning to technology, from apps that make it easier for citizens to pitch in on civic improvement projects to designs for smarter streets and neighborhoods.

“We’re on a complicated journey; our decisions can set us off in surprising directions, and opinions may differ on how to navigate the challenges ahead,” writes Walker, a Fast Company columnist and New York Times contributor, in the book’s introduction. “But based on the examples in this collection, it seems clear that collaboration, creativity, and an openness to new ideas are the keys to getting where we need to go.”

City Tech is a chronicle of the recent rise of urban technologies, featuring firsthand reflections from the founders, innovators, and researchers closest to the work and from the planners and other officials who are putting these tools into practice on the ground. It’s also a source of essential questions: What are the ethical implications of smart cities? How can cities keep up with the rapid evolution of driverless vehicles? Is building skyscrapers out of wood a viable climate solution?

“If the last decade of urban tech has been a dress rehearsal, then the curtain is now rising on the most momentous decade of change most cities have ever had to face,” writes Lindsay in the book’s afterword. “It is our turn to formulate what we demand from our technologies, versus the other way around.”

City Tech, a curated collection of newly updated columns originally published in Land Lines, the magazine of the Lincoln Institute, follows last year’s release of Mayor’s Desk by Anthony Flint, a compilation of interviews with mayors from five continents who shared their strategies for tackling global challenges at a local level. Together, the books provide tangible examples of how cities across the world have mobilized to implement innovative land-based solutions for some of society’s most critical challenges.

City Tech is available for purchase on the Lincoln Institute website. For review copies, contact Kristina McGeehan at kmcgeehan@lincolninst.edu. City Tech is distributed by Columbia University Press.

About the Author

Rob Walker is a journalist and columnist covering technology, design, business, and other subjects. A longtime contributor to the New York Times, Walker writes a column on branding for Fast Company, and has contributed to Bloomberg Businessweek, The Atlantic, Fortune, Marketplace, and many other outlets. He writes the City Tech column for Land Lines, the magazine of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is the coeditor of Lost Objects: 50 Stories About the Things We Miss and Why They Matter and the author of The Art of Noticing. His Art of Noticing newsletter is at robwalker.substack.com. He also serves on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

About the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy seeks to improve quality of life through the effective use, taxation, and stewardship of land. A nonprofit private operating foundation whose origins date to 1946, the Lincoln Institute researches and recommends creative approaches to land as a solution to economic, social, and environmental challenges. Through education, training, publications, and events, we integrate theory and practice to inform public policy decisions worldwide. We organize our work around three impact areas: land and water, land and fiscal systems, and land and communities. We work globally, with locations in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Washington, DC; Phoenix, Arizona; and Beijing, China.

Lead image: Quantum network servers managed in a partnership between Chattanooga utility EPB and Qubitekk. Credit: Courtesy of EPB.

A medida que la ciudad crece y los efectos del cambio climático se tornan más evidentes, también crece la importancia de los árboles urbanos. Los árboles brindan la sombra que tanto necesitamos, eliminan la contaminación del aire, absorben el carbono e incluso aumentan los valores de los bienes inmuebles. Pero suele pasarse por alto un elemento: una cosa es plantar muchos árboles, pero otra es preservarlos.

Durante años, la tecnología ha desempeñado un papel importante en los esfuerzos de rastrear, mapear y cuantificar los impactos globales de los paisajes arbóreos, desde lo ambiental hasta lo económico, tema que se trató en esta columna en 2018. Pero, desde entonces, surgieron y evolucionaron nuevas tecnologías, y algunas de las más interesantes se centran no solo en los impactos políticos de alto alcance, sino también en el tema crucial del mantenimiento a largo plazo. Si se espera que la población de árboles urbanos perdure, el riego adecuado y oportuno, sobre todo para los árboles más jóvenes, debe ser parte de la planificación. Y, cada vez más, las ciudades están aprovechando herramientas de datos sofisticadas para fomentar y permitir la participación de la ciudadanía en la preservación de los árboles urbanos.

Por ejemplo, CityLAB Berlin, una organización sin fines de lucro de innovación tecnológica de Alemania que aplica datos a los problemas urbanos tiene varios proyectos en curso. En los últimos años, Berlín, una de las ciudades con más árboles de Europa, perdió el 20 por ciento de sus ejemplares a causa de las altas temperaturas y la escasez de lluvias. Esto se debe, en parte, a que supervisar y preservar árboles individuales puede ser una carga ardua y complicada para los gobiernos municipales. Así que, en 2020, CityLAB lanzó Gieß den Kiez (Regar el barrio), una plataforma digital que puso a disposición del público en general datos del gobierno sobre árboles. Esto permitió que la ciudadanía pudiera informarse sobre las necesidades de riego de los árboles locales y comprometerse a ayudar. “La aplicación se desarrolló con base en las necesidades de nuestra comunidad”, expresó por correo electrónico Yannick Müller, directora de asociaciones estratégicas de la organización.

La cantidad de datos disponibles fue una revelación: los proyectos de los gobiernos habían detallado y mapeado con anterioridad cientos de miles de árboles. CityLAB, un proyecto de Technologiestiftung Berlin, fundación financiada por la Cancillería del Senado de Berlín, combinó esto con otros datos, como cifras de lluvias, para crear un mapa que asocia la actividad de riego con las necesidades específicas para cada especie para los árboles de la ciudad. Los comentarios de la ciudadanía comprometida con los árboles ayudaron a darle forma al desarrollo de la plataforma. Algunas personas ya habían adoptado y empezado a preservar árboles de forma particular. “Sienten que son sus propios árboles”, dijo la gerenta de CityLAB Berlin, Julia Zimmermann. La ciudadanía también tuvo ideas sobre cómo utilizar el sistema de bombas de agua existente en la ciudad y mejorar su asequibilidad.

“Los usuarios, grupos e iniciativas pueden interactuar entre sí a través de una herramienta de chat, que también nos permitió comunicar y recopilar opiniones”, explicó Müller. Aparte de resolver errores pequeños, esto inspiró nuevas funciones, como una que muestra la ubicación y el estado de las bombas de agua. A su vez, permitió designar “cuidadores” para árboles específicos, que se comprometen a supervisar y regar con regularidad. “La adición de esta función pequeña permite a los ciudadanos hacer uso de sus recursos de forma más dirigida”, expresó.

Según Müller, en 2021, la ciudad de Leipzig adoptó la herramienta, y algunas otras municipalidades alemanas siguieron sus pasos. Los números de los usuarios no paran de crecer, y más de 3.500 ciudadanos se registraron como cuidadores de más de 7.500 árboles adoptados.

Más allá de esto, los esfuerzos de Gieß den Kiez siguen siendo un complemento de la política pública. “Sin embargo, la plataforma logra generar cada vez más conciencia sobre las adaptaciones climáticas, anticipándose a las futuras olas de calor”, sostiene Müller. En Berlín, por ejemplo, “suscitó un debate entre las diferentes autoridades de distritos locales sobre hasta qué punto la ciudadanía debería participar en el cuidado de los árboles de la ciudad y si ese uso del agua es adecuado” (Según Müller, lo es, si se consideran los costos de plantar árboles nuevos y los numerosos beneficios comprobados para la salud y el medioambiente que ofrece un follaje urbano robusto).

Una de las inspiraciones que CityLAB Berlin ha citado es el mapa de árboles de la ciudad de Nueva York (NYC Tree Map), una herramienta digital que se remonta al 2016, y que ya tiene registrados alrededor de un millón de árboles. En un comunicado de prensa de 2022, el Departamento de Parques y Recreación (NYC Parks) declaró que “NYC Tree Map es el mapa más integral y actualizado de árboles vivos en el mundo”. “El mapa, que está integrado directamente con la base de datos forestales de los parques, le brinda a la ciudadanía el mismo acceso en tiempo real al bosque urbano que los silvicultores de parques tienen en el terreno”. Esto permite que las personas de Nueva York “interactúen de forma digital” con la población forestal de la ciudad en los cinco distritos; por ejemplo, pueden supervisar la inspección más reciente de un árbol, con la fecha y la identificación de la inspección.

“Nuestro NYC Tree Map permite que los amantes casuales de árboles identifiquen ejemplares fácilmente, comuniquen sus inquietudes e informen sobre su cuidado”, explicó por correo electrónico Nichole Henderson, directora de la Administración de NYC Parks. “Grupos y personas registran en el mapa sus actividades de cuidado de árboles, como el riego, la eliminación de basura, el cultivo de la tierra y la cobertura con mantillo”.

Varios grupos usan el mapa para coordinar esfuerzos de mantenimiento y administración más ambiciosos. A modo de ejemplo, Hernderson menciona el Jackson Heights Beautification Group, una organización ambiental y artística de Queens; Trees New York, una organización profesional de larga trayectoria que capacita a “podadores de la ciudad”, entre muchas otras actividades, y la organización Gowanus Canal Conservancy, cuyos proyectos incluyen esfuerzos de “ciencia comunitaria” como experimentos sobre la captura y el uso del agua de lluvia. Y el mapa de árboles es clave para la campaña de mayor alcance de NYC Parks, Let’s Green NYC (Llenemos de verde a NYC), que publica “actividades de cuidado de árboles en las calles de toda la ciudad con socios comunitarios y permite que los voluntarios vean el impacto visible, cómo están contribuyendo directamente con el cuidado de la floresta urbana”, dijo Herderson.

En otras ciudades importantes se están llevando a cabo iniciativas similares. El Departamento de Transporte del Distrito (DDOT) de Washington, DC, mantiene un mapa de árboles digital que promueve la participación ciudadana (por ejemplo, para que informen el oscurecimiento de las hojas o el daño de insectos, así como los árboles que necesitan agua). El mapa de árboles se lanzó con un foco especial en preservar 8.200 árboles plantados en 2017. Otro ejemplo es la aplicación Adopt-A-Tree en Atenas, que permite a los ciudadanos asumir la responsabilidad del riego de árboles individuales de la ciudad durante los meses secos del verano. Y las entidades como CityLAB Berlin siguen innovando: su nuevo proyecto Árboles Cuantificados (QTrees) aspira a desarrollar un sistema de predicción respaldado por inteligencia artificial, haciendo uso de bases de datos y sensores para identificar los árboles urbanos en riesgo de secarse. Ya se está probando un prototipo, y el plan es lanzarlo este año.

Zimmermann, de CityLAB Berlin, reconoce que fue difícil demostrar con precisión el impacto de estos esfuerzos. “Esto se debe a la naturaleza de la naturaleza”, dijo. Los árboles se adaptan con lentitud, así que estimar los efectos de los programas de riego podría requerir años de supervisión del crecimiento y la salud. Pero el tablero de datos del proyecto ilumina los patrones de riego, y mostró que las cantidades de riego aumentaron desde que el programa comenzó, y, casi con certeza, contrarrestaron los efectos de la sequía. “Así que el proyecto genera, por lo menos, un mejor entendimiento y cuidado de los espacios verdes urbanos”, añadió. En algunos casos, ha inspirado a gobiernos locales a apoyar a voluntarios, al brindarles material y lineamientos para prácticas de riego óptimas.

En una encuesta reciente sobre la valoración sorprendentemente duradera de las personas por lo arbóreo, la historiadora y autora, Jill Lepore, observó que “los árboles son los nuevos osos polares, la imagen que es tendencia en el movimiento medioambiental”. Ahora tenemos la ciencia y la tecnología para entender y cuantificar el valor de los árboles más allá de lo estético. “Si a nuestros ancestros les pareció inteligente y necesario talar los bosques rápidos, es incluso más necesario que sus descendientes planten árboles”, escribió la paisajista Andrew Jackson Downing en 1847. “Permitamos que todas las personas, cuyas almas no sean un desierto, planten árboles”. De acuerdo. Pero, también tenemos la obligación, y la tecnología, para preservarlos.

Rob Walker es periodista; escribe sobre diseño, tecnología y otros temas. Es el autor de The Art of Noticing. Publica un boletín en robwalker.substack.com.

Imagen principal:  Árboles en la calle y una ciclovía emergente en Berlín, donde una organización sin fines de lucro del sector tecnológico lanzó una plataforma digital que ayuda a los residentes a informarse sobre las necesidades de riego de los árboles locales. Crédito: IGphotography vía iStock/Getty Images Plus.

In the small beachside settlement of Praia do Xavier, along Brazil’s northeastern coast, villagers have long practiced traditional raft fishing, farmed the dunes, or harvested shellfish as a way of life. They did so for generations without any infrastructure to speak of—no roads, schools, electricity, or running water—on what was common land, freely accessible to the public.

That is, until the Brazilian government allowed much of that land to be privatized so a European company could install a 50-turbine wind farm along the shoreline to capture the coastal breezes. The construction of the 2,570-acre wind farm in the state of Ceará added up to 104 megawatts of clean energy to Brazil’s electric grid when it opened in 2009, but it also drained the lagoons that villagers relied upon for winter fishing and impeded their access to other traditional fishing grounds.

Ramping up renewable energy production is a crucial climate goal, and one that Brazil has excelled at to date. But the rush to produce more solar and wind power has also led to new forms of land speculation and “green grabbing.” A study by University College London researchers found that over a third of wind parks installed in Brazil from 2000 to 2021 were built on legally dubious grounds, either on common lands or without legal titles, and most are owned by international investors.

A pair of researchers in Brazil is now studying how such land use decisions are being made, with a particular focus on the state of Ceará, and how to ensure renewable energy expansion doesn’t result in further climate injustices. Their project is one of seven finalists selected for support through a request for proposals issued by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in March.

“Society can’t afford to delay the energy transition or the work needed to adapt to our changing climate,” says Amy Cotter, director of urban sustainability at the Lincoln Institute. “But we need to do so in a way that avoids undermining people’s ability to provide for themselves and their families at a time when that ability is already challenged by climate change itself.” It’s a tension unfolding around the world, as governments, utilities, and nonprofits try to achieve a quick but just transition to clean energy, balancing the critical need for rapid renewable energy development with other demands on the land.

“With this suite of research, we hope to help accelerate climate action that anticipates and avoids or offsets any negative consequences,” Cotter says.

Through case studies and interviews, Flavia Collaço, visiting professor at Universidade Federal do Ceará, and Joachim Stassart, a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, will analyze the expert and government knowledge, technological tools, and underlying politics that inform how land is allocated for renewable energy projects, why that process often ignores traditional and communal land uses, and how it could be improved to reduce land dispossession and climate injustices as more wind and solar projects go forward.

The first stage of Brazil’s wind projects was almost all installed along the coast, Collaço says. “So it’s mainly affected small artisanal fishermen, and Indigenous people and traditional communities that live in this coastal region,” she says. “But the second stage of wind projects is coming to the countryside, and that means new challenges and new types of communities and ecosystems that are going to be impacted.”

“Brazil is a country with a lot of land conflicts and a lot of speculation related to land, but it’s usually and historically been related to agriculture,” Stassart notes. “With this renewable energy boom, there’s this new form of speculation, and it’s in areas that weren’t the target of land conflict in the past.”

Parts of rural Ceará have yet to go through a formal land regularization process, which creates potential for land conflict and speculation as renewable projects move inland. “In Brazil, it’s very common, especially in the most remote areas, that there are a lot of overlapping land claims and a lot of informality in the land sector,” Stassart says. “So people can be using the land for generations without holding a title to it . . . there are still a lot of Indigenous and local communities who don’t have access to a formal land title that recognizes their rights.”

Less than a fifth of Ceará has yet to be regularized, but much of that land is in areas now targeted for new wind and solar installations, which has set the formalization process in motion, Collaço says. “So our research is going to capture precisely the beginning of this process.”

The Lincoln Institute selected six other projects to support through this RFP, many of which focus on curtailing “green grabbing” practices:

• Researchers from the SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies in Ghana will perform a literature analysis and empirical case study on the rise and fall of land-based biofuel investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, to understand why most of these projects have failed, collapsed, or been abandoned.
• National strategies for reducing biodiversity loss and land-based emissions are often isolated as separate policy goals, despite their obvious connections. A team from the University of British Columbia, University of Melbourne, and the Land Gap research collective will examine the feasibility of including national strategies as part of a just transition, identifying both the role and the limitations of domestic policy in addressing the drivers of deforestation.
• An international and interdisciplinary team led by the German Institute for Global and Area Studies will assess the impacts of land-intensive carbon-offset projects on the livelihoods of local communities in Madagascar and Indonesia, and the effectiveness of sustainability standards in addressing these impacts.
• An environmental consultant affiliated with the University of Lausanne in Switzerland will look at how the establishment of protected areas for conservation purposes over the past century has often led to conflict or even outright tragedy for Indigenous peoples and local communities, with the goal of drawing lessons for how large-scale ecosystem and forest restoration projects can avoid having the same negative impacts.
• In Central Appalachia, corporate landowners have long extracted resources and value while leaving locals impoverished. As the region’s forests draw interest for their carbon sequestration potential, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs researcher will use power mapping, interviews, and data analysis to evaluate the initial outcomes of the Family Forest Carbon Program. The new endeavor, by the American Forest Foundation and The Nature Conservancy, aims to enroll small landowners in Kentucky and West Virginia as beneficiaries of the expanding carbon market.
• A team from the University of Technology Sydney will look at emerging community partnership models in Australian cities that have allowed community-driven conservation efforts to reach scale and expand their impact by overcoming common barriers to such initiatives, including a lack of secure land and stringent land use planning standards.

To learn more about all Lincoln Institute RFPs, fellowships, and research opportunities, visit the research and fellowship opportunities section of our website.

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: Wind turbines at Canoa Quebrada Beach in Ceara, Brazil. Credit: Cristian Lourenço via iStock/Getty Images Plus.

In the Carondelet neighborhood of St. Louis, where once-busy shipyards gave way to vacancy and blight during the waning decades of the 20th century, a global specialty minerals company is building a $400 million factory to produce highly efficient batteries for energy storage. 

Another new factory is rising up amid the shuttered steel mills and closed coal mines of Weirton, West Virginia, built by a different manufacturer whose battery technology involves mixing iron particles and air.  

And in Schenectady, New York—where the production of electric lights, appliances, and engines by Thomas Edison’s General Electric company spurred an economic boom that began in the late 1800s and had faded away by the mid-1900s—the first of a class of super-tall, highly efficient onshore wind turbines recently rolled out from a pristine assembly line at a new GE plant. 

“It’s a win-win for the environment and the local workforce,” beamed New York State Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara in a TikTok video recorded outside the plant, which will ultimately employ 200 people including skilled union labor. The end result, he said, will be “a more affordable, reliable, sustainable, and secure energy future.” 

All of these projects and dozens more across the country are manifestations of a new federal, place-based industrial policy, fueled by more than $1 trillion in tax credits and grants under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, American Rescue Plan, CHIPS and Science Act, and most of all, what is essentially sweeping climate action legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Facing the urgent need for manufacturing the components of the clean energy transition—electric vehicles, batteries and energy storage, equipment for charging stations, wind turbines, solar panels, and many other components of the transition from fossil fuels, like high-capacity carbon-fiber power lines to bolster the nation’s overburdened power grid—the Biden administration has made several strategic decisions. 

First, the White House declared that the United States should not cede all this advanced industry to China, currently the world’s leader in producing wind and solar equipment and inexpensive electric vehicles. And if these items are to be made in America, administration officials say, it should happen in postindustrial legacy cities and distressed counties—the “places where opportunity has left,” as White House climate czar Ali Zaidi said at a Columbia University conference last fall. 

Since President Biden took office, companies have announced more than $250 billion in private investments, an unprecedented amount, to manufacture “the nuts and bolts of clean energy,” said Ben Beachy, special assistant to the President for Climate Policy, Industrial Sector, and Community Investment. “The administration is committed to ensuring that hard-hit communities and workers reap the rewards of this boom, including deindustrialized communities.” 

Leaders in legacy cities, which have been struggling with manufacturing and population loss for decades, say they welcome the boost. Many perceive something poetic about the heavily polluting manufacturing processes of a century ago being replaced with industry that both functions sustainably and produces equipment that will help reduce fossil fuel emissions. The pivot, as much cultural as having to do with economic development, is already leading some to rechristen the Midwest and Southeast the “Battery Belt.” 

“Cities like ours were built on energy innovation, but it extracted a price,” said Paige Cognetti, mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, a city known since the turn of the 20th century for its sooty coal and electricity industries. Cognetti cites Biden’s childhood roots in the working-class city as a factor in the initiative to help legacy cities engage in the clean energy transition. “I think he understands that it takes major investment to set up regions for economic success and climate resilience.”  

Many questions remain about implementation, however, including whether economically distressed regions can conjure the necessary ecosystem to support the new industry—first and foremost a trained workforce, but also other elements such as infrastructure, housing, and vibrant civic and higher education institutions to provide not only training but also research and development. 

In addition, the massive amount of federal investment flowing from Washington will require a keen administrative capacity at the state and local level to discover the opportunities, manage transactions, and comply with rules and regulations. 

Finally, land use issues are expected to complicate the effort. The amount of space needed by many of the private companies—for building electric vehicles, in particular—is such that the best sites are at the periphery of cities, requiring greenfield development, rather than in the urban core. Urban infill redevelopment is possible, but there are significantly higher costs associated with adaptive reuse or brownfield regeneration.  

The challenges are very real, but so is the opportunity. While federal spending from the IRA could be disrupted if there is a change in administrations, repeal would require Congressional action.  In the meantime, billions of dollars in federal funding have begun to flow from the first investments of that law. Local, regional, and state governments and their partners should be ready with thoughtful and actionable plans for implementation, said Peter Colohan, director of Federal Strategies at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

“The money and incentives flowing out of the government at a rapid pace are making private investment irresistible—in clean energy, nature-based climate solutions, and advanced manufacturing,” he said. Issues of land use and equity will surface regularly, he added, requiring state and local governments, philanthropies, and nonprofit organizations to help “create virtuous circles of community investment, and avoid unintended harms.”

* * * 

The history of subsidy in American manufacturing has some twists and turns, but ultimately government support in one form or another has supported industry for over two centuries. From the first flour mills in the late 18th century to the advent of the automotive assembly line, manufacturing in the United States fulfilled a market need for goods and supplies that was driven largely by individual entrepreneurship, though generally welcomed with open arms by local officials happy to make sure land transactions, for example, went smoothly to establish factories and nearby worker housing. 

During that early era of industrial growth, government also stepped in to provide the infrastructure to support commerce, from a national rail network to ports and canals. Factories were generally located well within city limits, their access to waterways and rail lines making it relatively easy to get the goods to market, both domestic and overseas. The physical imprint of this growth on America’s cities was transformational, with blocks-long multi-story structures built to employ 10,000 workers or more, and an adjacent density of housing and amenities. 

World War II turned the nation’s industrial might toward building tanks and planes for the military, and began a tradition of decentralized defense spending, with contractors establishing themselves in Congressional districts that made sure the pipeline of Pentagon funds kept flowing. The Interstate Highway Act of 1959 was another important source of federal investment for cities, powered by the argument that new freeway infrastructure was needed for the swift movement of goods.  

As the economies of Japan and Europe came back online in the decades after the war, manufacturing in Rust Belt cities gradually petered out. From the 1950s through the 1970s, private companies increasingly took advantage of cheaper labor overseas, and technological automation in production and distribution thinned the payroll even more. Thus began the decline of once prosperous cities across a swath from the Mississippi River to the Northeast, from St. Louis to Cleveland, Allentown to Hartford. 

The spate of factory closings through the 1970s was devastating, said Alan Mallach, coauthor of “Regenerating America’s Legacy Cities,” a report published by the Lincoln Institute. “Start with the proposition that in the 1950s and early 1960s, as many as half of all the jobs in cities like Cleveland or Youngstown were in manufacturing, and then factor in that most of the retail and service jobs were supported by the wages factory workers were making, you have to figure that 70 to 80 percent of the local economies in these cities was based on their manufacturing sector. So ‘doomed’ may be a bit strong, but it comes close.” 

Add in the phenomenon of white flight, which saw white residents move en masse from downtown areas to suburbs, and what is remarkable is that legacy cities survived in any form at all, Mallach said. With both the physical urban environment and the social and economic fabric changing dramatically, he says, “a lot of credit goes to the thousands of working-class and middle-class Black families who moved into the neighborhoods being vacated by white families and stabilized them for the next few decades.” 

Over the last half-century, certain types of manufacturing continued to be propped up on an ad hoc basis by the US government, in the form of selective tariffs—imposed on foreign competitors to benefit American-made steel, for example—or outright bailouts, as enjoyed by the automotive industry after the Great Recession. Tech companies including Amazon, meanwhile, have frequently been given red-carpet treatment involving significant tax breaks and other incentives as local leaders compete to have businesses set up shop in their city or town. 

Notably, it is the energy sector that has benefited from the longest and most robust history of subsidy, beginning with federal rewards for depleting oil wells in the 1920s and continuing with tax breaks and subsidies to this day—conservatively estimated to be $20 billion a year for producers of coal, natural gas, and crude oil. 

Now that fossil fuels are set to be replaced by renewables including wind, solar, and hydro, the White House is attempting to execute the equivalent of a three-cushion billiards shot: fight climate change by making the transition away from fossil fuels, make clean energy components and systems in America, and restore jobs in struggling places. 

“We will not achieve our climate goals without mobilizing trillions of dollars in support of climate action. Properly guided, that wave of investments can flow into good union jobs,” said Beachy, from the climate policy office. “Properly guided, it can flow into communities that have endured decades of divestment. Our climate strategy is a job strategy, it is an equity strategy. That’s the basic logic.” 

For an initiative that has been operating relatively under the radar, the place-based approach does appear to be off to a strong start. According to two federal government databases, at the Department of Energy and the White House’s Investing in America inventory, an estimated 700 clean energy projects are already online or in the works, across sectors including: 

• Batteries and materials. High-performance batteries are much in demand for increasingly popular EVs, including the Ford F-150. Power storage is a huge need in the clean energy grid, to extend and preserve energy provided by renewables. Driven by innovation, battery factories and critical minerals facilities are popping up in Michigan (Our Next Energy), Georgia (Anovion Tech, SK Battery), North Carolina (Albermarle Corp.), and  Mississippi, where a new truck battery joint venture will create more than 2,000 clean new jobs—more than any single investment has ever brought to the state.   

• Electric vehicles. Given the head start by the heavily subsidized EV makers in China, as well as a competitive position by the pioneering company Tesla, expanded production in the United States has been halting. Administration officials say there is growing demand, aided by the $7,500 tax credit individuals can claim upon purchase; since the passage of the IRA in 2022, there were a record 1.46 million passenger clean vehicle sales,  according to the Treasury Department. In addition to new EV plants, such as Rivian’s in Illinois, billions are available for retooling existing automaking facilities and encouraging the manufacture and deployment of the all-important network of charging stations, which are poised become as ubiquitous as gas stations. 

• Wind. Here again, China is the leading producer of wind turbines, with 60 percent of the world’s production capacity. But American companies, like GE Vernova in Schenectady, are making strides in developing more efficient and effective towers, blades, and associated infrastructure to better connect to the grid. Technological innovations are opening up new possibilities as well, such as less expensive bladeless turbines that capture prevailing winds or turn to harvest wind from different directions. 

• Solar. The world’s fastest-growing source of energy is another difficult challenge, as the cheapest solar panels continue to be made in China—and indeed, the seven major Chinese solar companies recently provided more power to the world than oil companies, according to Bloomberg. But a few standouts have been successful, especially poetic in places that used to produce coal or heavy manufacturing. In Farmington, New Mexico, a solar farm is being built near a decommissioned coal-fired power plant and mine. As with wind technology, solar is evolving rapidly; one company has developed sun-harvesting crystal spheres that would take up a fraction of the space now required for panels. 

• Other ancillary support. Several programs under the IRA are providing general support for new industry by improving roads, bridges, airports, and drinking water systems, with notable upgrades in the works in Milwaukee, Buffalo, and Allentown.  The White House is also intent on bolstering the supply chain of materials like aluminum, which is critical in solar panels, EVs, and power lines—and making sure that the production of those materials is less polluting. As an example, Century Aluminum is receiving funding from the Department of Energy for a $3.9 billion project to build a new, clean primary aluminum smelter in the Mississippi River Basin.   

It is difficult to overstate the unprecedented volume of federal support for these efforts. Keeping track of what funding is available and where it’s going has become a cottage industry. In part because the main instrument is the tax credit, the ultimate cost to the federal budget  depends on the number of private companies that collaborate with local regions on projects (as well as individual households that take advantage of rebates for EVs, energy efficiency, and climate-friendly systems such as hot and cold weather heat pumps). 

The baseline figure provided by the Biden administration was that the IRA, a multi-year program, would provide at least $370 billion for the clean energy transition, in spending and tax credits. Brookings estimates that $780 billion could be coursing through the US economy by 2031, while Goldman Sachs calculates the total potential amount at $1.2 trillion. 

“It is an extraordinary policy moment,” said Mark Muro, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who coauthored a report listing some 70 distressed counties that have received some kind of investment already. “This is a new, modern, distinctly American industrial strategy, rebalancing the economy. This will bring hope and genuine economic activity to places that have been without that for years.” 

Supporters point to dozens of ribbon-cuttings for plant openings that have already occurred—part of what they compare to manufacturers coming forward for the war effort 80-plus years ago, as a kind of patriotic national mobilization symbolized by Rosie the Riveter flexing her bicep and proclaiming, “We can do it.”  

Where the Funding Is Coming From 

On paper, the Biden administration has made available more than $3.6 trillion in federal funding for infrastructure, manufacturing, and community resilience since 2021, including hundreds of billions to support the transition away from fossil fuels. At present, only a fraction of the multi-year spending plans has actually been distributed. 

Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): The chief feature of this nearly $500 billion law signed by President Biden in 2022, in addition to inflation-curbing measures such as reducing the federal budget deficit and lowering prescription drug prices, is the unprecedented investment in clean energy to combat climate change. A multi-year spending plan based largely on tax credits, the IRA could have a total cost of $1 trillion, according to some estimates.  

CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS): Also signed into law in 2022, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act is intended to bring microchip manufacturing back to the United States after decades of semiconductors being made overseas, primarily in China. About $60 billion is being directed to strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development for high-tech industry including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. 

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law): This law authorizes $1.2 trillion in spending that includes about $550 billion in funding for America’s roads and bridges, water infrastructure, resilience, Internet, and more. The White House describes the legislation, signed into law in 2021, as a boost to U.S. competitiveness that will create jobs and “make our economy more sustainable, resilient, and just.” 

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA): The $1.9 trillion stimulus package, passed by Congress and signed by President Biden, included $30.5 billion in federal funding to support the nation’s public transportation systems and other capital investments. The legislation was largely a response to the economic disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. 

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Although the federal largesse is welcome, some wonder if a single factory can really make a dent in the problems of deep-seated poverty, underperforming schools, vacant properties, and persistent crime that have metastasized over decades in legacy cities. 

“Reindustrialization around clean energy and technology is a good thing as far as it goes, but I don’t think it goes anywhere as far as its boosters seem to believe,” said Mallach. 

There is much baggage to overcome. Revival in places like Cleveland or St. Louis has been uneven. Some smaller legacy cities have struggled in part due to a lack of robust civic institutions and “eds and meds,” the nonprofit anchor institutions providing employment and innovation. 

The traditional manufacturing city was sustained by a kind of factory that hardly exists any more— facilities with large footprints and employing 10,000 people or more. That configuration is not easily replaced, Mallach said. New manufacturing is much less labor intensive.  

As an example, he cited a new steel mill in Youngstown, Vallourec Star, which replaced a prior facility. “It probably produces more than the old mill did, but it does it with 700 to 800 workers, not 10,000 to 15,000. And most of those workers sit at consoles operating machinery and robots, which, of course, means that they need a respectable level of computer literacy.

“Now, 700 jobs matter, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what’s been lost,” Mallach said. 

Others have concerns at a higher policy level, expressing doubt about the government’s ability to pick winners and losers in private markets, and recalling the failure of the solar company Solyndra during the Obama administration. Some start-ups don’t pan out. Coal miners may not transition to being electricians at a wind turbine factory. Already the EV maker Rivian had to pause construction of a 13 million-square-foot plant in Georgia because of financial losses as the company tries to ramp up production. 

“My thinking is that there should be a pretty high bar to clear to justify” government support for private industry, said Colin Grabow, associate director at the Cato Institute. “If there’s some need that’s not being met by the market, government might intervene,” he said, or if there are national security issues at stake, as is the case with microprocessors. 

But Grabow questions the emerging industrial policy in practical terms as well, suggesting that the world should have access to the cheapest clean energy possible, whether made in America or not.  

“If the overriding goal says, ‘hey, we’re facing a planetary emergency, and we need to do this transition’ . . .  if the Chinese want to give us cheap EVs and solar cells and all the rest, then that should be welcomed. The economy and jobs should take a back seat to that,” he said. 

Still, supporters argue that if there was ever a time to boost the clean energy transition, it is now, with essentially the future of the planet at stake. Many bemoan a perceived pattern that the clean-energy sector is being unreasonably scrutinized and questioned, in light of the history of the government so willingly supporting other industries. 

Steering the factories to postindustrial regions is seen as an appropriate measure to address economic inequities, especially those places that were ultimately harmed by the environmental and health impacts of coal mining or heavily polluting industries. 

“Dealing with climate change offers a real chance to take on the inequality that plagues our country as well,” said Bill McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College and founder of the climate action organizations 350.org and Third Act. The Biden administration “has been putting factories in places based on real need.” 

So far, the federal funding to support made-in-America clean energy manufacturing is going to blue and red states alike—and indeed one analysis by Politico showed that most of the projects are in red states.  

“We want to be able to see energy—clean energy—produced in every pocket of the country. Blue states, red states, really it helps to save people money, so it’s all about green,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at a White Housing briefing last year when discussing how Republican districts were using the clean-energy investments. 

At least three major challenges remain if the implementation of the place-based industrial policy is to be successful, however. The first is the capacity of state and local governments to take advantage of all the funding and programs that have been very quickly made available. 

States and municipalities are scrambling to apply for dozens of new programs to leverage the tax credits and rebates, which requires extensive knowledge of grant-writing and compliance rules. The administration has tried to make the process as user friendly as possible, and established “direct pay,” which extends eligibility for funds to nonprofits and municipalities for the first time. “You qualify, you get a check,” senior White House adviser John Podesta told state and local officials at the US Conference of Mayors winter meeting in January in Washington, DC. “We hope you will be evangelists” in spreading the word, he added. 

Despite the effort, six out of ten mayors said in a survey by the Boston University Initiative on Cities that bureaucratic complexities were weighing down the process, citing a “challenging grant application process and the public’s lack of familiarity with its details.” 

Some states like Illinois and Nevada have set up offices to make sure federal funding is efficiently and effectively used. Massachusetts recently also did something similar, to help distressed communities become aware of the federal funding opportunities that can help nurture the interest of private investment. Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, established a “command center” to keep track of applications and deadlines. 

Another, more complicated hurdle is the need to support the new factories with an ecosystem of workforce training, child care, and the all-important engagement of nonprofit, civic, and higher education institutions. And that, in turn, will guide the land use decisions that will unlock economic activity in an equitable manner, said Bruce J. Katz, director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University. 

“This is a remarkable transition. It’s phenomenal. But location matters,” said Katz, who is also cofounder of New Localism Advisors, which seeks to help cities design, finance, and deliver transformative initiatives that promote inclusive and sustainable growth. “The devil is in the details as to where the large plants are located, and all these pieces of the puzzle that need to come together, whether it’s supply chain, spillover effects, or workforce readiness.” 

The country “tends to have an invest-first, plan-later perspective on the world,” he said, leading to a highly decentralized system. “We turn on the faucet and corporate investment is right there ready. Well, the cities need to have the sites ready.”

In addition to determining suitable locations, adds Amy Cotter, director of Climate Strategies at the Lincoln institute, “cities are going to need to be really intentional about planning for new industry in concert with resilience and inclusion.” Thoughtful urban planning, she notes, “can give rise to clean industry in a supportive ecosystem that enhances equitable prosperity for longstanding and new residents alike.” 

Several state and local governments are setting a foundation for this boom. In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro established a $500 million initiative to make sure commercial and industrial sites are ready for development. West Virginia Northern Community College promised to set up courses and internships to prepare students for jobs at Boston Metal, a maker of clean-power alloys. 

Technological advances will help. Artificial intelligence can turbo-charge a range of higher education institutions, large or small, to provide research and development support to burgeoning clean energy industries. “There’s no question universities and research ecosystems can support and inform clean energy manufacturing, and AI can be a huge factor in discovery and innovation and scaling,” said John Werner, chief innovation officer at MIT Connection Science, a cross-disciplinary program facilitating networks of entrepreneurs. 

Muro, from Brookings, said workforce development and training is key to securing employees who may not have a college degree, who seek fulfilling and rewarding livelihoods that are a step up from the burdensome grind of the fossil fuel era. “It’s not your grandfather’s factory work,” he says.  

Nothing about it will be particularly easy. Trying to grow a supportive ecosystem “is not for the faint-hearted,” Muro said. “Resources, transportation, wrap-around services, support for midnight shifts, childcare . . . There’s a lot to wrestle with in this transition.

Still, he says, the moment is unprecedented, and it holds real promise: “Some legacy cities will do a great job and some will struggle, but at least they will be in the mix and will have this opportunity.” 

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.