Unlocking opportunities in ex-industrial cities

My learnings from six months of wonderings

Over the past few months, I have been part of the Zinc cohort. We have collectively been thinking about how to unlock opportunities for people who live in cities that have been hit hard by globalisation or automation. These are places that were once prosperous industrial cities with distinct characteristics and identities. But over time, as industries have evolved or moved away, the towns have not managed to tap into opportunities from the new economy.

The classic examples are Detroit and Cleveland who lost half of their population, and their household incomes fell by a third since the 70s. In the UK, ex-manufacturing, mining, pottery and shipping cities like Glasgow, Rochdale, Stoke-on-Trent and Blackpool fall into this category.

This is not to dismiss the extraordinary transformation that some of these cities or at least parts of them have gone through over the past decade. But there is still much to do, and we have the threat of broader automation coming around the corner as well.

The challenges are complex, interdependent and in most cases structural. Yet, as we travelled across the UK, we came across many initiatives, large and small, led by passionate, talented people, who are tirelessly working on resolving them.

As I am closing down this chapter, I want to share a few of the insights and topics that my colleagues and I worked on. The notes that will follow are based on our research and over 150 interviews with citizens, community leaders, social workers, experts, civil servants and employers. Here are some of the topics I will cover:

• Our Mental map heavily influence opportunities we might take and places we might go to.
• Urban Farming could be a starting point for a solarpunk future, despite the commercial challenges.
• Developing soft skills is seen as the key to unlocking opportunities for people who are stuck in low-skill and low-pay jobs. But this view/attitude firstly implies, incorrectly, that those in low-paying jobs have low soft skills. Secondly assumes workers have full control of their destiny. And finally dismisses that the primary challenge, at least in the UK, is underemployment or the lack of quality jobs.
• For those young people who have been let down by the schooling system, low resilience and self-efficacy is seen as major barriers. This is a partial truth, not the whole truth.
• Many industries are desperately looking to hire young people but until they transform themselves, and rebuild the broken social contract, they will not be able to do so.
• Vocational training is seen as the silver bullet by the government (the UK), but there is still a long way to go.
• Side hustles can become more than a way to make some pocket money and be a way to truly unlock opportunities.